A Confederate Chronicle: The Life of a Civil War Survivor (Shades of Blue and Gray)

A Confederate Chronicle Shades of Blue and Gray Series Edited by Herman Hattaway and Jon L. Wakelyn The Shades of Blu...

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A Confederate Chronicle

Shades of Blue and Gray Series Edited by Herman Hattaway and Jon L. Wakelyn The Shades of Blue and Gray Series offers Civil War studies for the modern reader—Civil War buff and scholar alike. Military history today addresses the relationship between society and warfare. Thus biographies and thematic studies that deal with civilians, soldiers, and political leaders are increasingly important to a larger public. This series includes books that will appeal to Civil War Roundtable groups, individuals, libraries, and academics with a special interest in this era of American history.

A Confederate Chronicle T h e L i f e o f a C i v i l Wa r S u r v i v o r

Pamela Chase Hain

University of Missouri Press

Columbia and London

Copyright © 2005 by The Curators of the University of Missouri University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201 Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved 5 4 3 2 1 09 08 07 06 05 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hain, Pamela Chase, 1936A Confederate chronicle : the life of a Civil War survivor / Pamela Chase Hain. p. cm. — (Shades of blue and gray series) Summary: “Focuses on the struggles of Civil War veteran Thomas L. Wragg, Confederate officer, prisoner of war, and successful doctor. Documents General Joseph E. Johnston’s army at Harpers Ferry and the Battle of Bull Run, Wragg’s training on the CSS Georgia, his imprisonment, his courtship, and the effects of posttraumatic stress”—Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8262-1599-4 (alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8262-1599-8 (alk. paper) 1. Wragg, Thomas L. 2. Confederate States of America. Army. Georgia Infantry Regiment, 8th. 3. Soldiers—Georgia—Biography. 4. Georgia (Ironclad) 5. Sailors— Confederate States of America—Biography. 6. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Campaigns. 7. Prisoners of war—Massachusetts—Boston—Biography. 8. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Prisoners and prisons. 9. Veterans—Georgia—Biography. 10. Physicians—Florida—Quincy—Biography. I. Title. II. Series. E559.58th .H35 2005 973.7’458—dc22 2005015896 TM This paper meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984. Designer: Jennifer Cropp Typesetter: Crane Composition, Inc. Printer and binder: The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group Typefaces: Minion and Berkeley For permissions, see page 275.

To Peter

Contents

List of Illustrations...................................................................................ix Preface....................................................................................................xiii Acknowledgments...................................................................................xv Introduction. A Time of Prosperity and Peace: 1843–1861.......................1

P a r t I : Eyewitness to Civil War 1. The OLI, Company B, and the Eighth Georgia Infantry from Savannah to Bull Run: 1861................................................. ....15 2. All Quiet on the Eastern Front: Summer of 1861–Spring of 1862.....40 3. Naval Notebook, on Board the CSS Georgia, Savannah Squadron: 1863.................................................................60 4. The Capture of the CSS Atlanta, Wassaw Sound, Savannah: June 17, 1863...................................................................88 5. Fort Warren Prison, Boston Harbor: June 1863–October 1864........106 6. James River Squadron to Semmes’s Brigade: 1864–65......................123

P a r t I I : Civil War Veteran Reconstructs a Life: 1865–89 7. Confederate Veteran Returns to Reconstruction Georgia: 1865....... .133

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Contents

8. Courtship by Correspondence: 1866–68........................................143 9. Railroad Agent, Bookkeeper, Farmer, Store Owner, Conductor, Doctor: 1868–78........................................................184 10. “Coonbottom” to Quincy: 1878–89..............................................192 11. Power, Kinship, and Murder: 1889–91.........................................208 Epilogue. Running from Scandal.........................................................223 Appendix. Thomas L. Wragg Poetry..................................... ...............227 Notes...................................................................................................235 Bibliography........................................................................................253 Index...................................................................................................263

Illustrations

1. Master Thomas L. Wragg, March 8, 1864, Fort Warren Prison, Boston Harbor xx 2. Doctor John Ashby Wragg and “Ashby,” watercolor by Thomas Wragg 6 3. Caroline McDowall and Thomas Wragg

7

4. Miniature of Andrew McDowall by artist “Dessy” 8 5. Former Wragg residence at 401 Broughton Street, Savannah, Georgia 10 6. First two stanzas of poem “I Am Going Manie, Going” written by Thomas Wragg in 1864 13 7. “Gather around your country’s flag” 14 8. Master T. L. Wragg, Spring of 1863, Savannah River Squadron 9. Engraving of ironclad, CSS Georgia

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10. Page from Thomas Wragg’s CSS Georgia naval notebook, Part I, Section I 61 11. Chart of gun crew of twenty-four men and powder man: distribution and number of arms 66 12. Chart of gun crew of eight men and powder man: distribution and number of arms 67 13. Sketch of Splingard fuse and “McAvoy friction fuze” 69 14. Diagram of a naval truck carriage

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List of Illustrations

15. Sketch of a boat howitzer, U.S.N. 70 16. Sketch of a shell gun and identification of its parts 17. Sketch of a Marsilly carriage for a IX-in shell gun

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18. Watercolor by Thomas L. Wragg of Rodman 15 inch Gun—55 tons 72 19. Watercolor by Thomas L. Wragg of “Great English Six 100 Pounder Armstrong Gun” 74 20. Model of CSS Atlanta, Savannah, Georgia

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21. Fort Warren Prison, Georges Island, Boston Harbor

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22. Confederate prisoners at Fort Warren: Thomas Wragg standing on far left; Commander Webb seated on far right, facing left 111 23. Master Wragg in prison uniform, April 15, 1864, Fort Warren, B. H. 114 24. Thomas Wragg, Fort Warren, B. H., April 22, 1864 25. Silhouette of Josie Cooper

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26. Colonel Robert West Alston 27. Annie Cooper Sheftall

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28. Dr. Thomas Lowndes Wragg 29. Samuel Alston Wragg

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30. Thomas L. Wragg, Jr. 195 31. Pamela McDowall Wragg

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32. Dr. Thomas L. Wragg residence, Quincy, Florida, in 1889 and 2001 198 33. Joseph Lewis Cooper (“Josie”), widow, St. Louis, Missouri 210 34. Hon. Edward C. Love 213 35. Senator Elisha Paul Dismukes

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36. Graves of Thomas and Josie Wragg, Quincy Eastern Cemetery, Quincy, Florida 226

Illustrations

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Maps Map 1. Nineteenth-century Savannah, Georgia, with former Wragg residence in upper right 9 Map 2. Shenandoah Valley

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Map 3. Camp Defiance, Harpers Ferry, June 1861

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Map 4. Territory between the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Manassas Gap Railroad, Maryland and Virginia 26 Map 5. Map of Bull Run battleground drawn by Thomas Wragg, June 21, 1861 37 Map 6. Section from NOAA map of Savannah River and Wassaw Sound. Location of the Union ships and the CSS Atlanta in Wassaw Sound on the morning of June 17, 1863 101 Map 7. The Peninsula between York and James River, Virginia. Battery Semmes: North of Trent Reach between bend in James River. Cox’s Landing: West of Varina on the James River 124

P re f a c e

A Confederate Chronicle documents the Civil War and its aftermath through the eyes of a man who served in both the Confederate Army and Navy and spent sixteen months as a prisoner of war. In Part I, Thomas L. Wragg, through letters written to his family in 1861 and early 1862, provides an eyewitness account of the 8th Georgia from Harpers Ferry and the battle at Bull Run (the First Manassas) to the uncertain months that followed, and of his stay at a Richmond hospital in March 1862. After he joined the Confederate Navy, Wragg kept a naval notebook and saved newspaper articles in a scrapbook. Together, these documents provide evidence of the training of officers assigned to the CSS Georgia with the Savannah Squadron and a description of the CSS Atlanta’s capture. Wragg’s letters from Fort Warren Prison give a glimpse into the psychological toll that imprisonment took on the officers incarcerated there. Part II chronicles the struggle of a Civil War veteran for emotional and financial survival in the impoverished South. It is evident from his letters and from the essay “Laurel Grove” that, at a minimum, Wragg suffered from depression as early as 1862, and it is clearly indicated in Part II, Chapter 2, where he repeatedly voices a “death wish.” His writing and actions suggest that he may have suffered from a form of “posttraumatic stress disorder.” In presenting this material, I have assumed that readers will have varying levels of expertise in Civil War history. Some will be Civil War scholars, while others will be interested in the war or in history but know little of the battles and generals involved. For the latter, I have provided brief biographical sketches of the generals mentioned in the notes.

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Preface

Ten of the letters that Thomas Wragg wrote to his family during the Civil War and sent by his son to the Library of Congress have been available to researchers of the war for more than fifty years. Since he was an “unknown,” Wragg has often been quoted by other authors without attribution (none of these letters were ever reproduced in full, to my knowledge). A Confederate Chronicle includes twenty-two additional heretofore unpublished Civil War letters from Thomas Wragg to his family. It also provides many more post–Civil War letters from Wragg, his family, and others, which offer a window into the emotional and financial struggles of a Civil War veteran in postwar Georgia. Much of the material in this book has never before been published, is scarce, or is out of print. The letters have been reproduced with the same punctuation (or lack thereof) and spelling as the originals. The Civil War period letters have been included in their entirety without corrections or omissions. A number of the post–Civil War letters have been omitted, and those included have, in some cases, had portions deleted as the material does not add significantly to the whole. In addition, Wragg’s habit of omitting spaces between words—such as “Ihave,” “Ihad,” “ofit,” etc.—has not been corrected. Pamela Chase Hain Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to my great aunt, Pamela McDowall Wragg, daughter of Dr. Thomas L. Wragg, for providing me with information about her father. I visited her in her apartment in the “Louise Home,” a residence for Episcopal ladies, in Washington, D.C., when I was seven years old. As I was her namesake, she gave to me her personal Bible, genealogical information on the Wraggs, and a miniature portrait of Thomas Wragg’s grandfather, Andrew McDowall, by the artist “Dessy.” Since I was a child at the time, I was allowed to keep only the Bible. I am indebted to my grandfather, Samuel Alston Wragg, son of Dr. Wragg, for his efforts to write his “autobiography” and provide at least a modicum of information on his father. The Wragg letters and papers, which my Aunt Louise Graves, Samuel Wragg’s daughter, kept at her home in Charleston, was eventually given to me, partly in 1969–70 when I lived in Charleston while my husband was in Vietnam, and finally when Louise Graves moved into a nursing home in 1991. My interest in Dr. Thomas L. Wragg crystallized in the early 1990s when Charles and Dorothy Hatcher came from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to South Carolina to visit Dorothy’s mother, Dorothy Wragg McLaurin, daughter of Thomas Wragg, Jr. Over the course of many months, Charles Hatcher and I exchanged information on Dr. Wragg. Charles Hatcher’s interest in Thomas Wragg inspired me to write a brief biography of him, which I shared with the Hatchers and my brothers, providing the seed for further research. I owe a great deal to my mother, Judith Wragg Chase, and father, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Chase, for instilling in me a fascination for history. Over the course of my lifetime, my mother sent me genealogical information on the Wragg and Alston families. In the three years before

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Acknowledgments

her death in 1995, when I was researching Wragg’s history, she and her sister, Jeanette Wragg, filled in with the oral history that added so much to the story of Wragg’s life. Joseph T. Holleman, bibliographer at the South Carolina Historical Society, was most helpful and provided a sympathetic and interested audience in the early days of my research. Peter Wilkerson of the historical society shared his expertise, as well. Jeff Bower of the Harpers Ferry National Battlefield pointed out the existence of a National Geographic article on Harpers Ferry that had information on the so-called “John Brown’s cave,” which Thomas Wragg explored in 1861. Richard Hatcher III, historian at the Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Monuments of the National Park Service, referred me to several Civil War historians. One of these, Dr. John Coski, historian at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, pointed out the rarity of naval notebooks such as Wragg’s and suggested I consider including it. Cris Caulkins of the Petersburg National Battlefield provided the name of a professional Civil War genealogist, Marie Melchiori, who searched the National Archives for information on Wragg’s Civil War service record. I appreciate the numerous research librarians who have assisted me. Lawrence Clemens, librarian at the Nimitz Library, U.S. Naval Academy, provided information regarding the James Harmon Ward naval ordnance book in the library’s Special Collections. Librarians at the Charleston County Main Library deserve thanks for their helpfulness in obtaining microfilm and books through their interlibrary loan department. Jewell A. Dalrymple, reference coordinator of the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah, researched the society’s files and indices for information. At the Savannah CEL Regional Library, Honey Ryan, reference librarian, was extremely professional, eager to help, and a pleasure to have met. She went over, above, and beyond any of my requests for information. In Florida, many assisted my research. The librarians at the University of Florida, Gainesville, were extremely helpful, especially in providing Florida newspapers from the 1880s. Mrs. Helen Woodward, president of the Gadsden County Historical Society in Quincy, Florida, very kindly met with me in her home and provided excellent information and suggestions. Catherine Blackman at the Gadsden County Main Library in Quincy pointed me to several books on Quincy history, which were very helpful. I am especially thankful to all of the librarians at the Florida State Archives and the “Florida Room” in Tallahassee for their professionalism. The

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patient assistance and information they provided were an important contribution. I would like to give special thanks to Dave Larson for not only his sympathetic interest, but also for setting up a Thomas Wragg page on his superb Web site for the Eighth Georgia Infantry Regiment. I am also very grateful to Terry Foenander in Australia for the leads he provided. I want to thank G. Dirk Hardison, Architectural Design Consultant for the Historic Savannah Foundation, whom I fortuitously met on the street in front of the former Wragg residence at 401 Broughton Street in Savannah. He provided a brief history of the residence and gave me the name of one of the current owners, Hilton Swing, of “Savannah Walks, Inc.” Mr. Swing then graciously gave me a private tour of the house, the interior of which he and his family plan eventually to restore. In my own family, my patient husband, Peter, provided unfailing encouragement, advice, excellent editing, and a “sounding board.” The suggestions from my son, Michael, were heeded and incorporated.

A Confederate Chronicle

To view the complete page image, please refer to the printed version of this work.

1. Master Thomas L. Wragg, March 8, 1864, Fort Warren Prison, Boston Harbor

I n t ro d u c t i o n

A Time of Prosperity and Peace 1843–61

It was a way of life and culture rigidly structured around the closeknit rice and plantation society . . . which was a way of life, and an economy, based upon slavery. Buddy Sullivan, Early Days on the Georgia Tidewater

Thomas Lowndes Wragg was born on January 5, 1843, in Savannah, Georgia, during a time of peace in America. It was a time between wars, a time of prosperity when hopes were realized. It was a time in the South when the only battles to be fought were against the elements and disease. Thomas Wragg’s Charleston, South Carolina, ancestors played important roles in paving the way to this prosperity. Joseph Wragg (d. 1751, married to Judith DuBose), Thomas Wragg’s direct ancestor, immigrated to South Carolina with his brother, Samuel (married to Judith’s sister, Marie DuBose), sometime in the early eighteenth century. They were the sons of a Mr. John Wragg of Chesterfield in Derbyshire, England. They had both “means and position” when they arrived and managed to become very wealthy and influential men in the Charles Town colony.1 Joseph Wragg, a member of His Majesty’s Council in 1

2 A Confederate Chronicle

“Charles Town,” owned dozens of plantations around the settlement, including much of the land above the present-day Calhoun Street and the section of town called “Wraggborough” (where the streets are named after his six daughters and son, John). With a fleet of ships, he was also engaged in the slave trade and the importation of immigrants to the new world: Those who began to plant rice in the 1730’s had the best chance for quick and great profits. The independent traders, like Samuel and Joseph Wragg, had broken through the monopoly of the Royal African Company and were able, by that decade, to bring many cargoes of Negro slaves to Carolina, the first large influx. Colonial land policies crystallized at the same time, permitting the formation of plantations suitable for rice culture.2

Thomas Wragg’s ancestors include four generations of plantation owners. Many of his ancestors and family by marriage played important roles in local government and the American Revolution. Joseph Wragg’s daughters, Elizabeth and Mary, were married respectively to the Honorable Peter Manigault, speaker of the Common’s House of Assembly, and the Honorable Benjamin Smith, Associate Justice of Common Pleas for South Carolina (1766), as well as speaker of the Common’s (1755). Christopher Gadsden, who married Joseph’s daughter Ann Wragg in 1776, was an ardent revolutionary and a delegate to the first and second Continental Congress (1774–76). He was promoted to brigadier general in the Continental Army in 1776. He and other Charleston patriots were imprisoned by the British in St. Augustine. Elizabeth Wragg Manigault’s daughter Henrietta married Nathaniel Heyward—half brother of Thomas Heyward, a signer of the Declaration of Independence (their father, Daniel, was a Loyalist). And Thomas Lowndes, married to Sarah, sister of Thomas Wragg’s grandmother, Mary Ashby I’On Wragg, was a member of Congress from 1800–1808. Joseph’s son, Samuel (b. 1721, married to Judith Rothmahler), Thomas Wragg’s direct ancestor, was the owner of Docton and Wedgefield plantations and a patriot during the American Revolution. In Charleston, South Carolina, Thomas Wragg’s great-great uncle Samuel Wragg is most renowned, not so much for what he did, but for what was done to him by Blackbeard the pirate. Thirty-eight pirates were in Charles Town in the early 1700s, almost exclusively British—

Introduction

3

i.e., from England, Scotland, and the West Indies—who “unwarily and without due consideration . . . engaged in that ill course of life.” One of these pirates, Edward Thatch (or Teach), known as “Blackbeard,” who had “spread terror along the entire North American coast,” in 1718 made his way to Charles Town by way of the Bay of Honduras, picked up the pirate Stede Bonnet, and took “numerous prizes by the way. From the captured vessels he recruited his force so that by the time he reached the South Carolina coast he was in command of a fleet consisting of a ship of more than forty guns, and three attendant sloops, on board of which were above 400 men.”3 With this show of strength, Thatch was able to capture, in Charles Town harbor, eight or nine outward-bound vessels “with some of the best inhabitants of Charles Town,” including Samuel Wragg and his four-year-old son, William (who as an adult was banished from the Colonies for his Loyalist convictions and has a memorial in his honor in Westminster Abbey). Thatch demanded medicines and sent a party to present his demands to Governor Johnson. If not met, the “heads of Mr. Wragg and the other Charles Town prisoners would be sent to him.” The governor acceded to the demands and a “large quantity of rich spoil having been secured from the captured vessels, Thatch sent Wragg and the rest of the prisoners ashore in a half-naked condition.” They made their way back to town glad to have escaped with their lives. “Thatch is said to have secured $6000 in specie from Wragg alone,” notes historian Edward McCrady. By the end of 1719, Thatch was killed and his crew captured by Governor Spotswood of Virginia; Bonnet was captured by Colonel William Rhett and executed.4 Thomas Wragg’s father and mother, Dr. John Ashby Wragg (1805– 70) and Caroline McDowall (1816–58), were both born and raised in Charleston. Dr. Wragg (“Papa”) was the son of Mary Ashby I’On (b. 1782; referred to as “Grandmama W” in Thomas Wragg’s letters during the Civil War) and Major Samuel Wragg (b. 1770), a 1787 Harvard graduate and wealthy plantation owner. Major Samuel Wragg and Mary Ashby I’On had eight children. In addition to Dr. John Ashby Wragg and Dr.William Wragg (1807–86; letter from in Chapter 1), there were Thomas Lowndes Wragg (the CSS Nashville was named after him), West Point graduate Samuel (1803–28), Mary I’On, Sarah Lowndes, Henrietta, and Ann Ferguson Wragg. Major Wragg was the owner of Wedgefield Plantation, a rice plantation


in Georgetown County north of Charleston. Wedgefield was part of four different tracts of land, which were combined and then divided to form Windsor and Wedgefield. The name “Windsor” means “winding shore,” as it is located on the “twisting, curling” Black River as it runs its course toward Winyah Bay. In 1760, Thomas Wragg’s great-grandfather, Samuel Wragg (married to Judith Rothmahler), acquired 472 acres, which formed Wedgefield, and in 1787 he left it in his will to Thomas Wragg’s grandfather and uncle, Samuel and Joseph. Thomas Wragg’s grandfather acquired his brother’s interests but sold the plantation two years before his death in 1844.5 Dr. John Ashby Wragg, as the son of a wealthy plantation owner with residences at both Wedgefield and a city home in Charleston, obtained one of the finest medical educations of his day. He received a B.A. from the South Carolina College and his Doctor of Medicine from the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania (1828).6 As Ronald L. Numbers and Todd L. Savitt note: From the start of the century through the end of the antebellum period, Philadelphia was the most influential center for the formal training of southern physicians. Many southern medical students attended lectures in Philadelphia before, and even after, the emergence of southern medical schools. Moreover, when medical schools were established in the South, their faculties were substantially Philadelphia trained; when the region’s first medical school opened in Charleston in 1823, nearly all its faculty members had received their formal medical education in Philadelphia.7

The year he finished his schooling in Philadelphia, Dr. Wragg visited France, where he attended the Sorbonne (1828–29). When he returned to America he temporarily abandoned the practice of medicine and became a rice planter like his father, purchasing a fine estate near Darien, Georgia, on the coast between Savannah and Brunswick. The precise location of the estate cannot be determined today since the town of Darien, including the courthouse with all its records, was burned to the ground by Union troops in 1862. The 1840 census placed Dr. J. A. Wragg in the 271st militia district of McIntosh County. This district included the Darien, Ridge, Sapelo Main (Baisden’s Bluff), and Belleview areas.8 In 1829, when Dr. J. A. Wragg began life as a Tidewater

Introduction

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planter in Darien, his father not only helped financially, but also knew that Darien was a rapidly expanding and lucrative agricultural community, with markets in sea island cotton and, particularly, rice. From the late 1700s to the early 1860s, rice growing was the foundation of the Coastal Georgia economy. The Altamaha River, fed by the Ocumulgee, Oconee, and Ohoopee rivers, was the longest river in the southeast, flowing 137 miles from central Georgia to the coast near Darien. Upstream from the coast for 25 miles, planters grew rice in the salt marshes, where the incoming tides flooded the rice fields. However, the climate, which was favorable for the growing of rice, was also favorable for malaria and yellow fever. “Coastal residents along the Atlantic seaboard thought yellow fever was caused by miasma, a noxious effluvium which supposedly emanated from putrescent matter in the swamps and salt marshes, and thought to float in the air, especially in the night mists,” writes historian Buddy Sullivan.9 As a result, affluent planters left the coastal region during the summer and early fall to live at second homes in the cities or in the interior. In 1838 Dr. J. A. Wragg married Caroline McDowall (1816–58), daughter of Andrew McDowall (born in Scotland, 1790–1866) and Pamela Cleary (1797–1875). McDowall was a Charleston rice merchant, plantation owner, and, for twelve years, president of the St. Andrew’s Society. The McDowalls’ city residence was 12 Meeting Street. Caroline McDowall and John Wragg had seven children, all of whom were born at their city residence in Savannah, 38 West Broad Street. The Wragg family traveled back and forth by the steamers, such as the J.Stone and William Seabrook, from their home in Savannah and their plantation in Darien, escaping the sultry, unhealthy summers and mosquitoes. For plantation owners on the coast of Georgia and South Carolina, life prior to the Civil War—apart from the mosquitoes—was idyllic. They lived the lives of country gentlemen, lives of comfort and hospitality. Their country houses were surrounded by large grounds, oak groves, and beautiful avenues. Adjacent to the homes were many acres of rice fields, with hundreds of slaves on each plantation. The slaves did all the physical labor, made large crops, cared for the animals, prepared the food, and ministered to the master’s wishes. The planters were mostly of the same social class; they kept up with each other and shared



2. Doctor John Ashby Wragg and “Ashby,” watercolor by Thomas Wragg

their hospitality. In South Carolina and in Georgia, they belonged to clubs where they gathered for social enjoyment and hunting. In Darien, the “Quovit” club met every Saturday afternoon. Each “member alphabetically in turn provided refreshments and the table was spread with the choicest wines and liquors.”10 In South Carolina they hunted deer, fox, and game birds, including partridges. They kept their dogs on the premises with a man to care for them and act as driver when master or guests went into the woods for a day’s sport.11 By the mid-1840s, the economic structure of Darien was deteriorating, partly because the newly constructed Central Railroad bypassed Darien and took elsewhere much of the produce that formerly had come to the area. Also, by 1850, the Wragg children had reached school

Introduction

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3. Caroline McDowall and Thomas Wragg

age, and Dr. Wragg felt the need to limit his traveling and become a fulltime physician. He picked a good time to do so, for in the mid 1800s, Savannah, with its outdoor privies, nonexistent sewage system, and exposed garbage and fecal matter, was considered one of the unhealthiest cities in America.12 Dr. Wragg sold his plantation, joined the Savannah Medical Society, and moved his family to 47 (now 401) Broughton Street (see illustration 5) on the southeast corner of Broughton and Habersham streets.13 Once the Wraggs had settled into Savannah life, Dr. Wragg’s practice occasionally took him across the Savannah River, where some of his patients were the residents of plantations in South Carolina. He was very active in the life of the city. In 1860 he served as one of the judges of the spring regatta and was warden of St. John’s Church. Early in 1861 he was vice-chairman of the Board of Health and a member of the committee to nominate a mayor and an alderman. In December 1861 Mrs. Alex Campbell, secretary of the Ladies Society of St. John’s Church in charge of a newly created hospital (in Mr. Hiram



4. Miniature of Andrew McDowall by artist “Dessy”

Robert’s house at the corner of Liberty and Montgomery Streets), asked him to be “medical attendant.”14 The house at 401 Broughton was built in 1820. When the Wraggs moved there in the early 1850s, they added wrap-around porches and a carriage house. On the top floor, they had only two bedrooms, one for the parents, and one for the children, with no indoor plumbing.15 The house was located in the center of the port city only a few streets from the Savannah River. As Thomas Wragg grew up, he could see from the upstairs windows masts of sailing ships and schooners bringing and taking their wares in the harbor (Map 1). In 1858, tragedy struck the family. Thomas Wragg’s mother was killed when her skirt caught fire from a grate at their residence. Pamela and Andrew McDowall built in her honor an elegant stone chapel-vault in Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston. A year later, Thomas Wragg’s sister Mary married Joseph Bryan Bond (1832–1908) at St. John’s Church, Savannah. J. B. Bond was the son of Samuel Miller Bond and Emily Screven, owners of Ceylon Plantation in Darien. Mary’s twin brother,

Introduction


Map 1. Nineteenth Century Savannah, Georgia, with former Wragg residence in upper right

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5. Former Wragg residence at 401 Broughton Street, Savannah, Georgia

Introduction

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Andrew McDowall Wragg (“Mac” or “Mc”), moved to Charleston, where he worked for his grandfather at McDowall and Company. Finally, in 1860, their sister Pamela (“Penie”) married George W. Lamar, Jr., and settled in Savannah. When the Civil War began in 1861, Thomas Wragg had only just finished his studies at the Chatham Academy in downtown Savannah. In 1848, about the time he began his schooling, Chatham had seventy-five pupils and five teachers who taught Latin, Greek, French, Math, and other “ordinary branches of education.” Probably the majority of the young boys living in Savannah who later joined the Confederate army attended this school. Although many who joined were, like Thomas Wragg, from well-to-do families in professional fields, there were also merchants, carpenters, and farmers. The Branch brothers’ mother supported herself by dressmaking and millinery, while Joseph Lippman was in “dry goods.” The Purse family was in the business of “book binder, sellers and stationers.” Thomas Wragg frequently mentioned the “despondency of my nature” and spoke sadly in a poem about his “blighted hopes.” Born into a family of four generations of plantation owners, brought up in relative privilege, he would have looked forward to a financially comfortable future—a college education, perhaps medical studies abroad like his father, an elegant town house in Savannah with summers on the island. All this was destroyed by the Civil War. What could have been a “fountain” of plenty, “yielded but tears.” And yet, Wragg managed to overcome the dismal war years and eventually achieved the success he sought, only to have his life tragically ended by a young man who falsely believed he was defending his family’s honor. Wragg’s life reflects the lives of a whole class of people in an era of violent social and political upheaval. This was an era of huge division between the haves and the have-nots, and, as a result of the war, a leveling of society. Wragg and his wife struggled with the financial consequences of the war and the new postwar social reality. This was also an era in America where violence was prevalent, tolerated, and used as a means to settle disputes. The accepted norm was the concept of defending one’s honor, or reputation, at all costs, even if it resulted in war or murder.


Like leaves that are withered in Autumn’s chill blast, Are the fond hopes long Cherished, but blighted at last. They leave the heart desolate, Sadden’d and lone, And the wild winds so sadly To whistle its moan. The dreams of the future, so Pleasant and bright, Like the sun in a cloud Have passed out of sight. The sweet song of gladness That greeted us here Has been hushed, and the Fountain yields us but tears. (“Blighted Hopes,” by Thomas L. Wragg)

Part I

Eyewitness to Civil War


7. “Gather around your country’s flag”


6. First two stanzas of poem “I Am Going Manie, Going” written by Thomas Wragg in 1864

1

The OLI, Company B, and the Eighth Georgia Infantry from Savannah to Bull Run 1861

Nature seemed in repose. The quiet sun shone down upon the scene in all its brightest rays. Not a leaf nor blade of grass warned us by a nod or sigh of the storm soon to rage, a storm where widowed mothers would weep to think their offspring thus rudely dashed to and fro by heartless brutes with streaming hair and burning brow—soon to sleep their last sleep in peace. Thomas L. Wragg, naval notebook

In the spring of 1861, Thomas Wragg was living on Broughton Street in Savannah with his widowed father, Dr. John Ashby Wragg, two of his sisters—Jesse, age sixteen, and Caro, age thirteen—and his brother Ashby, age eleven. Among the Wraggs’ neighbors on Broughton were the Branch brothers and their widowed mother, at number 212.1 In May 1861 Thomas Wragg joined Company A of the Oglethorpe Light Infantry (OLI), which later became Company B of the Eighth Georgia Volunteers. John Branch would become the company’s adjutant.

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Graduates of the Georgia Military Institute established the OLI in Savannah in 1855. John Branch graduated from the institute and became one of its first recruits. His younger brother, Sanford, also joined. The youngest, Hamilton Branch, was twelve years old—Thomas Wragg’s age—and not old enough to join. The unit was intended to be a militia unit for the protection of Savannah. It began with about fifty recruits, primarily from members of the Independent Presbyterian Church, and it soon became an elite group accepted into the highest levels of Savannah society.2 Unlike most of the recruits, like the Branch brothers, who enjoyed the pomp and glitter of the OLI and relished military life, Thomas Wragg had no aspirations to join the military or to lead. He knew early on that he would eventually become a doctor like his father, but, since his grandfather had attended Harvard, and his father the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, he expected to be sent to a prominent medical university. The outbreak of war produced a major impediment to his plans. Thomas Wragg volunteered to join the OLI out of a sense of duty to his elders rather than to defend slavery. Both the Charleston and the Savannah Wraggs had abandoned farming and plantation life, and freeing of the slaves would have little direct financial impact on them. The majority of the white population in Savannah was swayed by the inflammatory rhetoric that reached its crescendo in the spring of 1861. For Wragg, it was nearly impossible to resist the clamor for disunion and call to arms in 1860–61. Pressure to join the fight came from all quarters: the church, the influential elders of Wragg’s school and town, the women, and even the vigilante groups threatening those with union sympathies. In 1860 the Trustees of Wragg’s school, the Chatham Academy, were the Rt. Rev. Stephen Elliot, DD, Episcopal Bishop of Georgia; William Law; Capt. J. W. Anderson (whose son later married Dr. John Ashby Wragg’s daughter, Jesse); Capt. Francis S. Bartow (of the Oglethorpe Light Infantry and later commander of the Eighth Georgia); and Dr. C. W. West (possibly related to Capt. Joseph J. West, also a doctor, of the Eighth Georgia). Elliot, Anderson, and Bartow were staunch secessionists. Law was opposed to secession and the voice for restraint and until November 1860, when Lincoln’s election pushed him over the edge in favor of disunion. At a public meeting held at the Masonic Hall in Savannah on November 8, 1861, three thousand

The OLI, Company B, and the Eighth Georgia Infantry

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Savannahians turned out to inform the representatives in the legislature of the views of the people. “Brass bands were playing, rockets soaring, bonfires blazing; in fact the old town seemed to have gone crazy,” recalled one resident.3 While nearly all the religious leaders in Savannah favored secession, Bishop Stephen Elliott was one of the most vocal and eloquent in promoting the idea that God was on the side of the South.4 (Wragg pasted a picture of Bishop Elliott on the front cover of his treasured scrapbook.) Notes Alexander A. Lawrence: Singularly handsome, impressive in physique and possessed of magnificent presence as a speaker, this Episcopal prelate rendered yeoman service to the Confederacy in the pulpit. No one was more deft in associating God and the cause of the South. “The conflict in which you are about to mingle is one waged upon the holiest grounds of self-preservation and self-defence,” Elliott declared in June, 1861. “We are fighting to prevent ourselves from being transferred from American republicanism to French democracy. . . . We are fighting to protect and preserve a race who form a part of our household, and stand with us next to our children. We are fighting to drive away from our sanctuaries the infidel and rationalistic principles which are sweeping over the land and substituting a gospel of the stars and stripes for the gospel of Jesus Christ.”5

Pressure also came from the Savannah women, whose passionate hatred of the North was even greater perhaps than that of the men, possibly because they listened earnestly to the sermons and took them to heart. Passions in the general population were also at a fever pitch, and “secret vigilant committees, using such names as ‘Rattlesnakes’ and ‘Hyenas’ and composed of town toughs created a ‘reign of terror’ for men of Union sympathies.” Many concluded, as did Savannah resident George A. Mercer in his diary in November 1860, that there was “the sad but settled conviction that the General Government had failed in its objects of equal protection.”6 Chatham Academy trustee Captain Francis Bartow, a University of Georgia and Yale Law School graduate and ardent secessionist, was a talented orator. Born in Savannah, Georgia, on September 6, 1816, Bartow was also a wealthy planter who owned nearly a one hundred slaves. In January 1861, he was a delegate to the Georgia Secessionist


Convention. He was later elected to the Provisional Confederate Congress as well as being captain of the home guard unit, the Oglethorpe Light Infantry. When the war began he resigned from the former and remained commander of the OLI. Bartow played a strong role in fueling the secessionist frenzy in Savannah and in convincing hundreds of young men to follow him into a battle that was more his than theirs. He sought to convince them that it was a matter of honor to fight. As early as September 1860, Bartow defiantly declared: “If the storm is to come, and it seems to me as though it must, be its fury ever so great, I court it now in the day of my vigor and strength. . . . If any man is to peril life, fortune and honor in defense of our rights, I claim to be one of those men!”7 On December 21, 1860, a day after South Carolina seceded from the Union, the General Assembly of Georgia approved an act stating that “the present crisis in our national affairs . . . demands resistance.” On December 26 a demonstration took place in Savannah on Johnson Square: “Many citizens wore secession rosettes and badges.” As one of the symbols of their defiance, Savannahians displayed Thomas Wragg’s great-great uncle Christopher Gadsden’s flag, which he had designed during the American Revolution: a black, coiled rattlesnake on a yellow field with the words “Don’t Tread On Me.” They would transfer their allegiance from the “once Glorious Stars and Stripes,” as Private Wragg referred to our nation’s flag, to the flag of the Confederacy. George Mercer again wrote in his diary that the dispute between North and South was “between faith and infidelity, between constitutional liberty and mobocracy.”8 In January 1861 the Georgia State Convention voted for secession. Fearing the Federals might reinforce Fort Pulaski after secession, Savannahians decided to act first. Three militia detachments were chosen to march on the fort in January 1861, including fifty men each from the OLI under Captain Francis Bartow and the Savannah Volunteer Guards and thirty-four men of the Chatham Artillery. It was a symbolic gesture of defiance of the Federal government and the “first overt act of war.” However, unlike Fort Sumter, in Charleston, South Carolina, Fort Pulaski was unoccupied! When the militia marched in, there was not a serviceable gun in the fort, the moat was filled in with mud and overgrown with marsh grass, and only one caretaker was in charge.9 In March, Georgia ratified the Confederate Constitution.


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The Confederates fired upon Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and the Civil War began. Savannahians rallied in support of their sister state. Writes Robert Paul Jordan, “With the outbreak of hostilities came a sense of relief in the South, a furious indignation in the North. Martial ardor swept the land. Lincoln called for volunteers to serve three years. By the tens of thousands young men signed up. North and South recruiters opened offices in vacant stores and pitched tents in town squares.”10 In May 1861, a month after the Fort Sumter attack, Company A of the Oglethorpe Light Infantry, under the command of Captain Francis Bartow, boarded the train to Northern Virginia. Bartow had not accepted married men, so the entire company consisted of unmarried boys and young men; they were jokingly referred to as “Bartow’s beardless boys.” Bartow’s company of ninety-seven enlisted men and four officers mustered into Confederate service on May 21, 1861: “The average age of enlisted men, 19 years; only one or two over 21 and a number under age 18.”11 Major Alfred H. von Kolnitz, a former director of the Historical Commission in Charleston, reported: Four years of bloody conflict lay ahead, for Anderson’s surrender [at Fort Sumter] was followed by President Lincoln’s call for 75,000 troops. Whereupon Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina refused to raise troops for the Union and seceded. The new capital of the Confederacy was located in Richmond on July 20th, 1861. Twenty-four Northern states, (including Kansas, admitted in 1861, and West Virginia organized in 1861, but not admitted to the Union until 1863,) with a combined population of twenty-two million, were now opposed by eleven Southern states, with a combined population of nine million, of whom nearly four million were slaves. The North owned all the great armories, arsenals and manufacturing plants and three-fourths of the railroads. In addition, there was the stability of a well-established government with practically unlimited resources and a trained army and navy. The South, at the outbreak of hostilities, possessed no army; owned no ships of war and had but one plant capable of producing cannon. Two navy yards, including the destroyed Norfolk Yard, constituted the sole facilities for ship building, without a single Southern factory experienced in the production of ship’s engines.12


Leaving Savannah, the members of the OLI were full of the excitement of embarking on something manly and important. Bartow would warn them that some would die, but at this time, this fact was farthest from their minds.13 Dressed in their smart, new, blue-black uniforms, they were greeted as heroes along the three-day trip from Savannah, through Charleston, to Richmond: The Oglethorpe Light Infantry . . . made a striking appearance as they paraded in their long blue frock coats with fancy gilt embroidery on the collars and cuffs and buff-colored bib fronts secured by two vertical rows of nine big brass buttons each. Heavy gilt-and-fringe epaulets sat on each shoulder. Trousers were blue, trimmed with a broad buff stripe up each outer seam. Crowning the whole uniform, and making the wearer look larger than he really was, perched a shako topped with a plume of white feathers and sporting front-and-center a brass nameplate whereon a large wreath encircled the letters “OLI” in old English script. Buff-colored waist and cross belts and white gloves completed the outfit. The company was indeed a sight to behold.14

These handsome uniforms would not even last until the first battle of Manassas. Thomas Wragg’s OLI, to become Company B of the Eighth Georgia in Richmond, boarded the dirty trains, billowing smoke, in Savannah and traveled for three days to Richmond, where they camped in a field outside of the city. Here they were joined by nine other companies from Georgia to form a regiment under the command of the then “Col.” Francis Bartow, with Lieutenant Colonel William M. Gardner as second in command. After weeks of camping in their uniforms and drilling in the hot sun, they boarded the Virginia Central Railroad to Gordonsville, transferred to the Orange and Alexandria Line to Manassas Junction, and transferred to the Manassas Gap Railroad traveling through the Manassas Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains to Strasburg in the Shenandoah Valley (see Map 2). From here, Thomas Wragg’s Company B and Companies A and C volunteered to walk for eighteen miles to Winchester. From Winchester they boarded a spur of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to Harpers Ferry, Virginia.15 For the next month they would be camping, drilling, and marching along dusty roads and in hot sun. In early July, Thomas Wragg complained to his father that his “clothes are all worn out,” and,


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in another short note, that they had received new uniforms. Wragg’s shaky commitment to the war effort, at least initially, was evident in his first letter home to his brother Mac from Harpers Ferry, near Bolivar Heights: “I wish they would fight and be done with it, so we could live.” As the war wore on, his commitment was never to the war itself, but to the men who fought with him. After joining the Confederate army, young Private Thomas Wragg wrote to his family regularly from Virginia. His twenty-two letters, written when he was a Confederate Army private, cover a period of nine months. In addition to Dr. John Ashby Wragg (“Papa”), Mac (“Mc”) and his three sisters, Private Wragg wrote to or mentioned in his letters George Lamar, his sister Pamela’s husband, and Joe Bond, his sister Mary’s husband. Wragg also referred to his grandmothers living in Charleston—Mary Ashby I’On Wragg, married to Samuel Wragg, and Pamela Cleary McDowall, married to Andrew McDowall, (“Grandmama W.,” and “Grandmama”), who actively supported him during the war. Private Wragg began his army duty with almost no training. He spent most of his daytime hours drilling and wondering what was expected of him, where the troops would go next, when the next battle would occur. Communication from his superiors was scant, and rumor was rampant. In western Virginia, he was assigned to baggage guard, which required around-the-clock vigilance. Later he told his family he was in the quartermaster department and that therefore he was “very busy.” Although he eventually had the opportunity to be promoted to corporal, he had no aspirations for leadership, and turned it down. Early on, his major concern was for his material comforts. He urged his family to send him a trunk full of clothes, only to have to leave it behind. Wragg went to war with an eighteen-year-old’s feeling of invincibility, yet when he was told that his older brother, Mac, might join the war effort (with the South Carolina Fourth Cavalry, Company K)— “although it is his duty”—Wragg was not prepared to have his family put in harm’s way: “I would rather do his duty and mine, if possible.” Private Thomas Wragg could never have anticipated the incredible importance his regiment would play in the first major battle of the American Civil War—the Battle at Bull Run, or the First Manassas— both in terms of its contribution toward the ultimate Confederate


battle victory as well as in lives lost—208 deaths and wounded in the Eighth Georgia out of just under 800 men.16 Although the battle in which Thomas Wragg fought, and to which he was a witness, was a victory for the Confederates, it was due not only to the skills of the Confederate commanders—Generals J. E. Johnston and Pierre Beauregard—but also, in no small measure, to timing and luck. The Confederates were outnumbered and outgunned, but the Union troops failed to be in the right place at the right time, and their initial overconfidence was their greatest weakness. The generals on both sides suffered from lack of trained soldiers and timely communication. From Wragg’s viewpoint, this lack of communication was even more apparent.

Time Line January 19, 1861. The Georgia State Convention votes for secession. March 16. Georgia ratifies the Confederate Constitution. April 12. Confederates fire on Union forces at Fort Sumter. April 13. Lincoln calls for seventy-five thousand militia volunteers. May 13. Major General George B. McClellan, U.S. Army, assumes command of the Department of the Ohio, embracing a portion of West Virginia. May 15. Brigadier General Joseph E. Johnston, C.S. Army, is assigned command of troops near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia—the “Army of the Shenandoah.” May 21. Thomas Wragg, in Savannah, Georgia, joins the OLI under Captain Francis Bartow and departs by train through Charleston, South Carolina, to Richmond, Virginia. May 25. OLI arrives in Richmond around noon and sets up tents in Howard’s Grove outside of Richmond. Over the next week other companies from Georgia join the OLI, forming a regiment of just under eight hundred men. Bartow becomes the new regiment’s colonel, and William M. Gardner becomes second in command, promoted from Major, U.S. Army, to Lieutenant Colonel, Confederate Army.17 May 26. McClellan’s army crosses into western Virginia.



Map 2. Shenandoah Valley

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June 2. Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard, C.S. Army, is placed in command of what would become the “Army of the Potomac.”18 June 3. Eighth Georgia in Richmond receives orders to begin preparations to move. June 4. Tuesday morning at 10:00, the Eighth Georgia receives orders to proceed to Harpers Ferry. June 5. At 1:30 p.m., the Eighth Georgia takes the Virginia Central Railroad as far as Gordonsville, where they transfer to the Orange and Alexandria line to Manassas Junction. June 6. At 3:00 a.m., the Eighth Georgia arrives in Manassas Junction and transfers to the Manassas Gap Railroad over Blue Ridge to the Shenandoah Valley to Strasburg. Five companies ride in wagons and coaches. Companies A, B, and C volunteer to walk the eighteen miles to Winchester, where they camp two nights. June 9. Sunday: The Eighth Georgia travels thirty miles on the spur line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to Harpers Ferry, where they camp at Bolivar Heights for six days (see Maps 3 and 4).19 June 11. Thomas Wragg writes a letter from Camp Defiance, near Bolivar Heights at Harpers Ferry, located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers between Maryland and Virginia. He reports that the enemy, said to be fifty thousand strong (other rumors put the number at twenty-five thousand and thirty thousand20) and led by General Winfield Scott, is within eight miles and advancing. He states that the Confederates have thirty thousand men (actually less than ten thousand at that time).21 Wragg’s brother Andrew McDowall Wragg was working at their grandfather’s business, “McDowall and Company,” in Charleston, South Carolina. Wragg finds a cave located just above the railroad tracks where he is assigned to guard the baggage. The cave is rumored to be a station on John Brown’s underground railroad and the place where Brown stored his rifles prior to making his raid on October 16, 1859.22 Butter and eggs at 12 1⁄ 2 Dear Mc [brother]: As I have a few minutes to spare I will give you an account of the place as far as I am able. The bridge across the Potomac is underminded with a great deal of powder, as soon as the Yankees attempt to cross it will be blown up we have two batteries of cannon on the Maryland heights, and



Map 3. Camp Defiance, Harpers Ferry, June 1861

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Map 4. Territory between the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Manassas Gap Railroad, Maryland and Virginia


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two more on our side of the river, there must be 12 or 15 batteries all together. Our Picket Guard came in three times yesterday and the last report that they brought in was that the enemy was within 8 miles and still advancing, they are reported to be 50,000 strong commanded by Genl Scott him-self. we have about 30,000 men ready for a fight. We heard muskets shooting pretty sharp, about a half hour before breakfast just over the Maryland heights and have since learned that the Kentucky Regiment had a fight with the outposts of the enemy the fireing is kept up all day. we fully expect a fight here tonight. I took a walk in the Cave that old John Brown hid his muskets and amunition it is on the Balt. & Ohio railroad about a 1⁄ 2 mile from my Camp ground we had to take several candles to see our way, there are some large holes in the cave from 50 to 100 feet deep he (Old Brown) had the front of the cave fastened up with rocks. enclosed you will find a piece of rock from inside that I broke from the sides there is a stream of water running through about a hundred yds from the entrance it is as cold as ice. I am getting quite tired of military life, although I don’t think that I would if they gave us enough to eat, I declare that the meat that they give us to eat is not fit to be eaten by a dog, the fatest kind of bacon and spoiled at that they only give us coffee once a day and then it is not fit to drink. We have a very hard time ofit I wish that they would fight and be done with it so we could live. Two men were shot for sleeping on post about two days ago it is no time to sleep now with the enemy at 6 to 8 miles from camp, while at Richmond they only made you perform extra duty but here there is no help for you. We are encamped in the middle of a wheat field it is very hot in the daytime. I have been very well since I left home with the exception of a few headaches.23 We passed over some very beautiful country through Virginia particularly among the Blue Ridge Mountains. The ladies were very kind to us along the road they gave us flowers and visited our camp, but did not give us anything to eat when you write home tell them that I am well and give my love to Grandmama [McDowall]. I must stop as it is near Dress parade with much Love to all I remain Your brother, T. L. Wragg [rock enclosed]

June 13–15. After burning the arsenal, armory, and bridges at Harpers Ferry, General Johnston sends baggage and supplies to Winchester.24 On Thursday the troops receive orders, and at 4:00 A.M. Friday the fourteenth they receive rations for three days’ march. Wragg works all night on the fourteenth, from 10:00 until dawn, loading baggage onto the railroad cars on a spur of the Baltimore and


Ohio Railroad. On June 15, Wragg leaves by train with baggage for Winchester. Johnston marches his army out of Harpers Ferry and camps south of Charles Town (where John Brown was hanged). Instead of continuing on to Winchester, the army moves northwest toward Martinsburg and camps at Bunker Hill. Troops expect a fight at any minute with the enemy, which they thought was at Martinsburg. Johnston decides to refrain from confronting the enemy, since, as he reported in a dispatch to Richmond, “These troops have not a supply [of ammunition] for half an hour’s fighting.” Johnston’s troops then turn south along the Shenandoah Valley to Winchester.25 June 17, Monday. Thomas Wragg, in the town of Winchester with the baggage, writes to his brother Andrew McDowall Wragg, again c/o A. McDowall and Company in Charleston, South Carolina. The rest of the Eighth Georgia are three miles south of town. Dear Mac: I received your letter of the 10th a day or two ago and you don’t know how glad I was when I got it. I will give you an account as well as I can of Harpers Ferry we received orders the day after we arrived here [Winchester] to proceed to the ferry. the orders were read out at dress parade and the next day at 10 we struck our tents and started for the depot, we were shipped in open cars in the hot sun, it took us about 31⁄ 2 hours to get there, it is 37 miles [from Winchester to Harpers Ferry] there is some very pretty places along the road and around the ferry that is the scenery about the Ferry is pretty, but the town is awful it is a regular hog pen there is not a lady in the villag all the decent families have left and the houses occupied by soldiers who crowd the filthy dirty muddy streets, as soon as we arrived we marched to our camp ground about 2 miles from the town at a place called Bolivar it is on the western side and on a pretty high mountain the Potomac runs at the foot of it, before we got to the spot we must have marched at least 4 miles over hills and rock and at last we found the place and pilatree our tents right in the middle of a wheat field, in drilling we have to walk at least 1 mile before we get to the ground and that is 4 times a day besides other duty about the camp, we are kept very strict by our field officers we are not alloud to go out-side of the camp without a written pass signed by Col. Bartow and it not very often that you can get him to sign one. We staid at camp for 5 or 6 days when we got orders to get ready to move back to Winchester we were glad enough when we heard for you could not get a thing of any sort for love or money and they would not allow any one to

The OLI, Company B, and the Eighth Georgia Infantry sell in camp unless they were well known for fear of poisoning the men one man brought eggs and butter every morning it sold at 121⁄ 2 cents per pound and doz. he used to sell 8 or 9 hundred eggs every day. We were allowed to go in swimming in the Potomac every day after drill and we had to wash all of our cloths or go with out as there was no wash woman in the place. We had a picket guard out every night it was stationed about 2 miles from camp at a battery of 24 pounders it was what they call a masked battery, from the front it could not be seen it looked just like ploud-ground it was on a steep hill and covered with trees so that you cannot see it atall.We received orders on Thursday [June 13] to get ready to start. at 4 am on Friday we struck tents and got rations for 3 days march. I was detailed on the baggage guard, we got to the cars after a long and hard ride on a large wagon, we took all of the baggage and put it in the Arsenal yard (where the Federal troops burnt) until we could get it into the cars we had to pitch a tent for those that were not on guard to sleep in we had not got to sleep before they made us get up and put the baggage on board it was about 10 [p.m.] when we commenced and we did not get through until daylight [Saturday June 15]. at 41⁄ 2 the bridge across the Potomac was blown up and burnt and up to the time of our leaving they were setting fire to all of the public property it was a beautiful sight to see the town in flames and an aweful sight to see the number of guns that had been burnt by the Federal Troops lying in every direction over the ground we had to move our cars up the road to get them out of the way of the fire, while we were at work the enemy were not idle we could see them on the Maryland heights cutting a road and burning trees to let the main body pass, there was one man pretty close and we took two or three shots at him he left and we did not see him again. At 12 m we [on baggage guard] started [for Winchester] and arrived 4 pm [Saturday] while at the Ferry I went to the cave that Old John Brown had his muskets hid in at the entrance is a high ledge of rocks I climbed up about half way which is 30 or 40 feet and cut my gal’s and my one name in a smooth piece of rock, there is one place on the mountain that we were encamped that is the prettiest place I ever saw it must be at least five thousand feet from the river which runs below it is a splendid place to write love letters. Just before I left I went there and wrote 10 pages to my gal just on the beauty of the spot, in truth I felt so sentimental that had not the drums for dress parad awoke me as it were from a dream I don’t know how much more I would have written but as thats got nothing to do with our movement I will let it slip. The ferry is evacuate entirely as it was only worth holding until the machenery was gotten off it is now safe in Richmond. You asked me if I had [seen] the Gonaves I don’t know whether I have or not I have seen some from

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30 A Confederate Chronicle Maryland but don’t think that I have seen the N.Orlean’s boys.26 This little place is covered with soldiers the ladies are very kind to us if anyone is sick they take them to their houses and nurse them until they get well there are a great many pretty ones twice as many as in Richmond and it is not one third the size. Our regiment is encamped about 3 miles from here. I am in town with the baggage and would like very much to get off, as it is not very pleasant work to guard it night and day. I told Add Tinsley what you said, he says that he will write as soon as he gets the chance.27 I would like very much to spend the summer on the Island but I expect that Virginia is the place for the summer and perhaps forever. Give my love to Grandmama if she has not left and Grandmama W., Aunt Annie and Nan. Remember me to all the boys and old D... and tell him he owes me 5.00. I must stop as you will get tired of reading such trash. Love to all I remain your afft Brother T.L.Wragg. Direct to care Johnston Younger and Otey, Richmond, Va. I can’t tell when or where we will go the letters will be forwarded to me.

June 20–July 2. Troops at Winchester. On June 26 they move their camp from just south of Winchester to one and one-half miles east, to “Camp Starvation.” Johnston’s army, totaling 10,654, forms four brigades. The second brigade, led by Francis Bartow, consists of the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Georgia, First Kentucky, and battery of Captain E. G. Alburtis.28 Lieutenant Colonel William M. Gardner becomes commander of the Eighth Georgia. July 2. Johnston orders his troops to move north again, this time in support of Thomas J. Jackson at Martinsburg. Patterson confronts Johnston’s force between Williamsport on the Potomac and Winchester, thirty-five miles south in the Shenandoah Valley.29 July 4–7. Wragg’s brigade bivouacs three days near Martinsburg. Wragg and thirty-nine of his company put on picket guard one and one-half miles from the enemy. July 7, Sunday. Private Wragg’s brigade leaves Martinsburg and returns to Winchester. July 7–18. Eighth Georgia is camped at “Camp Starvation,” Winchester. July. Private Wragg writes from Winchester. He expects a fight with U.S. troops under Generals George Cadwaleder and Robert Patterson, “who are now four miles this side of Martinsburg” at Wraggs’s old campground.30


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My dear Papa: I have just received your letter the 22nd June and the check on the Farmers Bank of Virginia and am very much oblige to you for it. We are still stationed at Winchester but can’t tell how long we will remain here troops arrive here daily and we expect to fight with Cadwalader and Paterson who are now four miles this side of Martinsberg at our old campground. I don’t know if we will make the attack or receive it. I think that we will attract [attack] him in Martinsberg, three regiments of the enemy are against fighting and say they will not raise a musket because their time is up and they have been refused to go home I don’t know if it is true, but that is the report. We are continually takeing prisoners from arround Romney and Martinsberg. there must be near 800 now in town and they have been put to throw up embankments. the weather is quite warm and dry. Tell Caro that I have just received her letter and will answer it soon. I received several letters from Penie and one from Sissy. they were both quite well. The reason I write and spell so bad is that I have so little time and have to write in a great hurry and have not time to look over and correct them. I have received several packages but not very lately. You must excuse the short letter, but there is nothing to write about except that we expect to fight soon. Col. Bartow says that he is going to send several of the boys home. I don’t know who they are he says they can’t stand the Campaign. I have just signed a pay roll for two dollars and 42 cents for our rations for coming from home. I must stop as it is near drill time. Love to all, I remain your affectionate son T.L.Wragg. The next money that you send do send it in silver to pay postage as there is very little to be had in town. Ask Jesse to make some fancy flanin shirts and send them on. Direct to care H. M. Brant Pres., Bank of the Valley Winchester, Virginia or to Col. Bartow for Johnson Younger and Otey keep the letters for weeks before he sends them on. Love to all—your son Thomas. Write soon.

July 9.**31 Wragg writes from “Camp Starvation,” near Winchester. Wragg expects a fight any day, and he expects Cadwalader to arrive with 10,000 men; Patterson with the same amount. Abner Doubleday, the Union Fort Sumter “hero,” is in Martinsburg.32 Tell Caro [sister] I am waiting for an answer. I wrote to her before I did to you. We lost one of our members the other day by the name of [B. J.] Strickland he used to stay in Couper and Gillilands near the market. My dear Papa I received you kind letter this morning and will write at once and tell

32 A Confederate Chronicle you how we all are. You said in your letter that you had sent me a check for ten dollars. I have not received a cent, since you sent that from grandmama [McDowall], the only reason I ask for it is that we get so little to eat and unless we have a little money now and then we cant get along. we only get a small allowance of molasses to sweeten our coffee which we get once a day some times not at all and if we have a little change we can get some brown sugar. My under clothes are all worn out, draws & stockings some times on the march when we stop all the boys that have money can buy milk and something to eat, but those who have none have to go without on the march we have rations it is true but such as it is a piece of salt meat, and some flour and water mixed into a bread that is all.33 the three days that we were near Martinsberg we had nothing to eat but a piece of meat & bread in the morning at 4 o’clock and nothing again until the next day. Many a night have I spred my blanket on the ground and laid my weary head on the cold damp earth without a mouthful to eat. While we were bivouacking near Martinsberg, we had to pay ten cents for a single biscuit. We have returned from Martinsburg and expect an attack here every minute. Our advance guard had a fight and captured 75 who are now at work throwing up embankments and planted cannon. the mean scoundrels say that they would just as leave fight for us as the Yankees if we will pay them. Genl Cadwaladr is marching on this place with 10,000 men, Patterson with the same amount and Dubleday the Sumpter hero is I believe at Martinsberg. he is the only man I want to see, and hope that if this place is attacked that he will be one among them. Wile we were at Martinsberg or near the place I, with 39 of our company, were put on picket guard, we were about 11⁄ 2 miles from the enemy. I was pretty scared all by my self in a dark wood two miles from camp. we were ordered if we heard any fireing to shoot our guns off and run to camp. two days ago we were ordered back to winchester, I never walked so much in all of my life, and the roads are so hard too. The road from Harpers Ferry is aweful the ground is very hard and we have to sleep on it with a rock for a pillow. I would like to give you a full account of our movements but am not allowed to do so. You can expect stirring news from here soon. I must stop. Love to all I remain your aft Son T.L. Wragg. It is pouring rain and our tents and blankets soaked. I wrote some time ago to tell you that I received the paper but no money. Tom

July 13. Brigadier General Robert S. Garnett, brigade commander of First Georgia, is killed at Carrick’s Ford.34 He is the first general of either side to die in battle.


33

July 17. U. S. Gen. McDowell’s army advances on Fairfax Court House and Centreville.35 Beauregard urges Johnston to hasten to support him at Manassas.36 [July 17–20].**37 Private Thomas Wragg writes from Winchester, but completes his letter on Saturday, July 20, at Manassas Junction. Wragg says that the enemy is about seven miles from them and advancing in three columns—from Romney, from Martinsburg, and Harpers Ferry—and are attempting to outflank the Confederates. Dear Papa: I take this opportunity of writing to you as I have a little time to myself, we are encamped on the north side of town with the rest of the Army, and expect a fight every day the enemy are about seven miles from advancing and us. Our Scouts were fired on yesterday by the enemy and one man was wounded by the bursting of a bomshell. We heard today [July 17] that the enemy was advancing in three columns, one from Martinsberg, one from Harpers Ferry and the other by way of Romney, they are trying to outflank us, our Brigade and Genl Jackson’s have been ordered to take position on the road that leads to Charlestown, to prevent about five or six thousand from getting behind the main body. we were all very much excited last night, just after [?Palin], our Capt., told us that Col. Gardner said he would lead us into battle to day, we were all up in the morning at 51⁄ 2 and expected to have a fight for certain, but were disappointed, we were drawn up in line of battle this afternoon and no one knew where we were going until we were marched about a mile on the Charlestown road, and halted we were then ordered to pull down all the fences along the road so as to have a clear place to fight in less than an hour all the fences for a mile along the side of the road were flat to the ground, we then formed and marched back to camp. We heard to day [July 18] that we were going to march to Charlestown all our tents are struck and knapsacks lightly packed for a long march, the enemy about six thousand strong are at Smithville, a little village this side of Charlestown and if they don’t retreat we will certainly have a fight, troops are coming in from all parts of the country and we have a pretty good force here, our Col. [Gardner] says that if Doubleday’s battery is any way near us he intends to make us charge it, that is one regiment, I would like to be one to help take it from him. I must stop now with love to all I remain your afft son. T. L. Wragg. I have just heard that we go to Strasberg to meet McClellan. There are so many reports out that you can’t hear the truth. Write soon to your afft. Son Thomas. [July 20, probably Manassas Junction:] We have just arrived.


July [18]. Wragg states that they have received orders to march, but he does not know their destination. Direct to care Col. Bartow, Winchester, as Johnson Younger & Otey, not to be trusted. They have lost several letters containing money. Tell Jesse that I will answer her letter soon. Our new uniform arrived here two or three days ago. Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Butler and Capt Dickerson are coming in here soon if you have anything to send me they can bring it.38 Write soon, T. L. Wragg. We have just received orders to march, I don’t know where to.

July 18. Engagement at Blackburn’s Ford on Bull Run; Union repulsed by Beauregard’s brigades. Johnston’s troops are still in Winchester camp, next to railroad line to Manassas. Johnston receives orders to rendezvous with Beauregard at Manassas immediately. His troops begin to march through Winchester toward the east (see Map 4). The troops did not know where they were going until they were under way. A delayed announcement was “by Johnston’s orders,” to prevent word of their departure from reaching either Patterson or McDowell. The army marched until midnight, crossing the Shenandoah River through the “Ashby Gap” of the Shenandoah Mountains and camping at Paris, Virginia. The next morning they began their march again early, arriving at the Piedmont Station on the Manassas Gap Railroad around noon. From here the Seventh and Eighth Georgia were the first regiments to be shuttled by rail to Manassas Junction, leaving at 9:00 P.M., arriving at about 1:00 A.M. on July 20.39 July 21. Battle at Bull Run—First Manassas (see Map 5). Union Army: 35,700 men; Army of Potomac (Beauregard): 21,800 men (Bonham, Ewell, D. Jones, Longstreet, Cocke, Early, Evans, and Holmes brigades). Army of Shenandoah (Johnston): 9,500 men (four brigades of Jackson, Bartow, Bee and Kirby-Smith).40 July 23.** Wragg writes (letter written on July 23 regarding fight on July 21) from Manassas Junction. Wragg’s brigade fights on top of Matthews Hill with Bee and Evans for almost two hours. Wragg sees the “once Glorious Stars and Stripes floting over the enemy.” In a rush to reach the woods, the “place of slaughter,” his company has six killed, twenty-five wounded, and five taken prisoner. They withdraw to Henry House Hill. McDowell fails to make a concerted follow-up attack.


35

Johnston and Beauregard arrive around noon and begin to reorganize the troops. Jackson’s brigade joins them. By midafternoon, Johnston funnels fresh troops to the front, including Kirby-Smith and Early. Overwhelmed, the Union troups flee in panic toward Washington. J. E. B. Stuart’s cavalry completes the rout, pursuing the northern troops for eight miles.41 Private Wragg says he was in battle for six to eight hours. Wragg’s regiment lost—killed or wounded—more than two hundred men. It was “the greatest loss of any Confederate regiment in the battle.”42 Brigade commander Bartow, Wragg says, “died with the flag in hand.” My dear Papa I write you these few lines to let you know that I am well for I know that you will be anxious to hear from me. We have just had one of the largest battles ever fought on American soil and routed the enemy. I will give you a few of the particulars. On Tuesday the 17th we received orders to march to the junction to join Beauregard’s forces who had been attacked on the right. we marched 30 miles [from Winchester to the Manassas Gap Railroad] and took the ones [trains that] arrived [at the Piedmont Station] on Thursday morning. We then marched about 3 miles from the junction and camped until Sunday when we got orders to march we walked about 8 or 10 miles but before we got that far we heard the artillery fireing we marched to the battle field and took our position behind a battery. the battery was at the foot of a hill and we on top. we had not been there five minutes before the shell[s] from the famous Shermans battery were falling around us like rain we had one killed and two wounded in our regiment, a few minutes after we hear a tremendous fire of muskets and received orders to support Genl [Barnard] Bee’s force on the right who were giving away. we started for that point amid the bursting of shell around us. we succeeded in getting down the hill and across the valley. we were brought up another hill by the flank and were exposed to a dreadful fire of musketry from the enemy who were well posted behind breastworks and a large berm. when on the hill I looked toward the enemy and for the first time since we left home, I saw the once Glorious Stars and Stripes floting over the enemy. There was a little thicket before us to the right and in getting these had one of our boys killed and one wounded the balls just pored on us struck our muskets and hats and bodys. we got to the woods, the place of slaughter, we were in it fifteen minutes and in that short time we had in our Company 6 killed, 25 wounded and 5 taken prisoners. I did not get as

36 A Confederate Chronicle much as a scratch, there was 5 men shot down about me among them was, Jule Ferril he was shot in the head and died as soon as he received the shot. Mr. Lippman’s son was another he was shot in the ankle, leg and shoulder. Mr. Butler the carpenter’s son was killed. Our adj. John Branch, killed. Mr. Purse’s Son killed.43 Col. Bartow was shot with the flag in his hand. he was leading on the 7 regiments and in crossing a fence he received his death wound the ball passed through his heart. Our forces retreated for a mile and took a stand and after that we gained ground and at 6 p.m. they were pursued by our cavalry 8 miles. I will give you a better account as soon as we settle down. I can only say that I am certain of one, he rode in front of his forces and waved his sword. I took good aim and fired, he fell. I did not wait to see more, but got out of their way. Love to all I remain your afft son, T. L. Wragg (We have taken Sherman’s battery.)44 [Insert: Map 5 of Bull Run battlefield by Private Thomas Wragg enclosed]

July 22. Only one day after the First Manassas and three months after the firing on Fort Sumter, Thomas Wragg’s uncle, Dr. William Wragg in Charleston, South Carolina, writes to Dr. John Wragg (Thomas Wragg’s “Papa”) in Savannah, Georgia. Dr. William Wragg (1807–86), a prominent physician in Charleston, served as a surgeon during the Civil War and was appointed by Beauregard to assist the people of Wilmington, North Carolina, and Norfork, Virginia, at the time of the yellow fever epidemic in those cities. He was one of the few physicians to use the thermometer, as early as 1854.45 Dear John: Sympathizing fully with you in your anxiety on account of Tom, I must write you a word though I have nothing cheering to say. I trust that the details so anxiously looked for will lift the load from many hearts now groaning in agony. Our neighborhood is known to have suffered heavily [in the Battle of Bull Run]. Gen. Bee mortally wounded: Col. B[enjamin] J. Johnson of Hampton’s Legion, (one of the prominent opponents of Pickens for Governor) killed leaving a wife and six children: Conner, Backer are wounded.46 Savannah also must be deeply wounded though as yet we do not know the particulars: at least they are not yet known here. The dispatch says just enough to set us all in a fever of anxiety. And such is the state of feeling in this city that the news reports have been crowded all day. The fate of Col. Bartow and the prominent place which his regiment must have held in the fight, as well



Map 5. Map of Bull Run battleground drawn by Thomas Wragg, June 21, 1861

as the loss said to have been sustained by the Oglethorps are enough to damp the exultation of victory. So far it is not easy to say from the appearance of this community whether joy or grief have the ascendant. They are certainly intimately intermixed. If you get anything certain in relation to Tom do let me hear from you immediately.

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38 A Confederate Chronicle It seems to have been a gallant fight. Our men have done themselves the credit of veterans. Virginia has nobly wiped away the undeserved imputation that has been thrown out against her. Garlands charge must have been an arcola or chepultepic affair. When is the bluster and swagger of the North to hide its head now. [General William T.] Sherman’s battery, the pet of the Army, turned upon themselves. And this too by a charge of bayonets! To what point beyond this can discipline go? Numbers too are of no avail. The proud Yankee quails before inferior numbers in every set to. The Southern impetuosity backed by Southern obedience and Southern endurance is more than a match for the Yankee swagger: and while McClellan is running bombastic nonsense about his surprise of the Garnet Division in which treachery doubtless did as much as bravery, and boasting of having exterminated Secession from Western Virginia, the cool, undaunted and unflagging courage of the men who are fighting for them all is putting to confusion the mighty plans of the “Greatest general of the age.”47 . . . Do let me hear from you particularly when you get news from Tom. . . . Your afft brother, Wm T. Wragg.

Dr. William Wragg’s letter reveals eloquently the mindset of the Caucasian population in Charleston and its sister city, Savannah, which contributed to bringing the South into the war, though it demonstrates the very “swagger” and “bombast” of which he no doubt correctly accuses the “Yankees.” Such was the rhetoric of the day. His own bombastic language echoes that of Francis Bartow, Bishop Elliot, and other respected leaders in Savannah before the war. Meanwhile, Thomas Wragg underwent a transformation of spirit. In Harpers Ferry, at “Camp Defiance,” army life was an adventure. Wragg could spend hours writing to his “gal” on the beauty of the view from Bolivar Heights and enjoy the excitement of discovering John Brown’s cave, collecting a rock to send to his admired brother Mac and leaving a little of himself by carving his initial and that of his girlfriend on the walls of the cave. As a young man used to servants, he marveled at the requirement to actually wash his own clothes, but he concluded that army life wasn’t so bad if only they gave him enough to eat. His fellow troops must have agreed with him as they named their next camp “Camp Starvation.” After the First Manassas, or “battle of Stone bridge,” as Wragg called it, reality set in and with it a certain numbness or disbelief that, somehow, he had survived the day. Not only was


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Bartow and his adjutant John Branch killed, but also four of Wragg’s friends and acquaintances from Savannah: Lewis Lippman, Jules Ferrill, George Butler, and Thomas Purse. William Crane and Ryan Morel from Savannah also died that day. One-fourth of the entire Eighth Georgia regiment, or 208 men, and an additional 1,659 total Confederate troops were either killed or wounded.48 In what appears to be a rather strange remark, Wragg wrote to his father after the battle: “I can only say that I am certain of one, he rode in front of his forces and waved his sword. I took good aim and fired, he fell. I did not wait to see more, but got out of their way.” Though he had spent the whole day firing at the enemy, this one man is the only one he was certain of having killed.

2

All Quiet on the Eastern Front Summer of 1861–Spring of 1862

I have been quite busy for more than a week preparing to go into winterquarters, that is we have been cutting down trees to build six houses and tomorrow the whole regiment will go and commence building the houses or in other words stables, for they will be nothing more than stables, they are to be built with but one slant to the roof and no flooring, besides twelve men will have to sleep in one house, they only allowing six to a company. I think myself that there will be a great deal of sickness by having the men so crowded. Thomas L. Wragg, December 26, 1861

The period following the first battle at Manassas was one of reassessment and reorganization for the armies of Johnston and Beauregard. The Bartow Second Brigade’s new commander was Samuel Jones, promoted to brigadier general on July 21. The brigade was formed under Second Corps (Major General G. W. Smith commanding from September 19–October 22), Army of the Potomac (under Johnston), for the period summer–fall 1861. Subsequently, for the period October 22,

40

All Quiet on the Eastern Front

41

1861–March 23, 1862, the brigade was under G. W. Smith’s Second Division, Potomac District, Department of Northern Virginia (Johnston commanding).1 Thomas Cooper (much to the regret of the troops) replaced the wounded Gardner as commander of the Eighth Georgia. Joseph J. West, commander of Company B, requested a furlough in August, which by September 1 was granted, and Lieutenant Hamilton Couper replaced him. When Couper was killed at Centreville on November 8, he was replaced by A. F. Butler, made captain on December 17, 1861.2 Initially, the Eighth Georgia camped at Camp Bartow, near the Bull Run battlefield, but moved numerous times during the summer and fall from Bull Run, Manassas Junction, Fairfax Court House, Munson’s Hill (picket duty), and Centreville. The men spent their time marching, drilling, and waiting for a battle. As J. E. Johnston stated, “[O]ur army was more disorganized by victory than that of the United States by defeat; that there were strong [Federal] fortifications, well manned, to cover the south bank of the river . . . we had no means of cannonading the capital, nor a disposition to make barbarous war.” On October 1, Johnston, Beauregard, and G. W. Smith met with Jefferson Davis at the Fairfax Court House and discussed their options. In the two months prior to the meeting, in August and September, almost thirty percent of the army was sick due to the “prevalence of epidemics.” When they discussed the question of what was needed to take the offensive, “The President asked what was that strength. General Smith thought 50,000 men, General Beauregard 60,000, and I 60,000, all of us specifying soldiers like those around us. The President replied that such reenforcements could not be furnished; he could give only as many recruits as we could arm. This decided the question.” The fact was “that no incursion into the ‘Valley’ worth notice of a Confederate Company was made until March, 1862.”3

Timeline July 30, 1861. Thomas Wragg writes again from Manassas Junction at a camp near the battlefield. All the sick and wounded have been sent to Richmond.

42 A Confederate Chronicle My dear Papa: I take this opportunity of writing you as I know you are anxious about me. You may think it strange that I did not telegraph to you soon [after] the battle. I went to the Junction to do so but could not get one cent for love or money. I then wrote a letter and sent it as soon as possible. I met Sam Ferguson he told me that if I had seen him he would have telegraphed for me.4 There is no news here. We don’t know when we will move all the sick and wounded have been sent to Richmond. There are several gentlemen here from Savannah. If possible send me a box of eatables as I can’t buy any thing here. Tell Jesse [sister] I will write as soon as I can. Love to all. I remain your afft son, T.L. Wragg.

July 31.** Manassas Junction near battleground. Private Wragg in quartermaster department. Nothing to do but drill. Dear Penie [sister]: (Do ask Papa to send me a little trunk of eatables.) I received you kind letter a few days ago and would have answered it before, but have been so busy and have had continual headaches for the last week or ten days that I could not sit down to write. There is nothing doing here atall. We only drill in the mornings and evening that is the company drills. I am in the Quartermaster department and have my hands full. I suppose that you were supprised when you heard of the big fight we had at Stone Bridge [on Bull Run]. It was a glorious victory for the South. I am very much oblige to you for the money, but at presant it is of no use to me as there is nothing to be bought at the junction for love or money, the only chance of getting any thing to eat is by sending to Richmond for it and that is not often. Could not you send me a box of eatibles such as a ham or any thing that would keep. Things put up in canisters that is if they don’t cost too much money. I saw a water mellon that was sent from Georgia. it looked splendid I did not eat any of it, but would like very much to have done so. All of the wounded are at Richmond. There are a great many gentlemen here from Sav’h. John Ferrill, Jan Purse, Dr. Bullock, Capt Dickerson and several others.5 I received a letter from Sissie the other day. Mc is quite well. She says that Mr. Bond [brother-in-law] will go there [Charleston] the first of August. The weather is very hot and our supply of water is small and muddy. Do not wait for me to answer every letter as I have not always time or materials. I must stop. Love to all I remain your afft brother, T.L. Wragg. Direct to Care Capt West, 8th Georgia Regt. Manassas Junction.

August 7.** Manassas Junction. Camp is moved about seven miles from Junction and on Bull Run.

All Quiet on the Eastern Front My dear Papa: Do send me a pair of thick shoes nr.6 wide. I write you these few lines to let you know that I am quite well. We have for some time past been moving our Camp it is about 7 miles from here and on Bull’s Run. There is no news here at all. The files and things that I sent to you by John Ferrill I got at Harpers Ferry the morning that we burned the Bridge and Public property. There must have been thousands of dollars worth of all kinds of files burnt. One or two of the boys have received small trunks with eatibles from home. cant you send me a small one with a ham and some smoked beef and different things that will keep. The trunk will do to carry my cloths in. You can send it by express to the Care Capt West 8th Geo Regiment at Manassas. It is quite warm here in the day but very pleasant at night. The corn is just commencing to tassel and the apples to ripen. It was reported here the other day that the northerners were evacuating Arlington Heights. I don’t know if it is true or not, there are so many reports out that you cant believe any thing. Enclosed I send you an account of the 8th Geo Rgt I think that it is the truest acct I have seen yet. Tell Jessie that I will write to her soon. I must stop. Love to all I remain your afft son.

T.L. Wragg. Capt West just handed me your letter of the 29th. I was very glad to hear from you as I had not received a letter from home since the fight. You can send me any thing that you think will keep such as a ham or smoked beef, sardines and things like that. do you think that you could send a watermelon. I saw several in one of the companies that came from Georgia, if you send me any thing do send it in a small trunk with a lock & key. you can send the key in a bundle of news papers or a letter the trunk will be of service to me in carrying my cloths, send me some sugar and coffee. I hope that you received the bundle of bulbs and things that I sent by Mr. Thomas. I also sent some by John Ferrill. The day of the fight Jule Ferrill was next to me in ranks and when he was shot he was right next to me and Lewis Lippman was next to him. they were both shot while in the thicket. Lippman was shot in the ankle and fell he asked me for a drink of water and while on the ground he was shot in the leg and arm. Jule was shot very near the heart. He was loved by every man in the regiment that knew him. If you send any money do send it in silver as bank notes are of little use to us here and we cant get the specie for them. I must stop. Love to all I remain your afft son, T. L. Wragg I did not receive any thing but the bundle that Mr. Hines brought on.6 Tom I stand more in need of draws under shirts and flannen over shirts.

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August 13.** Near Manassas Junction at Camp Bartow. Wragg expects the arrival of troops under McClellan. He expects to fight near Washington. His broken regiment is under General Samuel Jones’s brigade. Wragg expects to go to “winterquarters” in Philadelphia in the winter. Dear George [Lamar, brother-in-law]:7 I received your kind letter of the 6th Aug’t and will answer it at once as I have a few minute to spare. It was reported yesterday in Camp that forty thousand of the enemy under their great Genl McClellan was marching in this direction. I don’t know how true it is but they say it is direct from headquarters. We have received orders to remove all of our sick and wounded, that look like a fight. Our Cavalry was driven in, in the morning, they being only three miles from Arlington Heights, some say that they (the enemy) only moved to find a more healthy place for their army, but that is not believed at headquarters, which I don’t think myself is very likely. I do not think that we will fight them here, we will very likely advance and meet them nearer Washington. We are encamped about 4 miles from the junction on Bull’s Run we have nothing to do but drill. I being in the quartersmasters department have my hands full. I did not know Penie had come down to Savh before you wrote, I have not received a letter from her since the fight and she promised to write twice a week. I suppose that you are very glad to be relieved from coast duty, it must be very tiresome. I would not advise you to come to Virginia for never mind what happens at home you could not easily get there. Capt West received a letter from home saying that his wife was at the point of death, he applied for a furlough which would not be granted, he then sent in his resignation but it would not be received, so he is oblige to stay here. I think that it is very hard that he can’t go for a few days. One of our boys got a discharge to day he will leave in the morning for Savh. Our broken regiment has been attached to Genl Jones Brigade, he is a Delaware man and is quite young. he was the principal at Marrietta for some time you might know him. I suppose that you have seen the accounts of the battle in the papers, so I will not say anything on that subject except that we had it hot and heavy for 6–8 long hours. I am glad to hear that the Phoenix have enlarged so as to form two companies. You have no doubt heard of the number of men the Presi’d [Davis] has called for, to reco, I think that when that army is raised and marched Northward it will astonish the natives. We all expect to go into winterquarters in Philadelphia this winter and if that number of men are raised and the fight by the last of September (the time that they are called for) I think it more than probable that we will. I must


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stop Love to all I remain your afft Brother, T. L. Wragg C.S.A. Excuse as in haste Tell Penie to write, TLW

August. Near Manassas Junction, at Camp Bartow. The soldiers are camped about four miles from the Junction, and Wragg expects them to push toward Washington. Wragg is concerned about his brother Mac, who joined the Fourth South Carolina Cavalry, Company K. My dear Papa: Do send me some writing paper and pens. Your letter of the eleventh has just been received and I am quite glad to hear from home. You asked me if I have seen anything of Dick Choisy?8 I have not seen or heard of anything of him. I did not know that he was in the service. I am sorry to hear that Mc think of coming to Virginia. He has shifts that he will have to undergo will be very hard on him. I would much rather know that he was safe at home or rather along the coast where he could be serving his country and be at the same time near home and his friends for this is the meanest country in the Confederate States. There is hardly any use to send me papers they take so long to come that they get old and I get the paper every day or two sent to the Company. I went the other day to see Mr. Hamilton.9 he said that the letter that you sent me by him had been misplaced and he being hard up had spent the silver. it did not make much difference as we can send our letters now without prepaying them. he gave me the two dollars in a bill. I also received the letter and money that you sent on by Mr. Snider and the bundle I am very much oblige to you for the things—all of them.10 I received yesterday the box from Grandmama [Mary A.I.] Wragg with some eatables and cloth and will write and thank her today or tomorrow for them. You cannot be more ignorant of the movement of the Army than we are. we are encamped about four miles from the Junction and have not the least idea of what is going on than the man in the moon. all we know is that we are supplied with a few more tents and that all of the bridges between here and Washington are being rebuilt just as fast as possible. I expect when they are finished we will be pushed on towards Washington, but I don’t know. The men generally speaking like General Beauregard better than Johnston because when we were at Martinsburg or near that place he retreated to Winchester instead of attacking him there. I did not have anything to say as I supposed that General Johnston knew what he was about and I would just as leave follow him as anyone else. There is a great deal of suspicion in Camp. We

46 A Confederate Chronicle lost one of our members yesterday. he had the measles and exposed himself to the weather and yesterday he died or rather early this morning. he will be buried this afternoon. I am very sorry to hear that you have been sick but hope that you are now well. In grandmama Ws letter she told me that there was a great deal of sickness in the family. I hope that they are all well by now. In one of Sissy’s letters, she told me that Mr. Bond was there, but would return home before long. I would have written to you much sooner but I have not had time. I have been very busy for the last two weeks. Being in the Quartermaster department I have my hands full. I must stop now. Love to all, I remain your afft son Thomas L. Wragg CSA.

August 25. Camp Bartow, near Manassas Junction. Beauregard says the next fight will be beyond Fairfax Courthouse. Thomas Wragg wishes he could send a “Yankee” skull home to his father. The troops have received conflicting reports from Missouri regarding the battle between Gen. Nathaniel Lyon (Union) and Gen. Ben McCulloch.11 My dear Papa: I received your kind letter of the 17th and was very glad to hear from you as it had been some time since I received a letter from any one in Sav’h. In my last letter to you I mentioned having been over to see Mr. Hamilton, and that I received the letter and bundle sent by Mr. Snider. I also received the box sent to me by grandmama Wragg. I wrote to thank her the day after. I will have to wait some time before I can let you know when to send on the trunk as I cant tell when we will move from this place. The bridges have all been re built along the road to Alexandria, and the troops are being sent by the carloads and by foot. we don’t know how soon we will be ordered off too. they are all going in the direction of Washington. Gen’l Beauregard says that the next fight will be beyond Fairfax Courthouse. I am indeed very sorry to hear that Mc is coming to Virginia. although it is his duty; yet I would much rather know that he was near home. I would rather do his duty and mine if possible, than to see him here. I took a walk to the battle-field the other day and wanted to get a Yankee skull (which were scattered over the ground) to send to you, but having no way to do so I did not take them, there was one very large one with a bullet hole in his forehead. I saw the man before he was buried, he looked like an officer, his uniform being taken off I could not tell for certain. In burying these men, they would not dig a grave, they just cov-


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ered them with earth and the hogs routed a great many of them up, and that is the way that the bones came on the ground. some of the boy’s got finger and toe bones. I understand that there is a package at the junction for me. I will get permission and go after it tomorrow. Mr. [George] Lamar told me in one of his letters that he expected to come rase a company for Virginia. I dont understand how the bayonet can be used on the double barrell gun, it must be some new invention. A scouting party of Yankees came down as far as Falls Church, but fearing I suppose our masked batteries, they returned to Arlington, The next fight according to their statement will entirely crush out rebellion (that remains to be seen). It was reported that England had recognized the Southern Confederacy, it created a great deal of excite-ment in our camp. some said that the recognition of our new government was read out in congress, but not seeing anything about it in the Richmond papers, I concluded that it was false. The first reports that reached us from Missouri were very discouraging they were that McCulloch was killed and our forces routed, we however learned that it was just the apposit. Lyon was killed and his forces routed, it was glorious news. I am sorry to hear that my garden has turned out bad, but if I ever get home and have the money I will buy a little piece of land and plant vigitables. It is very strange: that we have not been paid one cent since we have been in the service of the C.S. and it is going on to 4 months from the time we enlisted, our officers have been paid up for the last 2 months and it is my opinion that they dont bother themselves about us or our pay. It would be a great help to us, but they dont seem to care whether we get it or not. Tell Caro that I had forgotten the name of my dog, and if I stay here much longer, I will not only forget the name of my dog, but I will forget the name of every thing else. Do not bother you self about the melons. I only asked you because I saw some here and was told that they came from Georgia. I must stop, as I have nothing more to say. Love to all and as much to your self I remain your aft Son, Thomas L. Wragg, CSA

I will write and tell you when to send the trunk. The slippers that you sent me were rather small.

September 7. Camp Bartow near Manassas Junction. “O. L. I. Co. B, 8th Georgia Regt.” Wragg believes that the regiment will move to Centreville on Monday. Letters from Wragg’s siblings taper off. My dear Papa: I write you these few lines to let you know I am quite well. I have not heard a word from home for more than three weeks. I have written to

48 A Confederate Chronicle Penie and Jesse two or three times and have not received an answer. I think that it is so strange that they don’t write. We move on to Centerville on Monday. Do write to me soon and tell Penie to do the same. I must stop as young Bennett is going.12 Love to all, I remain your aft son. I wrote to Mac three weeks ago and he has not answered it. Direct to T.L. Wragg, OLI Co. B. 8th Georgia Regt, Manassas Junction (Thomas L. Wragg, CSA)

Probably September 16.** Camp Bartow. All troops except three brigades, which will remain at Manassas Junction, will be moved toward Washington, two miles from Potomac. My dear Papa, I take this opportunity of writing you these few lines before we leave this camp which we will do in one or two days. We have already received orders to hold ourselves in readiness to march at a minutes notice. Our forces had a small fight at Falls Church yesterday and the day before, our side was victorious. I have not heard any of the particulars. all the sick have been removed from the Junction to make room for the wounded in the last skirmishes, for we have had several in the last two or three days. All of our force, with the exception of 3 brigades who are to remain at the Junction to man the fortifications in case they are attacked from some other side, have been moved towards Washington. we are in possession of some place where Alexandria and Washington are both visible, it is not more than two miles from the Potomac. You can expect to hear stiring news from this quarter before very long. I hear that Pres’t Davis was very sick.13 It would be a bad thing to loose him now. It would not only be a great loss to us but it would encourage the enemy. I sincerely hope that he will soon get well. It has been raining for several days and the ground is very muddy and bad for marching. I hope we will not start until it is a little dryer. There is to be no more passports or furloughs to be given and no one alloud to leave camp. I believe that in less than a week there will be a great battle fought on the banks of the mighty Potomac and in another we will be in Maryland. When does Mc expect to leave for Val, and does he think that he will come to Manassas. The Georgia Regulars are still encamped about 1⁄ 4 of a mile from here, they expect orders to move every minute, I have not seen Mr. Hamilton but once since he came. You can send me on the trunk when Addison Tinsley comes on. do send me a common cravat. there may be one of mine in my room and send me . . . these red clay pipes and some stems and a little tobacco for you cant get anything of the kind here unless you


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pay a tremendous price for it (and it is our only comfort) and we not having received a cent from the Conf ’d States cant afford to pay ten and 15cts for a pipe, 40cts for a quire of paper and the same for envelopes.14 How is Mr. Lamar’s Company progressing. Tell him that if he don’t make-hast and come on he will be too late for the taking of the Great city of Washington. The distance between our pickets and the Potomac is fast diminishing and ere long we will find ourselves on its banks ready to cross and drive the enemy from their stronghold. I must stop now as it is quite late, with much love to all and as much to yourself I remain your aft Son T.L. Wragg, C.S.A. Write your directions as usual. T. L. W.

September 18. Camp near Fairfax Station. Lieutenant Hamilton Couper Company, Eighth Georgia Volunteers. (West departed, but continued in the war as a surgeon.) Wragg returns from picket duty near the capitol. The enemy is one-half mile from Confederate troops. My dear Papa: I received your letter of the fourth some time ago and would have answered it before, but we have been busy moving camp for the last two weeks and I have not had time until now to answer it. We are now within two miles of Fairfax and expect to move eight miles beyond in a few days. our regiment has just returned from picket duty at Munsons Hills where we have been since last Monday [September 16]. It is a beautiful sight from the hill. the dome of the Capital is visable and the old Stars and Stripes wave in the distance just like something gone out of fashion. The enemy’s picket is about a half mile from us and about 300 yards from our outer picket, three miles from Arlington and four miles from Washington gives us a splendid sight of the Potomac and the fortifications around Washington. it looks impenetrable from the distance but with a brave General and determined Army it can be taken. You can send the trunk on to Manassas by Express to the care of Lt. Couper Co. B, 8th Regt, Geo Vols and I think I will get it even if we do move as the wagon goes to the Junction everyday or so. do send me a hat, and a pair of common dark pants (thick) as mine are very near gone and cold weather is coming on. Addison Tinsley arrived a week or ten days ago. he is looking very well. nearly all our wounded are well and in camp and the Regiment fit for service once more. T.L. Cooper, formerly our Major has been raised to Lieut. Col. and is now in command of the regt. he is not liked by any of us and he was petitioned by the officers and men to

50 A Confederate Chronicle resign but he would not do so, the petition was signed by every man in the regiment. I wish that Col. Gardner was well enough to take the field—but I fear it will be a long time before he can do so.15 Tell Penie I received the paper she sent by Addison Tinsley and I am much oblige to her for it as I had none at all. Tell her to write to me and Jesse too. You must excuse this letter but it is in haste. Write soon. I remain your afft son T. L. Wragg. Direct as usual to Manassas.

September 23.** Camp near Fairfax Courthouse, two miles from Fairfax Station. Thomas Wragg is now under General G. W. Smith’s division.16 Gen. J. E. Johnston “is to command the Army of the Potomac.” The troops are waiting for an attack on Washington. My dear Papa: I received your kind letter yesterday and was very glad to hear from you. We are encamped about 2 miles from Fairfax Station and about the same distance from the Court house. I see by the Richmond paper of Saturday that Genl Johnston is to command the Army of the Potomac and Genl Smith is to command Genl J’s division, so we are under Genl Smith. The weather is quite cool and pleasant. We are all ignorant of what is going on near Washington except when we are on picket guard and then we can only see what is immediately arround us. Our officers are very anxious to turn our Company into an artillery corps, the only difficulty is in getting a battery. A friend told me today that he got a letter from his brother stating that a vessel arrived in Savannah with a quantity of rifle cannon, powder, Enfield rifles, blankets and other things. I hope that it is true as we need them all. I have not received the trunk yet but will write as soon as I do and let you know. There is a great deal of sickness in camp, but I am quite well and have been so ever since I left home. I heard that our picket was driven in yesterday but do not know if it is true. Enclosed I send you five dollars and want you to get the Morning news mailed to me daily. The money is a part of my first earnings, we having been paid up to 1st July. I am very glad that you sent me a blanket as the weather is getting quite cool and I will need it soon. We are all waiting patiently for an attack on Washington, I hear that Mr. Anderson is expected in Savh daily.17 I must stop as it is late, excuse shortness. Love to all I remain your afft Son. T.L. Wragg, C.S.A. P.S. I do not need any money at present. T. L. W.


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October 1. Johnston, Beauregard, and Gustavus Smith meet with President Davis at the Fairfax Court House to discuss the possibility of taking the offensive and possibly attacking Washington. President Davis concludes that even though he might be able to provide the men needed, he cannot arm them. As a result, the four men agree, they must wait until the spring.18 October 9. Camp near Fairfax Station. Wragg expects a fight, which never comes. Unbeknownst to Wragg, the generals had begun withdrawing their troops to Centreville, beginning with the sick, on October 5. By the end of the month the withdrawal would be complete.19 Thomas Wragg complains of having rheumatism in his arm. In the first two years of the war, a total of 59,772 cases of rheumatism were reported in field and hospital registers of Southern forces east of the Mississippi River. Of that total, 1,842 were discharged as “unfit for service.” Very little that the doctors could do brought much relief, although “colchicum and iodide of potassium appear to have been standby remedies”; this treatment was said to enjoy “very fair success.”20 My dear Jesse [sister]: I received your most welcome letter of the 29th a few days ago and have just found time to answer it. There is nothing doing here at all except camp duty. We have been expecting a fight for some time but as yet it has not come. every morning we can hear the sound of distant cannons but can’t tell what it means as we are not allowed to leave camp. I expect though that it is the yankees fireing salutes as they are always doing something of the kind. When you seen Miss Minnie ask her if [s]he got my letter that I wrote to her about a week ago. Tell little Caro that I will answer her letter as soon as I get a chance, but she must not get mad with me for I have but little time to write to any one. We are all in hopes of being ordered to Georgia this winter it being understood that Col. Gardner is going to Richmond and will use his influence to get us home. We were ordered to send all of our surplus clothing to the Station, and I had to send my trunk and a good many clothes besides two blankets and I’m very much afraid that I won’t see them again, but I was oblige to do it. Did you ever get a little enamil soft case, (green) that I sent you by our drummer, if you did not, get daddy Joe to ask him what he did with it. It was a yankee case that I picked up on the battlefield filled with thread, needles, buttons and other things. I am very

52 A Confederate Chronicle much afraid that my arm that was broken is going to give me a good deal of trouble this winter for the change of weather has made it almost useless. it must be rheumatism. I suppose you have heard that Jimmy (B.) Grant was made a corporal. I could have had the same place it being offered to me, but did not want it. I am very sorry to hear that my dog is dead, but I suppose it could not be helped. The Confederate States gives us in place of coffee one gill of Whiskey a day, but as I do not drink it I exchange with some of the boys for molasses.21 You must excuse this letter as it is in haste. Love to all and as much to yourself. I remain your afft Brother, Thomas Lowndes Wragg, CSA. P.S. Give my love to Miss Anna Domini. I have received the papers. Tom.

December 26.** Camp at Centreville, preparing for winter quarters. Wragg recalls a fight on December 20 at Dranesville, ten miles short of Leesburg where the Confederates confused friends with foes, yet the Sumter Flying Artillery Battery, led by Captain Allen S. Cutts from Georgia, “did good work.” Lieutenant Colonel Cooper is killed in an accident. My dear Papa. I received your kind letter some time ago and would have answered it before but I have been quite busy for more than a week preparing to go into winterquarters, that is we have been cutting down trees to build six houses and tomorrow the whole regiment will go and commence building the houses or in other words stables, for they will be nothing more than stables, they are to be built with but one slant to the roof and no flooring, besides twelve men will have to sleep in one house, they only allowing six to a company. I think myself that there will be a great deal of sickness by having the men so crowded. I was very sorry to see by the Richmond papers, some time ago, of the great fire in Charleston and hope that the money that has been contributed to the sufferers will cover the greater part of the losses and also if it was a Yankee who set the fire, he may be caught and burned for hanging would be too good for him. I suppose you have read the account of the fight at “Drainsville,” it ended very severely with us, in the first place our force was very small, (in comparison with the enemy) and in the second they were thrown in such positions as not to know friends from enemies.22 The 1st Kentucky fired into the 6th So.Ca regiment and killed six. And when they met the Yankees, they were afraid to fire, thinking that they were friends, in fact they told Coln. Taylor when he asked what regiment that was, they said the g “So.Ca.” and when they got a good chance they fired into the

All Quiet on the Eastern Front “Kentucky,” not more than forty yards distant, the Kentuckyans managed, however, in driving them over the hill, on which they were stationed. The Sumter Artillery from Georgia “Capt Cutts” did good work and distinguished themselves for ever, if they had not have held their ground under that aweful fire of “grape cannister” “case” and shell the “g” Va regiment would certainly have been cut to pieces. they had twentyfive horses killed and several men when they were ordered to fall back to a better position the guns had to be taken by hand to the rear, supported by the infantry. We could hear the fireing very distinctly, and we had orders to be ready to march at a minutes notice should the Yankees advance in larger numbers on our men after they had taken another position but the Yanks did not come, and we did not march the enemy had possession of the battle-field that night but the next day Genl Beauregards division marched in one end of Drainsville and the Yankees went at a double-quick out of the other side. I do not know the number killed on our side but I hear that it is pretty large. We lost by death, day before yesterday the last field officer that was with us in the battle of the 21st [at Bull Run/Manassas] and that was Lieut Col. T.L. Cooper as he was riding out to look out for a place to put his regiment into winterquarters, his horse took fright and ran away with him in the woods, our quartermaster who was along with him at the time, went to look for him and after a long search found him leaning up by a tree “where his horse had thrown him” badly hurt and insensible, he was put into an ambular and brought to camp where he died at about two oclock that night. he was insensible all the time, he must have been thrown with great violence as his back and several of his ribs were fractured and his head was shattered, he was an aweful sight to look at, his face was so swolen that you could not recognize him at all. Although he was not liked in the regiment, we all were very sorry when he died, he was sent home the next day. The weather is very cold and our thin tents very uncomfortable, although most of us have fireplaces built out of sod. Ice is common with us, it is always on the ground and never melts, we have had but little snow so far, but I expect that we will have a plenty of it next month. When we get into winterquarters I intend asking Sam Ferguson to try and get me a furlough, I would like to get home this winter. I went to see Capt Hamilton a few days ago, he is quite well, and his battery had gone into winterquarters. I must stop now as it is so cold that I can hardly hold my pen. Give my love to Mrs. Bond, Jessie, Caro, Ashby and as much to yourself, I remain your afft son, T.L. Wragg, C. S. A. I have spent a very poor Christmas. All I want at present is a box of eatibles.Your son T.

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Thomas Wragg kept a scrapbook from which the following is taken: “The Atlanta Confederacy publishes a private dispatch announcing the death of Col. Thomas L. Cooper of that city. He was killed in Manassas by a fall from his horse. Col. Cooper was the eldest son of Hon. Mark A. Cooper, and was an eminent lawyer and a man of great personal worth and popularity. He will be mourned as one of Georgia’s most distinguished and lamented victims of the progressing war. He was Col. of the 8th Ga. Regiment, and a successor of the lamented Bartow.” February 6, 1862. Wragg’s regiment in winter quarters at Camp Sam Jones, Centreville. My dear Papa: As Capt. [A. F.] Butler is leaving for Savannah, I thought that I would drop you a few lines to let you know that I am quite well.23 I received the tobacco and pipes that you sent me by Mr. Butler and I am very much obliged to you for them. I wish, Papa, that if you can get any cheap gray cloth that you would have me a pair pants made and send them on by Capt. B. when he returns which will be in about 30 days. do send me a pair of high shoes or boots, no 6, never mind how heavy or common they are. I wish that you would write to Capt. Hamilton and ask him to use his influence in getting me a furlough, I think that he can do so as we are now idle with no chance of an advance movement. I would write more but I have just written a long letter to Jesse. With much love to you to all and as much to yourself. I remain your aft son, T. L. Wragg. Write soon.

In the months following the first battle at Manassas, Wragg’s letters appear less animated; perfunctory. He complained more in his letters. He complained of not being paid for the entire time he had been in the army. He complained of being incapacitated by headaches. His requests for food, shoes, clothes reveal his basic needs were not being met. He told his sister that he had broken his arm and that with the change in weather, it was almost useless. To his father, however, he would usually report being “quite well.” By forgetting the name of his dog, he reveals a distancing from all that was once familiar and important to him. He was offered the opportunity to be promoted to corporal, but shunned a leadership role. As a private he needed only to obey orders, do his “duty,” and somehow survive the day. He was not required to make decisions, or have the lives of others on his hands. When he recalled the


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dead northern men whose bodies had been rooted up by wild hogs and exposed to rot and stink in the blistering July and August heat, Wragg told his doctor father in a clinical manner that he wanted to send a Yankee skull to him. Perhaps he imagined his father having the skull in his medical office and showing it to his patients, saying, “My son got this Yankee skull after the First Manassas. The man was an officer.” The other Confederate men were satisfied with fingers and toes, souvenirs of the battle collected like Boy Scouts taking home pebbles to show their families. To them, the Yankees were not humans—they were alien hordes come down to destroy life as they knew it. Wragg was correct in suspecting that the close quarters of the men in the barracks would cause sickness. In fact, after the First Manassas, on August 17, 1861, according to H. H. Cunningham in his book Doctors in Gray: The Confederate Medical Service, “General Joseph E. Johnson, at Manassas, reported 4,809 sick of 18,178 present.” In addition, Cunningham quotes John Julian Chisolm, a South Carolina surgeon: “Continued exposure and fatigue, bad and insufficient food, salt meat, indifferent clothing, want of cleanliness, poor shelter, exposure at night to sudden changes of temperature, infected tents and camps, form a combination of causes which explains the fatality of an army in the field.” The next two letters from Thomas Wragg are from a Confederate Army hospital in Richmond, where he was sent for “dysentery.” The Second Georgia Hospital was called “General Hospital Number 14.” Located on 20th Street between Main and Franklin, it had a capacity for 100 patients. “The great enervating ailments of the Southern fighting men were the intestinal disorders, diarrhea and dysentery,” writes Cunningham. “Since diarrhea actually is a symptom of many diseases rather than a ‘disease’ and since many cases diagnosed as dysentery were certainly nothing more than cases of loose bowels, it is obvious that the disease statistics leave something to be desired.” One Confederate doctor believed that “almost every patient admitted to a hospital for treatment had a previous history of diarrhea or was suffering from it at the time of admittance.” However, it was not something to be taken lightly. The tremendous loss of weight and weakness that resulted took away a soldier’s “desire to live” and “self-respect.” According to Cunningham, one sick Confederate soldier exclaimed when seeing a healthy-looking Yankee, “You look like you wuz sich a happy man!


You got on sich a nice new-uniform, you got sich nice boots on, you ridin’ sich a nice hoss, an’ you look like yer bowels wuz so reglar.”24 But as Cunningham points out, treatments for diarrhea or dysentery might well have been worse than the condition itself: Some medical officers found nitrate of silver injections to be effective. One surgeon introduced an anal speculum, lubricated with soap, and freely cauterized the mucus membrane of the rectum for a distance of several inches from the anus. Others fed their patients raw beef, with the fibers scraped out, covered with a “little vinegar, salt and pepper” and reported “considerable success.” Hospital prescription books reveal that “Blue Mass,” “Strut Pills,” and “Diarrhoea mixture” were some of the remedies most frequently prescribed. Calomel, strychnia, opium, and acetate of lead were also administered rather freely. There was some criticism of the use of mineral astringents on the basis that they interfered with the integrity of the gastro-intestinal surfaces “disturbing the functions of absorption, and consequently of digestion.” This feeling contributed to the wide-spread popularity of indigenous astringents such as the blackberry, chinquapin, dogwood, cranesbill, sweet gum, marsh rosemary, pomegranate, knot grass, and black oak.25

March 4 (1862). Thomas Wragg, sick with dysentery, writes from the Second Georgia Hospital in Richmond. My dear Papa: I write you these few lines to let you know that I am sick in the 2d Geo. Hospital and ask you to send me on some money as have not got a change of clothes I being oblige to leave everything behind at Manassas. My own suit is all in rags and I have not a cent to buy any others. I have been sick for some time with dysentery and I was sent down to Richmond on last Saturday. I am now a little better but still very weak. Do write to me as soon as possible and if you can send me about sixty or seventy dollars. I will return it as we receive our bounty money which will be in about two months. I would not ask you for so much but it would take $50.00 to get anything like a uniform. All the regiments at Manassas are under marching orders. some say that they are going to fall back and others say that they are only getting ready for a fight. I hope that I will be able to join my regiment before we have a fight. Richmond is under martial law and no one is aloud to leave. You must excuse the shortness of this letter but I am so weak that I can’t write anymore.


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Direct to care Dr. L. D. Ford, 2d Geo. Hospital, Richmond. With much love, I remain your affectionate son T. L. Wragg. Dr. Ford is from Augusta. There is no chance for me to get anything from Manassas Junction. I have not even a pair of shoes.

March 11, 1862. The Second Georgia Hospital, Richmond, Virginia. My Dear Papa: I received your letter containing the check for one hundred dollars and am much oblige to you for it. I am much better to day and hope to be able in a short time to return to my regiment. Manassas Junction is evacuated and our regiment has gone to Winchester. The greater part of the army has fallen back to Gordonsville about 80 miles from Richmond everything was burned that could not be brought from there: quantities of provisions and baggage of all sorts among other things that was burned, was my trunk full of clothing and a box of eatables that was sent on to me by grandmama, but it could not be helped. I can not understand the movement, but I suppose that General Johnson does. I’m very glad to hear that you have written to try and get me a commission and hope that you succeed. Dr. Ford told me this morning that he had received a letter from you. There is a great deal of excitement here on account of Manassas having been evacuated some of the large guns from the Junction have been sent down to Richmond. I must stop after thanking you again for the money. Love to all and as much to yourself and I remain your affectionate son T L Wragg. Excuse writing. I saw Mr. Selkirk yesterday.

After Thomas Wragg’s hospitalization, he was granted a leave of absence on April 5, 1862. He was reported to have had chronic diarrhea for four months and was considered “unfit for duty.” The report, which was signed by D. C. O’Keefe, Assistant Surgeon, and approved by Captain A. F. Butler, Company B, Eighth Georgia, stated that he would be able to return to duty in not less than thirty days.26 He was subsequently paid through June 1862.27 The Savannah Daily Morning News reported on June 5, 1862, that Thomas L. Wragg, OLI, Company B, Eighth Regiment, “will leave on Saturday for Richmond.” Information from the National Archives states that in November and December 1862 he was “absent, sick.” This implies that he was present in the period June through October. The only other reference to him in 1862 from


any source is another report in the Savannah paper on December 22, 1862, which states that “R. H. Cole, T. L. Wragg, and A. J. Franklin of the Oglethorpe Light Infantry Co. A [sic, former name] will return to camp at Fredericksburg, Virginia on 27 December.” Thomas Wragg, in fact, joined the Confederate Navy on December 25, 1862. The navy was in desperate need of men and officers and recruited, when possible, from the Confederate Army. In later years, Thomas Wragg’s son, Samuel, wrote that his father had fought in both battles at Bull Run/Manassas. If he indeed was with the Eighth Georgia Infantry during the summer of 1862, he also would have fought in the following engagements: Seven Days Battles (June 25–July 1), Malvern Hill (July 1), Rappahannock Station (August 23), Thoroughfare Gap (August 28), Second Bull Run/Manassas (August 28–30), and Sharpsburg/Antietam (September 17). The men of the Eighth Georgia continued to fight until April of 1865, when they accompanied General Lee to Appomattox. By then, with just over 100 men left to surrender to the Union, many of the young men who joined with Thomas Wragg in May of 1861 were either dead, wounded, in prison or in hospitals, or sent home. Of the 120 officers and men who eventually composed the totals of Company B and former OLI, “Seven had been killed, seventeen wounded, twenty six died in service, six promoted in ranks (and moved on to other units) and forty had been discharged.”28 In December of 1862, Private Wragg became Master Wragg, and his path and that of Company B of the Eighth Georgia separated. For Thomas Wragg, after spending more than a year in the trenches as a private, life on board ship might have appeared an appealing alternative. It would prove to be not much better, if at all. When Wragg returned home, he made a visit to the Laurel Grove Cemetery in Savannah. In a style reminiscent of English poet Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” he attempted to put into words his grief over the deaths he witnessed at Bull Run, particularly Colonel Bartow, the man who recruited him, John Branch, his adjutant, and the others of Company B and the Eighth Georgia.29 It is the first indication of his emotional turmoil, his “peculiar disposition for solitude” and “death wish,” which would become more pronounced after the war.

All Quiet on the Eastern Front Laurel Grove In a graveyard? And who would think that I would select this city of the dead as a place for reverie, but such it is. My peculiar disposition for solitude prompts me to enter its gates and here I am. In looking around for some secluded spot where I can be hid from the view of some passing wanderer like myself, my eye rests upon an old dilapidated tombstone where I at once direct my steps. Below me runs a little brook. Its clear waters dancing over the snow white pebbles in its silvery bed. Here and there is a bright sparkle of the warm sun where rays can just penetrate the thick foliage of live oak draped with Southern moss, giving to them the appearance of stately mourners weeping for the noble dead beneath them. I am alone: how pleasant it is to be thus situated where one can chase his thoughts and follow by connecting links, the happiness and grief that have by turn brightened or caste a shadow over his past life. To realize his present condition and to picture to himself his future lot. But enough of such dismal thoughts—I will walk alone and see who have been summoned before one to the “great throne of our Maker.” Before I start, let me look at this little timeworn stone upon which I have been sitting. Alas, it is a little infant girl, Sallie D, “only daughter of Chas. and Catherine D-Born Feb 9th 1820; died May 5, 1820, not yet three months old.” Oh: how I envy this little sleeper of its secluded and forgotten spot. How would she like to rest in my place beneath this time worn spot? She must have been a stranger for no stone monuments marks the place where father or mother was placed beside her, or perhaps they left for some place where they could mourn in quiet and bury their deep sorrow for this their only pride. Fare thee well little sleeper. I only envy your place. I pass many graves on my way to a tall monument that I see in the distance. Some of them seem well taken care of while others alas are entirely forgotten. Oh time then healer of all sorrow. You have again triumphed here and weaned the once devoted wife from all feelings of anguish. But who is this who lies beneath this pile. Ah, yes, a brave and gallant youth, who perished while nobly battling in defense of his country and his home, J. B. [John Branch] adjutant of the 8th Ga.Regiment, killed June 21st, 1861, Manassas, Virginia. Not many steps from him lies the noble, brave and generous “Bartow,” slaughtered with seven others of Savannah’s bravest youths in the same battle. Oh God, oh, God such is thy will. We will forever praise Thee still. But now my heart is full. I could view this sad sight no longer. . . .

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3

Naval Notebook, on Board the CSS Georgia, Savannah Squadron 1863

In preparing a ship and disciplining the crew for service, fitness of battery, skill in its use, and preservation of the military stores, are regarded as objects of paramount importance for although in other respects well provided, clean and neatly rigged, and with an active crew, if the battery be imperfect in its construction, condition or appointments, or if through carelessness or false estimate of its importance the instruction and exercise are either of them neglected, so that her gunnery is ineffective, the ship will imperfectly fulfill the chief purpose of her employment, be at best but an expensive pageant, and prove really as harmless as a great scarecrow. J. H. Ward in Thomas L. Wragg’s notebook

Thomas Wragg received his appointment to the Confederate Navy in his hometown, Savannah, Georgia, and was assigned to the Savannah River Squadron at Fort Jackson, located fifteen miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean. On December 25, 1862, he became a master’s mate and

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Naval Notebook, on Board the CSS Georgia


8. Master T. L. Wragg, Spring of 1863, Savannah River Squadron

9. Engraving of ironclad, CSS Georgia

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five months later, May 27, 1863, was appointed acting master. He was initially assigned to the ironclad “floating battery,” the CSS Georgia, until June 1, 1863, when he was detached and reassigned to the ironclad CSS Atlanta.1 During the Civil War, Fort Jackson on the Savannah River was in an ideal location to provide a major defense for the city, since it guarded Savannah from attack via either the Savannah or the Wilmington rivers. On February 28, 1861, a former captain in the U.S. Navy and a Savannah resident, Josiah Tattnall, was appointed to command the newly created Confederate Naval Squadron at Fort Jackson. In March 1861, Tattnall was appointed captain in the Confederate States Navy and commander of naval defense of Georgia and South Carolina.2 President Lincoln had ordered a coastal blockade of the Confederacy to prevent the South from receiving war materials, and the South had to find the means to break through this blockade. On March 11, 1862, shortly after the battle between the Virginia and the Monitor at Hampton Roads, the Confederate Navy resolved to cease construction of wooden boats and begin construction of ironclads. The ladies of Savannah met and formed “The Ladies Gunboat Association” to raise the funds for building ironclads. The CSS Georgia was the first one constructed, built by local carpenters, Confederate soldiers and men inexperienced in the construction of an ironclad. Completed in the fall of 1862, the Georgia was the first ship to which Thomas Wragg was assigned. On her trial run in the fall of 1862, with a crew of 13 officers, 109 men, and captained by Lieutenant Washington Gwathmey, she proved to have an inadequate propulsion system and never sailed again. Instead, she became a floating battery in defense of the city and was moored near Elba Island in the Savannah River. Used in this capacity, the CSS Georgia provided a major deterrent to attack from the sea.3 The Georgia was scuttled at the end of the war to avoid capture by General Sherman’s army. Lying on the floor of the Savannah River, the ship was found to be a major obstruction to commerce as early as 1866, when the site was dynamited by a Mr. Welles under a U.S. Treasury Department contract. Split into at least two parts, the ship was further damaged over the years by subsequent harbor dredging. The Georgia’s remains now lie opposite Fort Jackson, marked by a buoy, with plans to


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raise what’s left of her. The Savannah District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Georgia Ports Authority initiated investigation of the wreck site, and the Coastal Heritage Society is instrumental in the Georgia’s recovery process and planning for her eventual exhibition. No reliable pictures of the CSS Georgia exist, and the ship’s actual dimensions and configuration may never be known. However, according to recent archaeological evaluations, her dimensions are estimated to have been 120 feet in length by 44 feet in width, with a weight of 900 tons.4 Wragg spent five months training with the crew of the CSS Georgia under the command of Lieutenant Oscar F. Johnston. Johnston was formerly a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy who received his appointment from Tennessee. He became an acting lieutenant in the C.S. Navy on May 16, 1861, and first lieutenant Provisional Navy on June 2, 1864. He served in Savannah on the CSS Resolute from 1861–62 and in 1862–63 on the CSS Georgia.5 After Master Wragg was assigned to the Savannah River Squadron and the CSS Georgia, he studied ordnance and gunnery and kept a notebook during his studies.6 The notebook consists of four elements: miscellaneous data concerning ordnance and gunnery, material copied from a book by James Harmon Ward, two essays (“Laurel Grove” and “Fort Sinai”), and poetry. One of Wragg’s contemporaries and fellow naval officers, “Master McAvoy” (Charles McEvoy, who served in the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrology in Richmond from 1862–64), invented a “Friction fuze” in 1862, which Master Wragg drew and compared to other kinds of fuses used in igniting guns (the English Naval percussion fuse, the French Naval percussion shell, and the Splingard concussion fuse).7 Wragg included two charts of gun crews showing the total number of arms and their distribution: an eight-man crew having swords, revolvers, pistols, rifles, muskets and battle axes, for a total of fifteen weapons; and a twenty-four-man crew with its complement of weaponry—swords, revolvers, pistols, muskets, battle axe, pikes—totaling forty-four weapons. The first official ordnance manual for the U.S. Navy was published in 1852: the Bureau of Ordnance, Navy Department’s Instruction in Relation to the Preparation of Vessels of War for Battle, to the Duties of



10. Page from Thomas Wragg’s CSS Georgia naval notebook, Part I, Section I

Officers and Others When at Quarters, and to Ordnance Stores (Washington, 1852). A later edition appeared in 1860. Wragg appears to have used both editions in making his sketches and drawings of the shell gun ([6], below) and identification of its parts (1852) and the Marsilly carriage ([7], below), for Wragg’s drawing of the IXin Shell Gun is very similar to the 1860 edition (A. same; B. rear transom, in place of rear axle; C. Breast piece; D. Sweep pieces fixed below port sill; H. same; K. roller hand spike; L. same). His sketch of the Naval Truck Carriage ([3], below) and its nomenclature has the features of the truck carriage in the 1860 edition, with the addition of item 22, “two axle


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stays,” under “Metal Parts,” below; and item 23, “handspike shoe,” also under “Metal Parts,” which did not appear until an edition published in 1866 (Bureau of Ordnance, Ordnance Instruction for the United States Navy, Washington GPO, 1866), three years after Wragg made his notes.8 Wragg also copied extensively in his notebook from a book by James Harmon Ward. Ward was “one of the most scholarly officers in his service and was a recognized authority on ordnance and naval tactics.” In addition, he was the first Federal naval officer killed in the war. Ward was killed in June 1861 by a rifle bullet fired from shore while leading the Potomac Flotilla at Mathias Point near Washington, D.C. Ward’s book, An Elementary Course of Instruction on Ordnance and Gunnery, was first published in 1845, adapted from a course he gave at the Naval School in Philadelphia, and in 1852 it was adopted as a textbook at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. “This book became widely known and exerted a real influence on the improvement of naval science. . . . [Ward] urged upon the government the necessity of establishing a naval school, and when the naval school, later the Naval Academy, was opened at Annapolis in October 1845 he was appointed to be executive officer, a post soon designated as commandant of midshipmen. He also acted as head of the department of ordnance and gunnery.”9 Out of approximately 188 pages of notes, Master Wragg’s notebook entries contain more than 150 pages from Ward’s book. While the Civil War raged around him, Wragg copied the following: “In opening the instruction proposed, it may not be uninteresting, or without its use in exciting a spirit of inquiry, to notice briefly the ancient modes of sea fighting, giving some accounts of the artillery employed by the Greeks and Romans, and during the middle ages until the discovery of gun powder, and trace the invention and improvements in cannon from their earliest use, through intervening maritime wars to the present time.” The notes from Ward’s book proceed to become a lesson in physics. An example from the latter section states: “The effective resistance to small balls is greater than to large, because the absolute resistance they both meet, being upon the surfaces, which are as squares of the diameters of the ball, and their forces to overcome resistance are as their weights, which are as the cubes of the diameters; therefore, as cannon balls increase in diameter, their force to overcome atmospheric resistance increases faster than the resistance itself increases, and the large ball is less retarded than the small one.”


Naval Ordnance and Gunnery, 1863, Savannah Squadron, C.S. Navy, Notes taken by Master Thomas Lowndes Wragg Pictures, Charts, and Nomenclature [1] Distribution and Arms of Men at the Guns [a] Chart of Pivot gun crew of 24 men and a Powder man (swords, revolvers pistols, muskets, Battle axe, Pikes) [b] Chart of Gun Crew of 8 Man and Powder men (swords, revolvers pistols, rifles, muskets, & Battle axe)


11. Chart of gun crew of twenty-four men and powder man: distribution and number of arms



12. Chart of gun crew of eight men and powder man: distribution and number of arms

[2] Fuzes (illustration 13) The English Naval percussion fuze has three brass hammers supported by wires in cavities in the shell. Opposite the ends of these hammers is placed fulminating powder communicating with the shell, the shock of the shell striking is supposed to break the hammer or one of them from their fastenings and cause the explosion by impact against the fulminate.

***** The French Naval percussion shell has a breaker of iron attached to the steel screw and to the breaker is attached a cord passing through chlorite of potash and sulpherite of antimony. By the shock the steel screw to explode the shell, must break, when the cord draws through the substance mentioned, causes explosion.

***** The Splingard concussion fuze consists of a hollow cone of gypsum, which has its base to the interior of the shell and its exterior firmly

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68 A Confederate Chronicle packed around with mealed powder, burns during the flight, and when the shell strikes, the cone is unsupported and is broken by the shock, when the flame is communicated to the interior and produces explosion.

McAvoy Friction Fuze Before placing the shell in the gun, pull off the patch from the fuze and attach the wooden cap, then insert the shell in the gun. The cap should go firmly down on the brass flange of the fuze stick. If it does not fit, cut out a little by running the blade of a knife around its lower rim. This wooden cap is intended to ignite the fuze at inst of discharge by the inertia of the friction weight within it and without the aid of the flame from the charge. Invented by acting Master McAvoy, CS Navy 1862.

[3] Diagram of Naval Truck Carriage (illustration 14) [4] Nomenclature of Ordinary Truck Carriage Wooden Parts Carriage: A. Brackets of large carriage are made each of two pieces joined by a jog -a and dowelled. The remaining parts of the brackets are the trunnion holes -b, steps -c quarter rounds -d, and arch -e. B. Transoms let into brackets C. Brest pieces in two parts; the inner part fixed by two bolts into Transom; the outer part moveable, connected by hinges. D. Front and rear axletrees consisting of the square Body -f and arms -g jogged into brackets. F. Dumb trucks H. Quoin

Implements: I. Hand spikes K. Chocking quoin. Metal Parts Carriage: 1. Two cap squares 2. Four cap squares Two keys and chains 3. Two bracket bolts 4. Two rear axle tree bolts 5. Two side tackle eye bolts



13. Sketch of Splingard fuse and “McAvoy friction fuze”

14. Diagram of a naval truck carriage

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70 A Confederate Chronicle 6. One train tackle eye bolts 7. One transporting eye bolts 8. Two breast bolts 9. Two hinges of brest pieces 10. Two transom bolts (upper and lower) 11. Two breeching side bolts and shackles and pins 12. Bed bolt 13. Four axletree bands 14. Chafing plates of step and brackets 15. Four linchpins and washers 16. Quoin plate and stop 17. Ratchet for quoin stop 18. Four training loops 19. Breeching Thimble (cast iron) 20. Side shackle bolts for breechings 21. Shackle pins, plates and rings 22. Two axle stays 23. Hand spikes shoe

[5] Sketch of Boat Howitzer


15. Sketch of a boat howitzer, U.S.N.


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[6] Shell Gun

A.L.Cascabel

tt Trunnions rr Rimbases l Reinforce light mass M Breech light mass n Lock piece v Vent b-c Length of bore b Bottom of bore GH Muzzle

a-t base of breech d neck e jaws f block and pin

AB Breech AC Curve of base ring BD lst reinforce DE 2nd reinforce EF Curve of reinforce FG Chase AH Length of gun. 1⁄ 2 of chase ring g neck h swell i lip and fillet e face


16. Sketch of a shell gun and identification of its parts

[7] Marsilly Carriage for IX-in Shell Gun (illustration 17) A. D-E I F H L

The lowest piece of the Bracket in place of rear Truck of ordinary carriage Sweep Pieces (fixed) Fixed below the port-bill Moveable with brass catches and hooks and eyes Elevating screw and lever with saucer (I) in place of bed and quoin Loop for hand spike



17. Sketch of a Marsilly carriage for a IX-in shell gun

[8] Watercolor of Rodman 15 Inch Gun: 55 tons

18. Watercolor by Thomas L. Wragg of Rodman 15 inch Gun—55 tons


[9] Columbiad [Rodman] This gun, when mounted on Barbelle carriages, have a vertical field of fire of 360 degrees. Those of the old pattern were chambered, but they are now cast without and are greatly improved. The 10 in weighs 15.400 lbs and is 126 inches long. The 8 in is 124 in long and weighs 9.240 lbs. Rodman’s 15 in was cast at Pittsburg, Penn. [Fort Pitt Foundry] under the direction of Capt. Rodman, USA, who conceived the design which he has executed of casting guns of large size hollow and by means of a current of water introduced into the core which forms mould of the bore, cooling it from the interior and thus making the metal about the bore the hardest and densest and giving the whole thickness of metal subjected to the internal strain, its maximum strength. It has the following dimensions, viz

Total length Length of bore Ellipsional Chamber Length of Bore including chamber Distance between Rimbases Maximum exterior diam Diameter at the muzzle Thickness of metal behind Chamber Thickness of metal at Junction w.chamber Thickness of metal at muzzle Diameter of shell Weight of gun Weight of shell Bursting charge of shell

190 inches 156 " 9“ 165 " 48 " 48 " 25 " 25 " 16 1⁄ 2 " 5" 14.9 " 49.100 lbs 3.20 " 17 "

The gun was fired and maneuvered during the trials at Fort Monroe with great facility being manned by a Sargent and 6 negroes. The times for loading were 1'. 15" and 1.30". Time in transversing 90" .2'20" and in turning back 45 degrees 1' time in loading including depression and elevation 4' and 3'.18". The (mean) ranges at 6 degrees elevation of ten shots was 1.936 yds and the mean lateral deviation 2 yds 35 lbs of 6 inch grain powder being the charge and 7" the time of flight. At 10 degrees elevation and 40 lbs of powder (large grain) the range was .2.700 yds and the time of flight 11".48. At 28 degrees 35' elevation the range was 5.730 yds time of flight 27" and the lateral deviation was slight.

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[10] Watercolor of “Great English Six 100 Pounder Armstrong Gun”


19. Watercolor by Thomas L. Wragg of “Great English Six 100 Pounder Armstrong Gun”

[11] Chart of U.S. Ordnance Size 9 inch 10 " 11 " 15 " 20 " 8" 10 " 15 " 20 " 8" 10 " 18 " 4 1⁄ 2"

Service Weight Navy 9.100 " 1116.000 " 16.000 " 43.900 " 100.000 Army 8.400 " 15.900 " 49.100 " 116–497 Howitzer Mortar " Rifle

15 in Navy gun is 17 ft 5 in long 15 in Army gun is 17 ft 9 in long.

Projectile Shell Ball Shell Ball Ball Ball Ball Ball Ball Shell Shell Shell Ball

Weight of Projectile 70 lbs 70 " 130 " 450 " 1000 " 64 " 128 " 450 " 1000 " 50 " 84 " 200 " 36 "


[12] Rifle Banded 6.4 Charge 7 lbs/Weight of Projectile 70 lbs Elevation level 1° 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Weight

Range* 370 yds 748 1246 1612 1940 2245 2532 2805 3060 3304 3545 3782 4000 4216 4414 4610 4800 4980 5160 5336 5508 5678 5840 6000

Diff

468 369 328 305 287 273 255 244 241 237 218 216 198 196 190 180 180 176 172 170 162 160

Time of Flight 1.67 3.08 432 5.22 6.46 7.66 8.75 9.80 10.78 11.84

*With Tennessee Zabot, range is less by 150 yds. Range of 6.4 and 7 in. Rifle is very near the same.

[13] Mensuration: To find the solidity of a sphere; To find the Weight of a Shell. To find the Solidity of a Sphere Multiply the cube of the diameter by .5236 and the product will be the content required. Example: What if the contents of a Sphere whose diameter is 10 inches. 10 (3)=1000 and 1000 x .5236 cubic in If it should be a cast iron shot, by multiplying the solidity by .2607 will give the weight. Example: 523.6 x .2607= 136,50.252 = weight of shot

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76 A Confederate Chronicle To find the Weight of a Shell Multiply the difference of the cubes of the exterior and interior diameters of the shell by 0.134 for the Weight in pounds. Example: What if the weight of a shell whose diameter is 64. Exterior Diameter 6.40 Thickness of shell 1.75 Interior diam 4.65 6.40(3) = 265.8 4.65(3) = 100.5 Diff 165.3 x 0134 = 22.167 Weight of shell Also Multiply the cubes of the difference of the Exterior and interior diameters of the shell by .5236 For the solidity & by .2607 for the Weight. Example: Required the Solidity & Weight of a Shell Whose diameter is 10 inches being the bore of “gun.” Exterior diameter 9.85 inches Thickness of shell 2.00 inches = 1 inch on each side Interior diameter 7.85 inches 9.85(3) = 955.671 7.85(3) = 483.736 Diff = 472.135 x 5236 = (solidity) 247.2—x .2607 = lbs 64.44504 weight of Shell. Required—the solidity and weight of a shot for a 15 in gun. Diameter of shot 14.853=3273.27x.5236=1713.88 cubic in. x .2607=446.80 lbs Weight and Solidity of a shell for 15 in. gun: Exterior Diameter of shell 14.85(x3)=3274.75 Thickness Diameter of shell 3.00-1 1⁄ 2 inches on each side 11.85 (x3)= 1664.00 1660.75x .5236 843.38-x260l=219.86 lbs Weight of Solidity of a cored shot for a 15 inch gun: Diameter of shot 14.85 (x3)=3273.27x .5236=1713.88 11.85 4.00(x2)x11.85=189.60x.7854= 148.911-1713.88= 1529.97x .2607= 398.86 ——lbs weight of shot


Material from James Harmon Ward’s textbook “An Elementary Course in Naval Ordnance and Gunnery” Part I Section I. History of Naval Ordnance and Gunnery Naval ordnance embraces the battery or that which is intended for the battery of a ship. Ordnance equipment and stores, are whatever is used to mount, handle, or serve such battery. Field pieces, boat guns, and musketry are not strictly classed as ordnance, though they form an important part of the armament. Naval gunnery means the use of the battery afloat in battle; also the practice with it and drill of the personnel at it, as a preparation for battle. In preparing a ship and disciplining the crew for service, fitness of battery, skill in its use, and preservation of the military stores, are regarded as objects of paramount importance for, although in other respects well provided, clean and neatly rigged, and with an active crew, if the battery be imperfect in its construction, condition or appointments, or if through carelessness or false estimate of its importance the instruction and exercise are either of them neglected, so that her gunnery is ineffective, the ship will imperfectly fulfill the chief purpose of her employment, be at best but an expensive pageant, and prove really as harmless as a great scarecrow. In opening the instruction proposed, it may not be uninteresting, or without its use in exciting a spirit of inquiry, to notice briefly the ancient modes of sea fighting, give some accounts of the artillery employed by the Greeks and Romans, and during the middle ages until the discovery of gun powder, and trace the invention and improvements in cannon from their earliest use, through intervening maritime wars to the present time. The Greeks, and subsequently the Romans and other ancients, fought in galleys propelled by oars, which were arranged in banks, one, two, and sometimes three deep. Their contests were principally decided by boarding and depended much on personal prowess as well as numbers. The galleys were constructed with heavy iron beaks, to destroy an opponent, by piercing or crushing her sides. It was customary, however, to use a species of artillery. The Greeks threw by means of a machine, a composition known as Greek fire, which is represented to have been inextinguishable, and with which they destroyed an enemy while at a distance. The Romans used the catapulta for throwing darts and javelins. This

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78 A Confederate Chronicle catapulta was a machine acting upon the elastic principle of the bow: twisted hides being drawn to their utmost tension, and then sprung communicating high velocities. Sometimes suffocating mixtures, in earthen jars, were thrown upon an enemy’s decks to stifle and blind the crew or venomous reptiles were thrown in the same way to produce terror and dismay. The catapulta was the light artillery of the ancients and as such fitted for use on their light vessels. Their heavy artillery was the balista too heavy for use afloat. In the middle ages, especially during the crusades, various other means of annoying a distant enemy from vessels were devised. The English galleys used windmills which, turning rapidly, threw by centrifugal force, heavy stones, combustible balls and other missiles. There are enumerated in the books twelve different machines for throwing missiles which had common use in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but their forms, construction, and manner of use are entirely lost to history. In 1320 gunpowder was invented by Friar Schwartz, a German. There is reason to believe that an English monk, Roger Bacon, was acquainted with its properties in the preceding century. But the German friar (the monastic institutions processing in those days nearly all the science extant) engaged with a composition of saltpetre and charcoal, accidentally fired it, which threw a stone to a great distance. This circumstance suggested the use of the composition in war, as an agent for projecting heavy bodies from cannon. The earliest uses of this new description of artillery are noticed as having occurred at Cressy, by the Black Prince, in 1346, on land; and at sea, in 1350 in an action between the Moorish King of Seville and the King of Tunis; and again by the Venetians in 1380. On this last occasion, it is remarkable that nations generally exclaimed against its use, as unfair in war. It was not then foreseen, as has since proved the case, that gentlemen would render war, especially in naval battles, less sanguinary. Anciently, the object in sea engagements was to board, and in hand to hand combats destroy life. But the chief effort now in fighting ships with guns, is to cripple or destroy the ship, which accomplished, men are compelled by necessity to surrender. The first guns in use were constructed with bars of wrought iron, hooped together by iron rings, and threw leaden balls. The next step in gunmaking produced brass ordnance of enormous calibre, throwing stone balls of a weight equal, in some instances, to 1,200 pounds. Louis

Naval Notebook, on Board the CSS Georgia XI had a celebrated gun of this calibre and Mahomet II breached the walls of Constantinople at the siege of that city in 1449 with a gun and balls of this description. Next, both wrought-iron and brass-cast guns came into use, of a much reduced size, throwing castiron balls. These wrought-iron guns were made by welding bars together which were formed to a perfect cylindrical shell, and this was hooped with several strong iron rings. There have been recovered, not long since from the “Mary Rose,” an English vessel of war sunk by the French fleet on the coast of England in 1545, two guns—one of wrought iron, constructed as just described, and the other of brasscast. The brass gun contained an iron ball. Until so late, however, as the year 1558 when castiron guns were introduced, more than two hundred years after the discovery of gun powder, cannon do not appear to have been so securely made, as not to produce by their liability to cause as much apprehension amongst those who served them as among the enemy; and until that time, had not entirely superseded the ancient artillery. Sometime later in the thirteenth century or early in the fourteenth century, the polarity of the needle was discovered, but precisely when, by whom, in what country, or under what circumstances, is not known. The Portuguese had, by end of it, ventured largely on the ocean; but its first great effects were developed in the voyage of Columbus, which resulted in the discovery of the Western world, in 1492. The Portuguese had, six years earlier, costed the entire Western shore of Africa and doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and six years later, 1498, the same people discovered the passage to India. The ocean, which had been a barrier between nations, now, through these discoveries, and by aid of the compass, became the most convenient highway of communications. The Venetians in the Mediterranean, the Portuguese in the east and Spaniards in the west held possessions and attempted each to monopoly the Commerce of those regions. Nations contended for and against this monopoly. Maritime wars, in consequence, assumed an importance they had never before held. Commerce afforded the means of prosecuting these wars and gunpowder rendered them formidable and destructive. The first great naval combat growing out of this new state of things was fought at Lipanto between the Turks and the Venetians in 1577. The vessels on both sides were mostly galleys armed with light cannon, but the Venetians had six ships showing through port holes three long heavy guns on each side. These ships withstood the whole English force and contributed mainly to the result of that bloody day. This is probably the

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80 A Confederate Chronicle first notable instance on record of the decisive effect of smaller numbers of heavy ordnance or larger numbers of smaller caliber. In the year 1588, Philip the II of Spain ostracized the world with the celebrated “Armada” which threatened the coast of England but which was defeated and finally left or otherwise destroyed in the British seas. The fleet consisted of 132 vessels with an aggregate tonnage of 1.3.120, carried 3.165 guns, and 30,000 people including mariners and soldiers. The largest of these vessels measured 1550 tons, carried 30 guns and 422 persons. Another of them, of 1200 tons carried 50 guns, 1,360 persons; which last was about the prevailing proportion of tonnage, guns and men, to the fleet. An English force opposed consisted of 175 ships, of 29740 tons, and 14,500 men. The size of the English ships and the nature of the armament of both fleets may be inferred from what follows: The “Grace de Dieu,” a famous British ship built by Henry VIII in 1520, measured 1.000 ton, carried a battery of 103 iron pieces and 19 brass pieces, and personnel of 349 soldiers, 300 marines, 250 gunners; total 700. Of her armament, it is remarked, “that though appearing to mount 120 guns, she had in reality only 34 worthy to be called cannon, the rest being made up of falconettes, serpentines, & valinettes carrying from one to three pound balls.” This ship must have been in the fleet opposed to the “Armada,” and may be taken as a specimen of the British batteries. The “Royal Prince,” another famous vessel built in 1610, twenty years after the “Armada” was destroyed, was of 1.500 tons burthern, about the size of the largest Spanish ships, and carried 55 guns: which is what Spanish ships of her size carried. It may, therefore, be inferred that her battery, in its nature and weight corresponded with that of the Spanish ships. Of the 55 pieces carried by the “Prince,” 2 were “cannon petronel”, or 24 pounders; six were demi-cannon, medium 32 pounders; 12 were “culverins,” or 18-pounders (which were nine feet long with 177 pounds of metal to one of shot.) 18 were mini-culverins or 9 pounders: 13 were “Lakers” or 5 pounders, 6 feet long with upwards of 200 pounds of metal to one of shot; and 4 were “front pieces” probably swivels. These guns were dispersed; on the lower gun deck, two 24 pounders; on the upper gun deck, the battery was entirely of 9 pounders; and the quarter deck and forecastle were armed with 5 pounders and the brood of popguns that in those days swelled the nominal armament of ships. In 1637, Charles I built the “Sovereign of the Seas,” more famous than any other ship which had proceeded and unequaled by any afloat in her

Naval Notebook, on Board the CSS Georgia time. She mounted on three gun decks, 86 guns. On the lower deck were 30 long 24 pounders and medium 32 pders; on her middle deck thirty 12pdrs and 9pdrs on the upper decks. “Other light ordnance,” and on her quarter deck, forecastle and elsewhere “numbers of murdering pieces.” This shows an increase of the size of ships and number of guns since the preceding reign; but it may be remarked that the increase is principally in “lighter ordnance” and “other murdering pieces”; so that according to our modern estimation, which will be shown, little addition was made to real and substantial efficiency. It may here be remarked, in the chain of improvement in naval ordnance, that the mortar was first used afloat in 1679 at the French attack on Algiers. It was then discharged from a bomb ketch, precisely as at the present time. The ketch-rig was invented then and is continued without change. In the severe and obstinately protracted contests Blake and Van Trompe in Cromwell’s time, it does not appear that the ships or batteries differed in any material degree from those contemporaneous in construction with the “Sovereign of the Seas.” Indeed, with a single exception, that ship remained at the time of the British revolution, a whole reign after Cromwell’s death, the most formidable ship, both in size and battery in the British navy. And this, if the Dutch ships were similarly armed, explains why those ships fought a battle that was protracted through three days, for as will hereafter be seen, there were few guns, in either fleet capable of penetrating a heavy ships sides and sinking her, even at close quarters. Armed as ships now are, and with tolerable gunnery, one or the other, or both parties must be entraped in a few hours at most. No marked alteration in the batteries of ships appears to have occurred down to the destruction of the French and Spanish maritime forces at Trafalgar in 1806. Carronades of small weight and great calibre had taken the place in many cases, of the 9 and 12 pounder long guns and in consequence, a nearer approach to uniformity of calibre had obtained in the batteries of ships. How far this is true, will appear by stating the batteries of the “Santissima Trinidada,” the heaviest ship of the combined fleet, and of the “Victory” and others of the British fleet. The “Santissima Trinidada” was built in “Havana” in 1769. She then mounted 126 guns viz, on the lower gun deck 30 long 36pders, on the second deck 32 long 18 pdrs, on the third deck 32 long 12 pdrs, and on the spar-deck, thirty two 8 pdrs. At Trafalgar she is said, in the British

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82 A Confederate Chronicle accounts, to have had 140 guns, which number must have included swivels and cohorns, mounted for the occasion. The Spanish seventy-fours, in that action had 53 long 24pdrs on the gundecks; on the spar deck 10 iron 36 pdrs carronades, and 4 long 8 pdrs; and on the poop, 6 iron 24 pdrs carronades: total 78 guns and a formidable battery. The French and Spanish ships had cohorns mounted in the tops and one or two field pieces with carriages and apparatus complete, were notable on the spar deck. “Victory,” the English flag ship on board which Lord Nelson fell, mounted on her three gun decks, 90 long 32-24 and 12 pdrs on the quarter decks and forecastle 10 long 12 pdrs and two 68 pdr carronades. The British second rates, in that action, had, for new and strong ships, 24 pdrs on the lower decks, and for old and weaker ships, 18 pdrs. The British ship “Tamerlane,” the best armed for her rate in the fleet, had 56 long 32 pdrs and 30 long 18 pdrs on the gun decks, and on the spar deck, twelve 32 pdr carronades and 4 long 18pdrs. At a single broadside, the weight of metal thrown by The “Santissima” was 1.190 pounds * The “Victory” was 1.180 pounds (*The “Wabash” and her class threw nearly 1.700 pounds at a broadside.) The United States ship “Delaware” throws a weight of 1.814 pounds. It will be seen, in the progress of the course, that nearly every shot from this ship, had she been in that action, would have penetrated the sides of every ship there; whereas, not much more than half the shot thrown by the ships actually there, could penetrate, even at the most moderate distances. In thus briefly tracing the history of Ordnance, it appears that early fabrications, adopting an idea of the ancients in favor of missiles of the most ponderous practicable dimensions, constructed guns of mammoth proportions to contain those missiles. It was soon found however, that those guns were too heavy for transportation or maneuvering, and their shot too heavy for handling with that facility essential to rapid firing. Both guns and shot were therefore reduced in calibre and dimensions: and for the shot a denser material, iron, was introduced. Iron shot first came in use about the year 1490. Leaden shot, still more dense than iron, were, as has been remarked, employed at an earlier date; but that substance proved two soft, as well as too costly. In reducing the calibre of guns the world proceeded from one extreme to the other and until within twenty years regarded the 18-pdr as that which afforded the happy

Naval Notebook, on Board the CSS Georgia mean, between too light a gun on the one hand for effect, and too great weight on the other for maneuvering of gun or rapid manipulation of shot. Accordingly, the long 18pdr came into general use as the favorite battering-piece. The next higher calibre was occasionally used on the lower decks of heavy ships whose antagonists, commonly had thick sides, required shot of greater penetration than the 18 pdr. But for the upper decks of ships, this favorite gun was found too heavy; besides occupying owing to its length, too much room. Its weight strained the upper works, and injured the stability. Nine pounders were therefore substituted in these decks. But that calibre did not give momentum, or weight of blow enough, for effect. This suggested the carronade, of great calibre and light weight, invented by General Melville,* and introduced in 1790. (*More properly deduced from his invention of a 68 pounder with the make and proportion of a carronade.) A 32-pdr. carronade and carriage weighs but little if any more than a long 9.pdr. and carriage. No weight was added therefore, by substituting the 32 pound carronade for the long nine pounder, but much was gained in effect, especially at short ranges. For, when the percussive force of the 9 pdrs shot at the highest velocity from a long gun is only 14.000 pounds, that of a 32 pound carronade shot is 25.000 pounds, or nearly double. What the carronade lacked in accuracy, in consequence of its reduced charge and length, was thought to be compensated by the greater niceness of its bore, and the reduced windage of its shot; for the art of boring guns was formerly so imperfect, that a gun could not be bored if long to admit safely the reduced windage admissible in a shorter carronade. This distinction between the bores of carronades and long guns has not ceased to exist until within a few years, and when existing, was not universally known. [Three handwritten pages faded by water are barely legible.] [Sections II–VII that follow and Part II, Section I, are presented here in outline only.] Section II. Properties of Matter, Laws of Motion Inertia; Weight/gravity; Specific Gravity/density; Relations of Cause and Effect; Action & Reaction; Momentum of Quantity of Motion; Periodic Theory of Projectiles; Atmospheric Resistance; Effects of Atmospheric Resistance upon balls of different diameter, densities and velocities.

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84 A Confederate Chronicle Section III. Velocities of Balls; Experiments with Ballistic Pendulum Effects of Weights in guns on recoil; Effect of weight in guns on ranges of shot; Relative accuracy of Different Calibrated Guns at Distant Ranges; Relative Penetrations of Shot of same density/different diameters; Nature of Batteries for different classes of vessels. Section IV. Construction, Proof, Inspection and Preservation of Guns Construction of Guns, Construction & Equipment of Gun Carriages; & Trunnions; Bore; Concentricity; Vent Patch or Lock Peice & Vent Hole; Quality & Working of iron for guns; Inspection & Proof of Guns; Marks on Guns; Preservation of Guns; Mounting Guns in Ships Ports; Nomenclature and Proportions of the Carriage; Analysis of the Carriages; Gear to Carriages of Guns. Section V. Gunpowder, Its Fabrication and the Theory of Its Explosion Proportioning Charges of Powder for Guns of Different Weights, as Compared with their Shot; Changes for Double Shotted Long Guns, & for the 8 inch Paixham; Flannel Cylinders—Filling Powder; Reduced Charges of Gunpowder. Section VI. Casting Shot Windage; Eccentricity of Shot; Effects of Roughness of Surface and Eccentricity on the Accuracy of a Shot’s Flight; Inspection and Preservation of Shot; Wads. Section VII. Implements Used in Serving Guns Loading guns; Sponging and attending vent; Loading with cartridge and Ramming Hone; The use of Wads in Shotted Guns; Double-shotting guns; Loading with Round and Grape; Penetration of Shot; Penetration from Carronades; Firing with damaged powder; Ranges of Guns of different calibres and weights, at Point Blanc and at different angles of elevation; Ricochet Firing; Shells; Pointing and Sighting Guns; Dispart— Sights; Target Practice. Part II Section I. Metal for Guns Iron; Smelting; Rationale of the Process of Smelting; Wrought Iron and Steel


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[Sub-headings: Puddled Steel and Conclusion are missing—Notebook ran out of paper].

Wragg did not entirely have his mind on ordnance, however. Interspersed throughout the notebook are several pieces of prose, several unfinished poems, and five poems completed by him (in Appendix): In “Wert thou but mine,” Wragg longs for the woman whose love is waning (“I dream sweet dreams, and in their blessed light/I seem to feel their soft arms round me twine:/The vision fleeth with the shades of night,/But not my earnest prayer, ‘Wert thou but mine.’”) In the poem “To_______Picture,” he bids farewell to the picture of the girl who no longer cares for him (“Tell her the smile was not so dear/With which she made their semblance mine/As bitter is the burning tear/with which I now the gift resign”). “My Love and I” makes reference to Johnson’s Island, which is in Sandusky, Ohio. His friend Captain A. F. Butler, with whom he corresponded while in prison, was imprisoned there: “My love has all the world at will to roam/Three acres have I/She goes abroad or quiet sits at home/So cannot I./Bright angels watch around her couch at night,/A Yank with loaded gun keeps me in sight”). Two additional completed poems from Thomas Wragg’s naval notebook are: “To Keep a Secret of the Heart,” and “Ego,” the pseudonym he used when writing his poetry. The two essays by Wragg in the notebook are “Laurel Grove” (Chapter 2) and “Fort Sinai.” “Fort Sinai” appears to be an experiment at being a news reporter. Whether he ever sent it to a newspaper is not known, nor is the battle to which he refers. “Fort Sinai” The enemy having made demonstrations on the left of our line apparently with the intention of attacking that point and information reaching our generals of expected reinforcements, preparations were made for a warm reception and our troops disposed to best advantage. One division being stationed at some distance from the expected point of attack for the purpose of diverting, if possible, the intentions of the enemy and also as a Corp of observation, this division being rather weak did not come under fire during the action, but rendered material assis-

86 A Confederate Chronicle tance in furnishing couriers. All avenues and approaches being well guarded and finding the enemy obliged to advance from the front, two strong divisions were next stationed to prevent the threatened point from being taken by assault. Everything being in readiness our troops quietly awaited an advance from the enemy who were now plainly discerned making preparations to storm the line. Nature seemed in repose, the quiet sun shone down upon the scene in all its brightest rays. Not a leaf nor a blade of grass warned us by a nod or sigh of the storm soon to rage when widowed mothers would weep to think their offspring thus rudely dashed to and fro by heartless brutes with streaming hair and burning brow soon to sleep their last sleep in peace. Less time elapsed than it has taken to tell between the arrival of the enemies reinforcements and their first charge, but ere hostilities commenced a formal demand was made for the surrender of the fort ‘Sinai,’ which was as formally refused. Then came the shock of arms, girding themselves up in battle array with oaths of vengeance they rushed up to our brave command only to be signally repulsed, the first volly from our battalions being so well directed threw them into disorder, but finding only blank powder to contend with, new courage was diffused through their ranks and another charge was more effectively made. A partial entry into the fort was made by one of the guns, a ‘long Tom’ being partially disabled by a shock from a Battery Ram.

The significance of this notebook is, in part, that it exists at all, considering the number of reports that the men of the Savannah Squadron lacked training (see Chapter 4). By an act of the Confederate Congress on March 16, 1861, a naval school had been authorized, and Secretary of the Confederate Navy Stephen R. Mallory laid the foundations of the school on March 23, 1863, but the naval school did not go into action until July 23, 1863, on the James River. Lieutenant Oscar Johnston, commander of the floating battery CSS Georgia, in the fall of 1862 through the spring of 1863, later became a professor of astronomy, navigation, and surveying on the Patrick Henry after his tour with the Savannah Squadron, perhaps because of his reputation as an instructor in Savannah. Reports from numerous sources support the idea that the crew of the floating battery, the CSS Georgia on which Wragg trained, also had practical training and were a “body of well-drilled men”— “drilled with small arms as well as great guns.”10 The notebook thus stands not only as evidence to the existence of a fledgling Confederate


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naval “school” six months prior to the establishment of the Confederate Academy, but also, at least for six months in the spring of 1863, to the theoretical training of the officers of the Savannah Squadron. Approximately thirty of the CSS Georgia’s crewmen on its muster roll in November 1862, as well as Thomas Wragg, were subsequently transferred to the CSS Atlanta prior to the latter’s departure on its illfated mission.11

4

Capture of the CSS Atlanta, Wassaw Sound, Savannah June 17, 1863

As I have never had much luck in my life, this instance will not differ from the rest. Thomas L. Wragg

Shortly after the CSS Georgia completed its trial run, the CSS Atlanta was completed and commissioned at the end of November 1862. The CSS Savannah was not completed until the summer of 1863, and the Milledgeville was never converted into an ironclad. The Atlanta, converted from the British steamship Fingal, was the first of the ironclads to go into action.1 James D. Bulloch, the European agent for the Confederate States, bought the Fingal in Scotland in September 1861. On her return trip in November 1861, the Fingal sailed under the British flag, accompanied by Bulloch and Major Edward C. Anderson, former mayor of Savannah. She carried a cargo of ten thousand Enfield rifles, one million ball cartridges, two million percussion caps, three thousand cavalry sabers, one thousand short rifles and cutlass bayonets,

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The Capture of the CSS Atlanta

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one thousand rounds of ammunition per rifle, five hundred revolvers and ammunition, a couple of large rifled cannon, four hundred barrels of cannon powder, a lot of medical supplies, and material for clothing.2 The Fingal successfully ran the Union blockade of the harbor. However, she was never able to leave the harbor with the tightening of the northern blockade of the port. Therefore, it was decided she would have a better chance of breaking the blockade if she were converted to an ironclad. Writes Thomas J. Scharf: Her extreme length was 204 feet, breadth of beam 41 feet, draft of water 15 feet 9 inches. She was cut down to the main-deck, which was widened amidships and overlaid with a foot of wood and iron plating, and upon this foundation was built the casemate, the sides and end inclining at an angle of thirty degrees. The top of the casemate was flat, and the pilothouse rose above the roof about three feet. The sloping sides and ends of the casemate were covered with four inches of iron plates in two layers, secured to a backing of three inches of oak and fifteen inches of pine. A ram was attached to the bow, which was also fitted with a spar to carry a percussion torpedo. Her armament was two 7-inch Brooke guns on bow and stern pivots, and two six-inch Brooke rifles in broadside. The larger guns were so arranged that they could be worked in broadside as well as for fore-and-aft fire, and the ship could therefore fight two 7-inch and one 6-inch piece on either side.3

According to William Still, Jr., the “CSS Atlanta appeared to be similar to other Confederate armored ships,” but she had probably the “best propulsion” system of any Confederate ironclad. “As a merchant ship, she had made easily twelve knots an hour, but as an iron-clad, six to seven was the most that could be got out of her,” writes Scharf. However, she was undoubtedly the most powerful ship in the Confederate Navy, and there were high hopes for her success.4 Unfortunately for the Savannah River Squadron and the fate of the Atlanta, Confederate Secretary of the Navy S. R. Mallory transferred Josiah Tattnall from his post as commander of the Savannah Squadron and replaced him briefly with Commander Richard Page. Subsequently, in May 1863, Page was replaced with a less experienced officer, Commander William A. Webb. His most important prior assignment was as commander of the CSS Teaser at the Battle of Hampton Roads,



20. Model of CSS Atlanta, Savannah, Georgia


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Virginia, March 8–9, 1862.5 Webb had a reputation as an officer who acted before he thought. He had been promoted to assume command of the Savannah Squadron, and he was cocky and overconfident.6 Webb was determined to break the Union blockade as soon as possible. Discovering that the CSS Atlanta was short of officers and men, including a “lieutenant, master, one passed midshipman, and two additional engineers,” Webb made an official request to S. R. Mallory. This resulted in the transfer of more than thirty men from the ironclad CSS Georgia to the CSS Atlanta. In addition, Webb requested the transfer of James Fleetwood from the army to be a pilot of the Atlanta (although he was not known to have had any experience piloting in Georgia coastal waters), as Webb considered him “indispensable.” At the same time he asked for Fleetwood’s transfer, he also requested an increase in pay for Moses Dallas, a colored pilot who “is considered the best inland pilot on the coast.”7 In light of this last statement, it would appear to be very poor judgment to have selected Fleetwood from the army over Moses Dallas as one of the three men to pilot the CSS Atlanta on a very crucial mission. Thomas Wragg was, as a result Webb’s personnel requests, reassigned to the Atlanta on June 1, 1863. This assignment would prove to be particularly bad luck for him. On the evening of June 15, 1863, the Atlanta departed. Secretary Mallory recommended that Captain Webb wait until the Savannah was readied for service and could assist him, but Webb was impatient and intractable; he declined to wait. Webb had received word that the Union monitors Weehawken and Nahant and gunboat Cimarron would be blocking Wassaw Sound (see Map 6), and he was determined to leave at once. A year later, after being part of a prisoner exchange, Commander Webb submitted a report of the Atlanta’s encounter with the Federal fleet under the command of the Weehawken’s Captain John Rodgers. His report was included in a request for a court of inquiry into his role in the capture of the Atlanta by the U.S. fleet. It asserted that the ship was moving full steam ahead steering directly for the Federal ships and became grounded in mud prior to the firing of the guns. However, other reports state that the ship stopped, began firing, and then became grounded. According to Webb’s account, On the evening of June 15, 1863, at 6 p.m., I got underway and left Thunderbolt, Wassaw (Wilmington) River, to save the tide which

92 A Confederate Chronicle enabled the ship to go over the lower obstructions. At 8 p.m. I came to anchor and was occupied the entire night coaling. On the evening of the 16th, about dark, I proceeded down the river to a point of land which would place me (with)in 5 or 6 miles of the monitors, at the same time concealing the ship from their view, ready to move on them at early dawn the next morning. At 3:30 a.m. on the 17th, the tide then being a quarter flood, and everything favorable, I got underway with the hope of surprising the enemy. They made no move indicating a knowledge of my approach until I was within a mile or a mile and a half, steering for them under full steam. When we reached within three-fourths of a mile of them, the Atlanta touched the bottom. I immediately informed the pilots of the fact, and ordered the engines to be backed, but it was fully fifteen minutes before she was in motion, though the tide was rising fast. As soon as the ship was well afloat, I ordered the engines to go ahead, with the hope of turning her more into the channel, but she could not obey her helm, from the fact of the flood tide being on her starboard bow, and her bottom so near the ground. She was consequently forced upon the bank again. During this time the U. S. monitor Weehawken, being in motion and making for us, I ordered Lieutenant Barbot to open fire on her, thinking this would arrest her course and cause her to engage at the distance then between us; but on she came, unheeding my fire . . .8

By the end of the engagement, according to Webb, the Atlanta had fired seven shots, none of which hit their target, and the Weehawken had fired six shots, beginning when the ship was within two hundred yards of the Atlanta, three of which caused considerable damage, injury, and one death. Commander Webb reported that “The next . . . shot striking us was from her XV-inch gun and struck the starboard side port shutter of Master Wragg’s gun at a considerable angle (the Weehawken then being nearly on our quarter), breaking the shutter in half, ripping up the armor and throwing the fragments inside, and wounding and disabling for a time, half of the gun’s crew.” Thomas Wragg’s foot was slightly injured in the blast.9 Webb, in concluding his report, both praised and criticized his crew in a veiled attempt to find an excuse for his failed mission. “They all displayed those qualities which are inherent in brave men, combining coolness with perfect obedience, though the majority of the crew were from the mountains of Georgia and had but a limited idea of a ship of war,” he wrote. It is not possible to refute the idea that at least some of


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the crew were Georgia mountain men, since we don’t know their origins in all cases. However, thirty-six members of the crew were from Europe, including twenty-nine born in Ireland, three in England, one in Scotland, and one each in Germany, Belgium, and Funchal. Twenty crewmen and officers were from states other than Georgia—including a Spanish-American pilot, Thomas L. Hernandez, born in Fernandina, Florida.10 Also, the senior officers of the squadron were very sensitive to the idea of the proper drilling and training of new recruits, and they cautioned Webb about allowing them sufficient time to do it (although it amounted to a crash course in ordnance, gunnery, and seamanship for some, including Wragg) before assigning them to the ships. William N. Still, Jr., commented on this: “A number of newspaper accounts and at least one authority, H. W. Wilson, Ironclads in Action (2 vols., London, 1896, I, 98), emphasized the lack of training of the crew. This was not true. The diary of Midshipman Scales clearly indicates that the training at the guns was carried on continually.”11 If the truth were told, Webb himself had limited experience and proved himself not qualified for the job. Secretary Mallory had chosen to push aside the older and more experienced commanders, Josiah Tattnall and Richard Page, in the hope that a younger man would be willing to take more risk. Instead, Webb merely showed more bravado than good sense by not waiting for the assistance of the ironclad CSS Savannah and deciding to “go it alone.” In addition, more important than the crew’s experience, or lack of it, the men’s morale in the spring of 1863 was at a low ebb. The Union blockade of the city was taking its toll, and everything was in short supply. Even as early as the summer of 1862, “‘There is a spirit of disaffection & mutiny among all the Troops of this District which if not promptly checked by some severe examples,’ said an officer, ‘will become the means of ruining all if not the loss of this part of the State.’”12 Master Wragg saved an account of the incident that had been published in the Savannah Republican, probably on July 9, 1863. The article is titled “Arrival of the Crew of the C.S. Steamer Atlanta”: “Yesterday, 71 men of the crew of the C. S. iron-clad steamer Atlanta, captured by the U. S. iron-turreted Monitor Weehawken, Capt. John Rodgers, in Warsaw Sound [sic Wassaw], on the morning of June 17, arrived in our city.” The article continues with the list as follows. (Note that only 70


men are listed. Where there is a discrepancy between the newspaper account and a list from the U.S. Vermont made after the men’s capture, it is noted in parentheses. It probably is the same person.) George W. Hardcastle, Carpenter’s Mate; J. Cavanaugh, Quarter Gunner; C. Coppell (Capell, C. H.), Quartermaster; J. Connelly, Gunner’s Mate; T. Bryson (Broisin, Thomas), Coxwain; G. Grant, Engineer Yeoman; J. Chatterson, Captain of the Hold; P. Judge, Purser’s Steward; T. McGuire, Yeoman; John Sheehar (Sheehan); D. Sheldon; M. Malony; M. Collen (Cullen, Miles); J. Rairke (Rourke, John); E. Magee; W. A. Hughes, J. Saxon, P. Eagan, L. Lockhart, J. W. Mulkey, J. Gullaghan, J. Lord (Loard, I. W.); G. Panlidge; J. Huddleton; Thos. Winn; B. D. Ray, W. Wilburn (Wimburn, Phillip); J. Gunaghan; J. Dunn; Wm. B. Moore, A. J. Gibeo (Gibson, A. J.); J. Mimrick (Minnix, John); R. G. Davis, P. Sullivan, L. M. Young (Young, T. M.); M. Welsh; J. R. Pate; R. S. Itson (Eidson, R.); P. Conner, J. Yarly (?Yarborough, J.); W. Lamb; M. C. Jones (Jones, M. L.); J. Quint; Hart; W. B. Park (Parker); M. McEntee; J. W. Johnson; W. B. Jones; P. Curn (Curren, Patrick); E. E. Bradshaw, J. Cavanaugh, George English; J. P. Wood; J. M. Ryals; P. Jones, J. Crowley, J. Cosman (Cosmane, John); T. Vitch (Voitch, Thomas); J. Britler (Butler, James); Andrews, T. Kelly, J. Broderick, D. Lane, W. B. Pilgrim, McKane, J. Smith, G. T. Moore (Moore, G. F.); W.Postcen (Poster, N. N.); Wm Ryan & C. Perry, colored servants, are also among the returned prisoners. The crew are from Camp Lee, near Richmond, Virginia and are under charge of Lieut. Hill and Acting Master Wyatt. They reported yesterday at Commodore Tatnall’s [sic] office. They are on parole. Seventy-four men of the crew started from Richmond; a few of them took sick on the route and stopped at different places. The whole number who have been paroled is 79. About 36 men of the crew have remained with the Yankees [author’s emphasis]. The names of a few of them [23 crewmen who stayed with the Federals] have been furnished us as follows: Frank Tarboy (Tarbox); Edward Thompson, boatswain mate, Charles Noland, fireman; John Chancey (Clancey), gunners mate; Wm. J. Kelly, ship’s Corporal; John Malay (Malloy, John), Captain’s cook; Loris Farmer (Fullman, L.) ship’s cook; Dennis Marten (?Meurtagh or McMeurtagh, Dennis), fireman; Pat Callahan, quarter gunner; John Perryjohn (Pettijohn, J. E. boatswain mate); Alexander Gragan (Grogan, A. master at arms); Master Towes; James Crawford; James Bagnor (Bagnell, James); Nicols (Nichols, Henry); T. F. Egar, Malay (?Malig, Duke); Darnigan (Donnigan, Thomas); Conway (Frances), Solomon Keller and the following negros: Moses Holmes, Wesley Gaines & a boy named Solomon.


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Flag-Officer W. W. Hunter, who replaced Commander Webb, wrote to Commander Mitchell, Office of Orders and Detail, that of the seventy-nine crewmen paroled, ten “absented themselves” en route to Savannah, and thirty “absented themselves” on arrival in Savannah. He stated: “I am now endeavoring to find these.” Of the entire muster roll of the ship Atlanta, about 149 men and officers, only 33 were delivered by Lieutenant Hill to Hunter’s command by July 9. These men (including twelve born in Ireland) were perhaps seamen who had trained with Thomas Wragg on the CSS Georgia and later appeared again on the muster roll of the Georgia in September, October, and November 1863.13 The article in the Savannah Republican above includes a report by a crewman of the Atlanta, George Hardcastle, carpenter’s mate, who described the firing of guns first, followed by the discovery that the ship was aground:14 The attack commenced at five minutes before 5 o’clock a.m. [June 17, 1863] there lying in Warsaw [sic Wassaw] Sound the iron-clad monitors Weehawken and Nahant and the sidewheel steamer Cimarron. The Weehawken was attacked first. The shot was fired by the Atlanta, from her bow pivot gun, followed immediately after by a second. The Weehawken then replied with a 15-inch solid shot, which struck the Atlanta on the starboard side, three feet aft of the pilot house, driving in the iron plates, shattering the woodwork on the inside of the casement, and wounding 18 men—one of whom (Barrett) died in about two hours from the effects of his injuries. The shot did not enter the casemate; it passed over the spar deck. The starboard broadside gun was immediately fired; the Weehawken replied, and her shot struck us on the knuckle, four feet aft of the starboard broadside gun, doing no injury. The bow gun of the Atlanta was now fired for the third time, and the Weehawken threw her third shot, which struck us in our port just as the men had the gun loaded and were in the act of raising the port cover, which was broken into pieces. At this moment the Weehawken fired another shot, which struck the pilothouse, demolishing it and wounding two of the pilots (Austin and Hernandez). Our pivot gun aft was fired from the starboard side. Capt. Webb, seeing that his ship was disabled by being aground and her guns unable to bear, ordered her colors to be hauled down and a white flag to be run up. At this time the Weehawken fired another shot, but it did not take effect. Capt. Webb jumped on the spar deck and

96 A Confederate Chronicle hailed the Weehawken, saying “I surrender.” Capt. Rodgers of the Weehawken stated to Capt. Webb that he would not have fired on the Atlanta after the flag was hauled down but from the fact that he could not make out what our flag was. It was white, and they took it for blue or black, on account of the smoke. The ship, at the time of the surrender, was in an awful condition. Outside no injury was visible, except a deep indentation the size of a man’s hat; inside the woodwork was driven off from the iron plates to the diameter of eight or ten feet, and the gun deck piled up with the rubbish. The wounded were lying on all sides. It was impossible to get the men from their guns to look after them, until Capt. Webb said to his men, “I have given up the ship.” The fight lasted about thirty minutes.

The reporter for the Savannah Republican continued: The crew speak in the highest terms of Capt. Webb, and they are ready to fight under him again. After the surrender, fifty-eight men were put aboard the Cimarron steamer and handcuffed in couples. They were subsequently taken to Port Royal. The [22] officers and remainder of the men were sent forward on another steamer—at Port Royal they were placed on board the U.S. Ship Vermont, from which they were afterwards transferred to the James Adger and sent to Fortress Monroe. Here the crew were put on board the flag of truce boat for City Point, the officers remaining on the Adger.15

Two steamers, the Resolute, with Webb’s secretary, C. Lucian Jones, and the Isondiga, with Captain Joel S. Kennard, had followed the Atlanta to its encounter with the Federal fleet and were witness to it at about two miles distance.16 They were filled with the friends and relatives of the officers and crew—excited to witness the fruits of their yearlong labors in a victory over the “Yankees.” However, the great sacrifice (some had contributed their own jewelry) and effort of the Savannah ladies to raise money for the construction of the ironclad fleet was to naught. The Atlanta’s crew was more than equal to the combined crews of the Weehawken and Nahant, and it had a greater firepower. But in only thirty minutes or so, the battle was over. The city of Savannah was in an uproar over how the capture could have happened so quickly. Rumors of mutiny surfaced. Lieutenant Joel Kennard stated in his official report to Secretary Mallory that Webb would not


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have “struck his colors without some cause entirely beyond his control; such, for instance, as the entire loss of locomotion, or, which I think more probable, the mutiny of his crew.”17 A letter to the editor by a “naval officer” (probably again Lieutenant Kennard, on June 18 in the Savannah Morning News) on the Isondiga claimed that the capture was due to disaffection or mutiny among the crew. He claimed that there was “‘deep water and plenty of it.’” Proof of the mutiny was in a statement made by “certain men of the ‘sailor part’ of the crew” to “a certain person not belonging to the vessel” that “‘if the ship goes out it will be worse for her and her officers’”—this combined with the fact that “‘a white flag was hoisted, then hauled down and the Confederate flag again run up to be again lowered on board of her,’” suggesting that the mutinous crew was trying to surrender—a form of tug-of-war between the loyal and the disloyal crewmen. This letter produced an angry rebuttal the next day, signed “M,” in the Savannah Republican. Titled “The ‘Atlanta’ Disaster,” it was apparently written by another naval officer who had intimate knowledge of the squadron and its crew. The letter, which follows, reports that Lieutenant Kennard saw the Atlanta take ground on Salt Pond Shoal only just immediately prior to being surrounded by the Weehawken and Nahant. Due to its shallower draft, the Weehawken was able to circle the Atlanta on its starboard side by crossing over the shoal. The letter includes not only the exact location of the Atlanta when it became grounded, but also the average depth of water at that location at high tide, and the draft of the ship. The writer concludes that the ship became grounded because it was maneuvering in battle, whereas Webb stated that it became grounded while charging full steam ahead toward the Federals: Now, let us examine this argument point by point, and see what relation there is between its premises and conclusion. First, where the fight took place there was not “sufficient” depth of water and “plenty of it,” to admit of this proper maneuvering of a vessel of the draft and length of the Atlanta, the position of the enemy being considered, without her grounding. Let it be borne in mind that the Atlanta draws fifteen feet eight inches of water, and is 213 feet long, and that the fight took place close to Warsaw Beach Point and on the edge of Salt Pond Shoal, where the average depth of water is from 14 to 19 feet

98 A Confederate Chronicle at high tide, the enemy’s vessels occupying the former position—one in advance of the other, near the mouth of Beach Creek, and the Atlanta the latter position—it having been the intention of Capt. Webb to run, if possible, into the enemy’s nearest vessel and explode her with a torpedo. It was while in the act of executing this intention that Capt. Kennard, of the screw gunboat Isondiga, one of the gentlemen two miles distant, saw, as he says, the Atlanta unmistakably take ground, and, immediately after, the enemy’s advance monitor ran over the shoal to the right of the Atlanta, without being fired into, and the other perform the same maneuver between the Atlanta and Cabbage Island. Does this look like there being “deep water and plenty of it” for the Atlanta? And is it not strange that men with visual organs so strong that they can, at a distance of two miles, see a “white flag” hauled up and down, should fail to determine whether a vessel be afloat or aground? . . . Again, the ominous threat said to have been made to a “person” by a portion of the crew, before the ship’s going out, hardly gives cause of itself, unsupported by other evidence, for the harsh charge of mutiny, if we take into consideration the peculiar characteristics of seamen and their inalienable, always exercised privilege of grumbling. The Jack Tar is a queer fellow. Patriotism he doubtless has, in a degree, but this is not so absorbing a sentiment with him as self love, a thorough belief in his own individual physical superiority and pluck, and a comical pride in his ship even though she be as ugly as sin or sail like a haystack. His ship, indeed, is his veritable dulcinea in whose behalf he is ready to run a tilt against all comers. Thus we see instances of sailors serving with zeal and success even against the flag of their native country. In the war of 1812 and 13, British seamen formed a large portion of crews of the American ships, and all we know is what these ships managed to accomplish. So the thirty sailors on board the “Atlanta” should not have their loyalty doubted [author’s emphasis] because they were foreigners or because they may have grumbled as sailors always will when kept so long as they had been in idleness. The assumption of mutiny and disloyalty in our navy is a far greater disgrace to the nation than the frank admission of the defeat of a single and inferior ship by a superior and better appointed force of an enemy in battle; and besides, in this case, it is not warranted by the opinion of commander Webb, who expressed himself quite gratified the evening before the action, with the morale of his men. It is no discredit to Capt. Webb, all things being considered, either that he “hoisted a white flag” or struck the national ensign. As brave men as he and as skillful have done the same thing before, in the history of the proudest nations. Let us then, in the absence of certain knowledge,


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regard the officers and crew of the Atlanta alike as unfortunate men, the victims of circumstance rather than dishonor.18

In light of the report that “about” 36 members of the crew deserted the squadron or defected to the “Yankees” after the Atlanta’s capture and after their parole, this officer’s statement that “the thirty sailors should not have their loyalty doubted” lends credence to the rumor of “mutiny,” or at least disaffection, of nearly one-third of the crew.19 The letter clearly indicates that the officers of the Savannah Squadron were aware of the possibility of trouble from thirty crewmen. A Union commander reported in the summer of 1863, after interviewing four seaman deserters from the CSS Savannah, that they testified to the “existence of a Union sentiment among the working classes, which they dare not express in public.” Their morale was affected by the “great destitution of the people remaining in Savannah . . . the high prices of necessaries of subsistence and the worthlessness of the Confederate paper.” Also in 1863, Commander John Mitchell wrote to W. W. Hunter to be cautious in selecting men as well as officers, due to the “frequency of desertions to the enemy.” A Captain Hanleiter commented in his journal: “It is supposed that the crew—mostly vagabond Irishmen . . . mutinied, and forced the Officers of the ill-fated ‘Atlanta’ to surrender.”20 Hunter responded to Mitchell, “Without exception, all the men who have been and are being tried by the naval court-martial here for mutinous conduct are Irish and English.”21 While there was unquestionably disaffection among the Atlanta’s crew, there was no overt “mutiny,” as suggested above. The actions of the crew could have been, however, less obvious forms of subversion which crippled the mission. If many of the crewmen were foreigners, their loyalty to either the North or the South might have been weak: this was not their war. Commander Rodgers reported that when the Weehawken and Nahant turned around the northeast end of Wassaw Island and headed into the sound, they were twenty minutes away, and the Atlanta was lying across the channel, awaiting the attack. This report was echoed by a young sailor, seventeen-year-old Alvah Hunter aboard the Nahant. Hunter witnessed the event, kept a diary, and in the 1920s wrote his recollections, which are a combination of a young boy’s eyewitness account and the mature observations and research of an older man.


Hunter reported he overheard the crew aboard the U.S.S. Nahant discussing the event afterward and questioning why the Atlanta stopped her engines and waited for the Weehawken and Nahant. Hunter believed, as Hardcastle reported, that the Atlanta was not grounded until the last shot from the Weehawken was fired, hitting the pilothouse. This same report was made in a report by Captain Rodgers and relayed to the U.S. Admiral Du Pont: “Two out of three pilots were also badly wounded and the pilot house broken up, whereupon the vessel grounded and immediately thereafter surrendered.”22 Today’s (1988) Coast and Geodetic Survey chart for Wassaw Sound indicates that “Salt Pond Shoal” would not have been evident even at low tide, and its depths would have been treacherously shallow for the Atlanta at high tide (see Map 6). It would have been the place to avoid in Wassaw Sound. However, it did not (and does not) protrude into the channel. Today’s survey indicates that it follows the line of the shore of Wassaw Island on the southeast side of Wassaw Sound. The deeper channel in Wassaw Sound, which is just an extension of the Wilmington River, ranges from between 21 to 34 feet at mean low tide and is more than twice as wide as the Wilmington River. In 1863 it was, in fact, the main shipping channel between Wassaw Island and Little Tybee.23 Also, in December 1861 Commander Rodgers reconnoitered Wassaw Sound at the request of Admiral Du Pont and reported, “I crossed the bar of Wassaw Sound at half tide, not having less than 18 feet water upon it. . . . In coming out of Wassaw Sound at high tide we had not less than 21 feet water on the bar.”24 The pilots of the Atlanta would have been foolish to “hug” the shoreline near the dangerous shallows of the shoal; there was indeed “deep water and plenty of it.” Yet, if the Atlanta’s engines stopped, the ship would have been at the mercy of the incoming currents and prevailing winds and forced into the Salt Pond Shoal. Alva Hunter pinpointed the location of the Federal fleet. The Nahant was anchored “outside the bar separating Warsaw Sound from the ocean, the Cimmaron was 3/4th of a mile to the East, and the Weehawken a half-mile to the West.” The Weehawken was more in the channel ahead of the other two, where the channel enters the ocean.25 Hunter observed: The Atlanta was coming down river at a very fast clip when I saw her. . . . Even if a shot, or two shots, had struck the Atlanta, she was sup-



Map 6. Section from NOAA map of Savannah River and Wassaw Sound. Location of the Union ships and the CSS Atlanta in Wassaw Sound on the morning of June 17, 1863

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102 A Confederate Chronicle posed to be shot-proof . . . the chance of her being seriously injured was extremely remote. Manifestly the officers of the Atlanta committed a fatal blunder when they stopped her engine and awaited the approach of the Weehawken.26

When the facts are assembled, the logical conclusion is that the crew carried out their ominous threat of something worse to come to the ship and its officers and sabotaged the mission. It borders on the incredible to suggest that the ship could be stuck in the mud while cruising directly toward the Federal fleet in the deep shipping channel of Wassaw Sound at nearly peak high tide. Webb did not complain to the court of inquiry about having difficulties steering the ship or of high winds, which could have pushed the ship onto the shore. The question is, how was the sabotage accomplished? One possibility is that the crew at least temporarily disabled the engines, thus allowing the ship to drift into the shoal. The seeds to this action were in the Atlanta’s trial outing on May 30, when the main steam valve of the forward engine “crushed” and the ship drifted into a mud bank, unable to move until the next tide.27 There was a motive for the sabotage among the seamen, who may not have wanted to fight and later defected—seamen who may have more likely come from the mountains of Ireland or the Scottish Highlands, in the country where the Fingal was purchased, than the mountains of Georgia. Another possibility is that one of the pilots grounded the ship deliberately. Thomas Wragg’s son, Samuel Alston Wragg, wrote in his “autobiography,” a brief sketch of his life made in the 1940s, that his father served on the Atlanta: “The ship was engaged with the enemy in Wassaw Sound and ran aground. They say the Cuban pilot did it on purpose. Papa was wounded, had his foot pinned to the deck by a piece of shrapnel.”28 Samuel Wragg’s comments are significant; they indicate that Thomas Wragg told his son the grounding was no accident. The only pilot with a Spanish name was Thomas Hernandez. Born in 1823 in Florida, he was an experienced pilot and is listed as being employed as a pilot and living in Savannah in both the 1850 and 1860 censuses. He knew the Savannah harbor area well and had piloted the CSS Atlanta before. It would appear unlikely that he could run the Atlanta aground by accident. However, his military service record suggests he may not have been the most obedient


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servant to the cause. Prior to joining the Confederate Navy, he served in the army, enlisting on August 6, 1861, as a private, and a year later in Company C, Thirteenth Battalion, Georgia Infantry, he was appointed corporal. He eventually was transferred to Company D, Sixty-third Regiment, Georgia Infantry, in December 1862 and reduced to private. This suggests that he was in some kind of trouble and court-martialed. He joined the C.S. Navy in February and became chief pilot of the CSS Atlanta. Hernandez may have had a reason for wanting to abort the mission, as his wife, Mary, had died in 1859 and, with his absence, his five children (the youngest of whom was three) were left without a father or mother. Hernandez was imprisoned with Wragg and the officers of the Atlanta for eighteen months, where the officers had ample time to speculate on the cause of their capture. In the group photograph in Chapter 5, he is seated, third man to the right of Thomas Wragg, front row, with a long, black beard and a hat.29 Whatever the case, the Atlanta’s crew appears to have subtly subverted its mission, but the young Commander Webb was too inexperienced to realize or to deal with what was happening around him. If Webb and his crew had succeeded in reaching deep water beyond Wassaw Sound, the Atlanta’s strength would have been formidable. Instead, the “Atlanta’s capture effectively ended the squadron’s offensive operations.”30 The captured officers of the Atlanta were divided into two groups, brought to the Weehawken and Nahant, and invited down to breakfast!31 For the remainder of the morning, the officers and men were transported to the Cimarron, which took them to Fort Pulaski and thence to Port Royal. The wounded were placed on board the Island City and transferred to Hilton Head Island, where they probably remained until they recovered.32 The U.S. Captain Harmony took the Atlanta to Port Royal separately, using some of the crew from the Nahant. In an article in the Savannah Republican from Thomas Wragg’s scrapbook, the officers of the Atlanta were listed. Another list was provided by the “master at arms of the U.S. ship Vermont, of prisoners received on board,” June 19, 1863, from the “Island City, Cimarron, and Oleander.” In comparing the list made of prisoners taken aboard the Vermont (114 crewmen) and another list of Atlanta prisoners transferred by Commander T. H. Patterson of the U.S. steamer James Adger


to Major General Dix, commanding Fortress Monroe, Virginia, on June 23, 1863 (116 crewmen), twelve additional men were listed on the James Adger (Wood, J. P.; Towes, Master; Saxon, J.; Pilgrim, William B.; Pate, J. R.; Panlidge, G.; McKane; Gulaghan, J.; Gunaghan, J.; Jones, W. B.; Field, Solomon, black boy). These men may have been among the injured who were rejoining the rest of the crew.33 In another article in the Savannah Republican from Thomas Wragg’s scrapbook, the officers of the Atlanta were listed (below). The Vermont’s list of officers drops the cabin boy and includes two additional officers, *L. G. King (second assistant engineer) and John Turner (surgeon’s steward, who remained to attend the wounded along with Gibbes), for a total of twenty-two officers: *Wm. A. Webb, Commander *J. W. Alexander, 1st lieutenant *Alphonse Barbot, 2nd lieutenant *G. H. Arledge, 3rd lieutenant *T. L. Wragg, Master R. J. Freeman, assistant Surgeon R. R. Gibbes, Assistant Surgeon William B. Micou, Assistant Paymaster James Thurston, First Lt. Marines *J. A. G. Williamson, Midshipman *Ja. A. Peters, Midshipman Edward J. Johnston, 1st Assistant Engineer34 *William F. Morrill, 2nd Assistant Engineer *J. S. West, 2nd Assistant Engineer *Wm McBlair, Masters Mate John W. Carey, Assistant Clerk *T. B. Travers, Gunner Pilots: *Thomas Hernandez, *James M. Fleetwood, *W. W. Austin Cabin Boy, John Cavanaugh

We know from Thomas Wragg’s letters that he and the above men (less the cabin boy) were eventually sent to prison at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. The group picture (illustration 22) of Master Wragg and the other Confederate prisoners taken at the Fort, very possibly in 1864 when carte-de-visite photographs were taken, includes fifteen of these men (those starred) from the Atlanta and one more—Francis


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Bartow Beville.35 The officers above were joined at Fort Warren (possibly after they recovered from injuries) not only by Beville, but also by three more from the Atlanta: George W. Quarles and B. R. (Dan) Skelton, seamen, and Daniel Rioden, marine corporal—for a total of twenty-six men.36 Although an exact count cannot be made due to the spelling errors and inconsistencies, when all the lists are combined, there were 126 crewmen, servants, and boys, together with 23 officers— totalling about 149 individuals who were on board the CSS Atlanta at the time of its capture. The Atlanta was later appraised at $350,829, and this amount “was distributed as prize-money among the officers and men of the three vessels present at the capture.” The Atlanta continued in service to the U.S. Navy in the James River until the end of the war, when she was sold at auction. She reportedly was sold in May 1869 to Haiti, subsequently renamed Triumph, and disappeared at sea off Cape Hatteras in December 1869.37

5

Fort Warren Prison, Boston Harbor June 1863–October 1864

The time passes so slowly that it seems more like years. There is no prospect of an exchange, and it seems as though we were destined to remain here during the war. . . . I sometimes think that our friends have entirely forgotten us, or do not care to see us again. . . Thomas L. Wragg, Fort Warren Prison

The officers of the Atlanta, after first being taken to Port Royal near Hilton Head Island, were then sent to Fort Lafayette Prison in New York Harbor. On June 29, 1863, Commander Webb wrote to Gideon Welles to complain about their “confinement in this fortress in common consort with those with whom we would not associate in civilian life. We are not treated as ‘prisoners of war.’” He requested that, at least, they should take their “messes apart from promiscuous inmates.”1 His complaints may have been heard, since Webb and his officers were then transferred to Fort Warren on George’s Island in Boston Harbor. The forty-five acre island is at the entrance to the harbor in the former main shipping channel. The fort, whose outer walls are shaped in the form of

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Fort Warren Prison, Boston Harbor

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a five-pointed star, was built in 1852. At the time of the Civil War, the fort belonged to the Federal government. The fort is now maintained by the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) and is the featured site of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. Fort Warren, like many of the forts used as prisons during the Civil War that were located near the ocean, was a cold, damp, and unpleasant place to live.2 Fort Warren was used as a prison for soldiers from the Confederate ranks in 1861 and 1862. By August of 1862 all of the POWs had been transferred out and the fort reverted to a Federal troop facility. It was reestablished as a prison for Confederates about the time (July 1863) that Thomas Wragg arrived. Because its maximum capacity was only 175, it was then reserved for high-ranking southern officers, political prisoners, and blockade-runners. However, due to a breakdown in the exchange of prisoners, the number of inmates climbed until it reached an all-time high of 394 captives in February 1865.3 Since Fort Warren was reserved for high-ranking officers, treatment was better than prisons housing enlisted men; most likely the Confederate officers were treated better in hopes that Federal officers would be treated equally. According to Lieutenant J. W. Alexander, the officers and men of the Massachusetts garrison initially treated the newly arrived POWs from the Atlanta very kindly. They were allowed to purchase anything they wished, and for a while their friends in Boston and Baltimore sent them many things, including clothing and food. However, treatment deteriorated in 1864. In December of 1863 the more lenient commandant of the prison, Colonel Dimick, retired and was replaced by Major Stephen Cabot from the Massachusetts Volunteers, who tightened up on the rules. Newspapers, alcohol, and roaming the island were prohibited. The prisoners’ rations were reduced “to eight ounces of cooked meat, half pint of soup, and two potatoes on three days, with beans or hominy on the other days, and fourteen ounces of bread.” In the daytime the prisoners were allowed to take exercise on the pavements in front of their quarters, but after dark they were locked in the casemates and guards were placed in front of their doors.4 In February 1864, Gideon Welles wrote to the Hon. E. M. Stanton, secretary of war, and made a request “for the close confinement in irons of Cmdr. William Webb and some of the other prisoners captured, in



21. Fort Warren Prison, Georges Island, Boston Harbor

the rebel Steamer Atlanta in retaliation for close confinement in iron of Cmdr. E. P. Williams and others of the U. S. Navy.” By March 1864, this still had not been carried out, and another request was made.5 In mid1864, Cabot was replaced by Major Augustus A. Gibson, who then served until mid-January 1865.6 In the spring of 1864, Commander Webb took action again and complained to Secretary Mallory regarding the treatment of the men in his area of confinement—twenty-six officers and seamen from the Atlanta and three other men, probably including Lieutenant Charles Read (see below), “rebel privateer” from the CSS Tacony; Reid Sanders,


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“political prisoner” from Kentucky; and one other, possibly First Lieutenant C.S.N. William T. Glassell, who was captured in Charleston Harbor after ramming the New Ironsides with a torpedo boat. Glassell in fact died in 1879 of tuberculosis, which he contracted while in prison at Fort Warren.7 Considering the living conditions—in a gun casemate in the middle of Boston Harbor—one blanket, as mentioned below, would have been less than adequate. Major Stephen Cabot wrote the following letter on March 7, 1864, from Headquarters Fort Warren: General E. A. Hitchcock, Commissioner for Exchange of Prisoners, Washington, D. C. SIR: In answer to your letter of the 4th instant, in reference to letter of Captain Webb to Mr. Mallory, rebel Secretary of the Navy, I have the honor to reply that the casemate occupied by Captain Webb and his officers, twenty-nine in all, is of the same dimensions as those occupied by forty of our own troops. They are comfortable, with as much fire in them as they desire; each officer having a bedstead and bed and blanket to himself, furnished by the Government. The space allotted to all of the prisoners for exercise is about 100 feet by 20, outside and fronting the parade, in which place they are permitted to walk any time between reveille and retreat. Captain Webb writes, “We are informed officially prisoners are not allowed full rations.” This is not the case. They have been informed over and over again that the ration allowed them was the old ration of the army, with the exception of two or three articles, and which ration is more than they can possibly eat. There have been complaints made that they have not a sufficiency of bread. On inquiry, I find that the bread is so good that some eat more than their allowance, eighteen ounces, and thus may deprive others of their full share. The only reasonable complaint that can possibly be made is in the sink [latrines] accommodations, which place will accommodate but five at a time, although there is a guard detailed especially for the purpose of conveying them to and from it from reveille until retreat, after which hour they use the police tubs in their quarters. I am having constructed a portable sink, which will be finished shortly, and which I think will obviate the difficulty. I am satisfied that every effort consistent with his duties is made by the officer in charge of them to make them comfortable. I should be glad to have an officer of the Navy sent here to see their condition. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Stephen Cabot, Maj. First Batt. Heavy Arty., Massachusetts Vols., Comdg. Post.8


Prison life at Fort Warren was similar to other Northern prisons in many ways, but it also had its unique qualities. All prisoners complained about the monotony of their lives, which seemed to be spent continually standing in line. “They stood in line for morning roll call. They stood in line for morning rations. They stood in line to use the latrine and to get water. They stood in line for afternoon rations. They stood in line for evening roll call.” Wragg complained about never getting enough exercise, which was undoubtedly the case at other prisons, where exercise consisted solely of walking back and forth in a confined area. In comparison to Fort Delaware at the worst end of the spectrum, which in mid-1864 averaged eighty-eight deaths a month, only twelve prisoners died at this prison, “the lowest number of deaths in any military prison of this size.” Dr. DeWitt C. Peters, prison physician, was responsible for having a well-equipped ward, funded by private contributions from Boston residents. First Lieutenant Alexander and the prisoners fortuitously received an unexpected source of food. The son of one of the Federal officers gave Alexander a little English terrier, named “Fanny.” A sergeant attached to the Commissary Department in Fort Warren took a liking to the dog and brought fresh beef to it each day it was issued to the garrison. “Of course,” Alexander confided, “we took charge of the meat and the little dog was given the bones, and this meat was a great addition to our larder.” Alexander kept the dog for the remainder of the war and even took it home to Lincolnton, North Carolina, where it lived to old age and “raised many sons and daughters.”9 At other prisons where conditions were worse, the dog might have been eaten as well; on occasion dogs, and particularly rats, provided a source of meat for the POWs. Writing letters home was one diversion not shared at all prisons. Where it was allowed, the “letters often were limited to thirty-two lines or one page and were subject to strict censorship.”10 At Fort Warren, the intellectual stimulation of letter writing and conversation with educated officers helped to keep up the spirits of the men and offset the depression that enveloped them with increasing intensity as they waited for their exchange. One occupation shared by POWs north and south was plotting escape. Wragg was imprisoned at Fort Warren with Lieutenant Charles W. Read, C.S.N. Read was three years older than Wragg and had graduated from the United States Naval Academy. His picture is in the

22. Confederate prisoners at Fort Warren: Thomas Wragg standing on far left; Commander Webb seated on far right, facing left



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group photograph (illustration 22), third from right, seated facing, with goatee and mustache. (Webb is seated first on the right, facing left). Read had a reputation from his many audacious exploits on behalf of the Confederates. During a nineteen-day spree, beginning in June 1863, he captured twenty-one ships, “burning some and bonding others,” with the aim of “inflicting injury to the enemy’s commerce.” His escapades, which continued nonstop until July and mostly on the Tacony but concluding on the Archer, caused “panic” on the entire eastern seaboard until his capture in July.11 During his incarceration at Fort Warren, Read from the Tacony/Archer, First Lieutenant James Thurston and Lieutenant Alexander from the Atlanta, and Reid Sanders, the political prisoner, made several attempts to escape, the second time accompanied by two seamen. In summary: In the basement under the casemate where they were confined was a pump where they obtained their water. On the wall behind were two holes called musketry loopholes. They found that by taking off their clothes, they could easily squeeze out to the surface. After a first night of reconnoitering and discovering rough seas and high winds, they decided to bring along two sailors who could swim (J. N. or N. B. Prydé, formerly of the Tacony, and Thomas Sherman, “a Federal seaman who had been imprisoned for voicing treasonable sentiments.”)12 A few nights later the six men squeezed out of the hole, but the two sailors swam away, never to be seen again. After waiting for their return in vain, Lieutenant Thurston and Alexander swam from the island using a wooden target as a raft for support. They managed to find a boat and make their escape as far as “Boon Island,” where they were captured, betrayed by their Southern accents and Confederate money, and taken to Portland. Charles Read and Reid Sanders never left the island, because they were poor swimmers and didn’t want to take the risk in the choppy, frigid, August waters. They were caught outside waiting for Alexander and Thurston (who returned for them, but too late) and put into close confinement. The above abbreviated account is based on one by Alexander in 1883 and confirmed in a report dated August 21, 1863, to S. P. Chase, secretary of the treasury, from Jedediah Jewett, collector of customs in Portland, Maine:13 Hon. S. P. Chase, . . . Sir: On receipt of the information that part of the Tacony’s crew as was supposed, had escaped from Fort Warren, I at once dispatched Capt. John A. Webster, Jr., in the revenue cutter J. C. Dobbin,


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to recapture them, and as I advised you yesterday by telegraph, he was fortunate enough to succeed. Yesterday morning, off Boon Island, he overhauled a small schooner and on bringing two men on board of the cutter, they represented themselves to be downeast fishermen bound to Eastport, but their Southern accent at once betrayed them and Captain Webster ordered them searched, when $200 in Confederate bills (and some greenbacks) was found on one of them, who then admitted that they were the prisoners of war who had escaped from Fort Warren. They proved to be Second Lieutenant Alexander and Second Lieutenant Thurston, of the Marine Corp, both late of so-called Confederate ram Atlanta. They escaped over the parapet of the fort in their shirts only and secreted themselves for two hours near the sentry on guard, but submerged in the water up to their necks. They then swam to the floating target, which they loosed, and swam by its aid to the opposite side of the channel. There they took a boat in sight of parties on the shore and landed at Rye Beach, where they procured their pants and food, representing themselves as fishermen who had lost their clothes. They say that but two escaped. Lt. Read, who also attempted, having been deterred from joining them on the target by fear of the coldness of the water. The U. S. Marshal he committed them both to the county jail here and I await your further directions respecting them. . . . your obedient servant, Jedediah Jewett, Collector.

After being held in prison in Portland for a short time, Alexander and Thurston were returned to Fort Warren. The naval officers and crewmen from the Atlanta remained in prison until they were exchanged with Wragg at Cox’s Wharf and assigned to the James River Squadron. Not allowed to be exchanged, Major Reid Sanders died at Fort Warren, September 3, 1864, at the age of twenty-seven.14 Master Wragg’s letters to his father, Dr. John Ashby Wragg, in Savannah, follow. It is evident that the letters were censored, as they are very circumspect about prison life. They are short and at times appear to contain hidden messages. Wragg discovered that doctors, who were in great demand during the war, were more likely to be exchanged. As a result, he resolved to become a doctor when he was released and may have spent some of his time studying medicine while he was imprisoned.15 As the months of confinement dragged on, Wragg was preoccupied with the possibility of being exchanged and complained about the dwindling of letters, from his sisters, his girl friend Anna, and even from his father. He felt abandoned.


October 29, 1863 My dear Father: Your letters of the 5th and 16th inst. were received yesterday, but suffering all day from a severe headache, I was compelled to postpone writing until today. Jessie and Mrs. B[ond’s]16 letters were rec’d yesterday also tell them I will write as soon as possible. If I receive any money, I will try and procure the article you mentioned otherwise I cannot as I am entirely out of money. I am sorry to hear that there has been sickness in the family but hope that all are now well. When you write send me some postage stamps. Remember me kindly to all of my friends and especially to Mr.[Oscar F.] “Johnston” [Commander] of the “Georgia.” We lost our Chief Engineer [on the Atlanta] Mr. E. J. Johnston. He died about two weeks ago and was buried on the island. Write as often as possible as it affords me much pleasure to hear from home. With Love to all I remain your afft Son, T. Lowndes Wragg.


23. Master Wragg in prison uniform, April 15, 1864, Fort Warren, B. H.


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24. Thomas Wragg, Fort Warren, B. H., April 22, 1864

November 17th, 1863** My dear Father: Yours of the 6th of November was received yesterday much to my surprise. As I did not expect to hear from you for some days to come. I was much gratified, however, to hear from you, and hope that you will take advantage of every opportunity to write to me, as it is my only pleasure now, to receive letters from home. It is just five months today since our capture, and nearly five since our confinement in this fort. The time passes so slowly that it seems more like years. There is no prospect of an exchange, and it seems as though we were destined to remain here during the war. Thank god I am in good health and will bear it. Mr. F. of the firm of P.F. & Co. of Savannah has been very kind to me, also a friend of yours (Mr. Arnold). I have received three or four letters from you and will try and do what you request. Let me know the date of my letters that you receive. My kind regards to all friends and especially Mr.[Oscar] J[ohnston] of the “Georgia.” Love to all. I am your

Affectionate son, T.L. Wragg


December 11, 1863 My dear Father: Yours of the 23rd of November was received here yesterday which gave me much pleasure to hear that you are all well, and I hope that God in his mercy may continue to watch over and protect you all from harm. I as well as the rest of the officers in the “Atlanta” continue to enjoy good health and spirits. We look forward to the day with unbounded pleasure when we will released to return home. I receive the postage stamps sent in your letter for which I am much obliged. I will here request that you not make any arrangements for sending me money as we are not allowd (Per Special Order) to purchase any necessaries, therefore it will be no use to me. I wrote Jesse on the 30th of Nov and enclosed a Carte de visite of a lady friend of hers. I would be glad to hear from any of my friends and if you see Harry W. tell him to write if he has an opportunity. Remember me kindly to Mr. O. F. Johnston of the “Georgia” and all of my friends. Mention to Mr. Lovell that young “Beville” is with us and well.17 The weather is very cold. Write soon to your afft son, T.L. Wragg. Love to all.

December 22, 1863 My dear Father: Yours of the 6th of December was received here this morning. I suppose before this time you have seen Dr. [Robert R.] G[ibbes, from the C.S. Atlanta] who left us about two weeks ago [December 7] for the South and expected to proceed as soon as possible to Savannah. We all continue to enjoy good health and anxiously hoping that an exchange will soon be agreed upon, though we scarcely expect to be released for a long time. I am very glad to hear that you are all well and I sincerely hope that you may all continue to enjoy that blessing. I have not heard from Jesse [sister] for some time. Do ask her to write, as it is a great consolation to hear from home. I received a letter from “Penie” [sister] a few days ago and wrote to her the same day. The weather is very cold and it is now snowing no doubt the ground will be covered before morning. I see that the officers of the “Harriet Lane” have all been paroled and are now at Vicksburg, and I think it hard that we should be retained. Remember me kindly to all of my friends. Tell “Jesse” to give my love to “Anna.”18 When you write let me know how Mr. O.F. Johnston is. Also remember me to Urmo. With much love to all, I remain your afft son, T. Lowndes Wragg. Try and see Mr. Witcomb and let him know that his son is quite well. He lives near Dr. Arnobus.


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January 21, 1864 My dear Father Yours of the 30th Dec has just come to hand. After patiently waiting for more than two months I had almost given hopes of hearing from any of you again. So imagine my surprise and delight, when the mail this morning brought me your kind and long expected letter. I am glad to hear that you have seen Dr. G[ibbes from the Atlanta] and I suppose that you received my letter sent by him though you make no mention of it in your last. We were very lowspirited after they left us to think that they would be in Richmond “so soon.” While I, who was so unfortunate as not to be an M. D. would have to remain behind for an indefinite period. I have serious intentions of devoting my self immediately to the study of “materia medica” as my only chance, and if that fails, my chances for the war are good. Tell George’s cousin, opposite that his friend T [Travers, Thurston, or Turner] is with us and well. The weather has been extremely cold for some time past but is now milder. I wrote to Capt. “Butler” who is [in prison] at Johnson Island, he has entirely recovered from his wound rec’d at Getysburg.19 We are all well and have but one idea and that is the exchange question. Your letter of Dec 6th has been rec’d. My kind regards to all of my friends. Love to all. I Am your afft Son T.L. Wragg.

February 5, 1864 My dear Father: (Send me some stamps.) Yours of the 22nd of January was received here yesterday, and I am glad to hear that you all are well. Everything goes on as usual with us. I can not communicate anything of interest. I received a letter a few days ago from Mr. “Arnold,” in which he mentioned having seen Mr. Fullerton, the “British Consul,” who was on his way to “Europe” and who had just arrived in “New York” from “Savannah,” which place he left last December. He reports you all well, and also speaks of the death of Judge “Nicob,” who, he says, died after a short illness. I am very sorry to hear of Grandmama [Wragg’s] sickness and hope ere this, she is better. I also received yesterday a letter from “Penie.” I hear very often from Captain [A. F.] Butler, who is at “Johnson’s Island.” Nothing has been heard of “Hollie Cole” and we are very anxious about him.20 He was captured with Captain B[utler], but separated, and since then nothing has been heard of him. Do ask “Jessie” to see Miss A[nna] and ask why she does not write to me. I have written three letters to her and received no answer. She certainly could not have received them. I would like very much to hear from N.W., but do not expect he will honor me. I have

118 A Confederate Chronicle seen Mr. Chase, who married a Miss Lowndes several times.21 He procured permission to visit me. Do you know him? Also, Mr. Collvet! If you see Hamilton Branch, let him know about Hollie. With much love to all. Your affectionate son, T.L. Wragg22

March 4, 1864 My dear Father: Yours of the 10th of July was rec’d several days ago but being sick, and in the Hospital at the time I was unable to answer it. I have again been troubled with my last winters sickness but am glad to say have so far recovered as to be able to return to my quarters tomorrow or the next day. Do not feel in the least uneasy, for I can assure you I feel better now than I have for sometime past. The rest of the officers are pretty well considering their long imprisonment. We are all very weak for want of exercise, which of course we never get. All of the prisoners are having their likenesses taken today and I will send you one as soon as I can go out.23 I have been in expectation of hearing from [sister] Jessie, but as yet no letter from her has come to hand for a long time. There is no more prospects of an exchange than there was six months ago and in fact do not believe there is as much. It is still very cold here and the snow is quite thick on the ground. Everything by this time is in bloom South, but in this dreary country, the summer does not commence until July. My love to all my friends. The same to you. I am your aff ’t Son, T. L. Wragg

March 12, 1864 My dear Father: Yours of the 28th Feb has just been recd and I hasten to reply, as I fear you have already been very anxious on my account. In my last I wrote you that I had been sick but was much better at that time. I have now entirely recovered and am back again among my friends in the old quarters and hope that I may never have any occasion to return to the Hospital. I enclose you my “Carte de Visite” which we were allowd to have taken a few days ago. My companions think it an excellent likeness. Tell Jessie that when she condescends to write to me, I will send her one also. I am glad to have found out the whereabouts of young “Cole” and I will write to him tomorrow. I have been endeavoring to find him for sometime. I hear from Capt. [A. F.] Butler quite often and when I last heard he was quite well. Everything goes on the same with us. No cheering news to break the monotony of the gloomy prison life. Remember me to [Hamilton] “Branch” when you see him and all of my friends.


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There is nothing of interest to write about, so I must beg you to excuse this dry and stupid letter, but as I am anxious you should hear of my recovery, I determined to write. Mr. T. (C. L. . . . e friend) is here; he takes his imprisonment very hard and is extremely anxious to get exchanged. Love to all. I remain your afft Son T.L. Wragg I recd the stamps you sent.

March 18, 1864 My dear Father: I have determined to write you a few lines tonight relative to my exchange. A few days ago I wrote to Mr. [William H.] Chase to see if I could not obtain a parole to visit Richmond for the purpose of effecting my exchange or obtaining the release of some officer of my rank for me until duly exchanged. His answer was that he had seen the aid to the Gov. of this state who proposes that an officer be sent to City Point for me and if this should be done, I would in all probability be released. The exchange is now going in but so slowly that should it continue in this way, it would be many months before my turn would come unless something is done for me by my friends at the South. As there are several officers in the Navy holding the same positions as myself, now confined in Columbia So. Ca., perhaps your friends there could do something that would speedily release me from this long and trying imprisonment. I hope you will see what can be done. I am quite well, or in other words, as well as can be expected after an imprisonment of nine months. I sometimes think that our friends have entirely forgotten us, or do not care to see us again, but I will cheer up with the hopes that better days will soon come when we will meet once more those loved ones at home. I am your afft Son. T.L. Wragg

March 27, 1864 My dear Father: (Send me some stamps.) As it has been a long time since I have heard from you, I have determined to write again tonight, although I can give you no news of importance. In my last to you I asked if nothing could be done to get me out of this place now that a partial exchange is going on. I have managed for ten months to keep up my spirits with the hopes that when an exchange took place we would be among the fortunate ones to be sent forward. There seems however little prospects now of ever getting home as there was six months ago, and in fact much less—for at that time Mr. “Auld” [Robert Ould] (our Commissioner of Exchanges) promised at the first

120 A Confederate Chronicle opportunity to do what he could for us. Since then many special exchanges have been made of officers taken at a much later date. This I think is not very fair. However, as I never had any good luck in my life, this instance will not differ from the rest. I have not heard from [sister] Jesse for many months and never from [girlfriend] “Anna,” although I have written repeatedly. I hope you received my “carte de visite” which I sent by one of my former letters. Tell “Branch” that I have heard from “Holly” C[ole]. Write soon to your afft. son, T. L.Wragg.

The following letter, incorrectly addressing him as a “Lieut.,” was written to Thomas Wragg in prison in Boston by the father of a Union prisoner incarcerated in Charleston. It is the first hint of Wragg’s release. Boston, September 17, 1864 Lieut. T. L. Wragg. My dear Sir. Mr. R. I. Arnold writes me that you were kind enough to say, that you would take a letter from me to my son, C. W. Amory, now prisoner of War at Charleston, S.C. & not well. I am extremely obliged to you & send herein a letter to him & a Letter of Credit in his favor on London for 50 £ & if you find that you are not permitted to take the Letter of Credit, please return it to me & I will try to send it in some other way, but if you can take it, & see that my son gets it, I shall be, & and my son will be, grateful as only one who has been himself Prisoner of War can understand. I am much pleased to hear of your exchange & wish you a happy return to your friends in health, and hope some day that I may have the pleasure personally to thank you. Very gratefully & Sincerely yours W. Amory P.S. I send the letter & the letter of credit open, as it may require examination. The letter of credit is in my letter.

Savannah, October 21, 1864 Dear Thomas, Your two dispatches have been rec’d, and whilst we were all delighted to hear by the first that you had at last got out of the clutches of the miserable Yankees, the last brought the unwelcome news that you would not be able to pay us a visit after your long absence. It is certainly a great disappointment not to be able to see you, still, if duty calls private feelings


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must give way. Mc [Andrew McDowell Wragg] left Charleston a short time ago to rejoin his command, so you will probably see him in Richmond. There is nothing now to inform you of here with the exception of Jesse’s marriage.24 She was married on the night of the 19th at St. John’s Church. I have only time tonight to write you a short letter. I hope you will write soon and let us know what vessel you have been ordered to, who is your commander. Let me know when you write if all the naval officers who were with you have been exchanged and where Capt. Webb is. All here join in love and the hope that you may be able soon to get a furlough and pay us a visit. Your father, JAW

The exchanges of prisoners between North and South in the midst of war, although not a new idea during the course of history, was suited to peculiarly American logic. Fair play among gentlemen prevailed—whatever was fair and reciprocal was the rule agreed upon—and released prisoners were initially prohibited from further military service. Negotiations between representatives of Union and Confederate authorities on prisoner-of-war exchanges were conducted on the side of the Union, by the Commissioner for Exchange of Prisoners (from November 1862 to November 1865 he was Major General Ethan A. Hitchcock under the supervision of the secretary of war). Colonel Robert Ould, a Virginia lawyer, was assigned Confederate agent for exchange in 1862. The original agreement, or “cartel,” between the Federal Government and the Confederates, AGO General Order 142, signed on September 25, 1862, stipulated a scale of equivalents as the basis for exchanges: “man for man and officer for officer,” but a commanding general or admiral, for instance, was the equivalent of 60 privates or common seamen. The cartel also dealt with the problem of civilian prisoners, actual mechanics of parole and exchange, and prohibition of further military service by released prisoners of war. The negotiators did not anticipate that large numbers of prisoners would be held either in the Confederacy or in the North, and they made no provision for the uniform treatment of captured personnel. Until early in 1863 the system of exchange agreed upon in the cartel apparently was respected by both sides, but the unwillingness of the Confederacy to exchange “man for man” and to agree to the exchange of colored troops or their white officers led to its breakdown.25


During the period Wragg was imprisoned, from June 1863 to October 1864, the political jockeying for position between the Confederates and Union over the issues of exchange resulted in the incarcerated becoming pawns in what Mauriel Joslyn calls a “high stakes game” in both Northern and Southern prisons. Although prisons were gradually bursting at the seams, it was deemed, according to Joslyn, “preferable to feed prisoners than to fight soldiers.” “For those in prison, in the midst of the negotiations, and the suspending and reinstating of the cartel, daily life was spent in anticipation of hearing their name called for exchange.”26 Wragg finally received his long-awaited release in the fall of 1864. He received his parole at Fort Warren POW camp on September 28, 1864, was exchanged at Cox’s Wharf on the James River in Virginia on October 18, 1864, and reported for duty at Battery Semmes with the James River Squadron. Lieutenant Alexander, in 1883, recalled that the exchange was a “special one,” arranged between the Navy Departments of the two governments: “We were sent in a steamer to City Point, on James river, where General Grant had his headquarters on a large river steamboat. We remained here some time, and we learned that the reason was that the Confederates refused to treat with General Butler, the Federal agent for the exchange of prisoners.” As senior officer present, Captain Webb met with General Grant, who arranged for them to be sent up the river on a barge to Cox’s Landing, where they and the Federal naval prisoners swapped places. “After a short time the two vessels separated and our boat steamed up the river,” Alexander wrote. When they finally spotted the Confederate pickets after months of confinement, Alexander declared, “I think that was the happiest day of my life.”27

6

James River Squadron to Semmes’s Brigade 1864–65

But the moment the news of Lee’s surrender reached [Johnston], there was a stampede from his army. It melted away like a hillock of snow before the sunshine. Admiral Raphael Semmes, C.S.N.

Paroled at Fort Warren in September and exchanged in October 1864, Wragg was next assigned to Battery Semmes with the James River Squadron in Virginia until November 13, 1864 (see Map 7). He was made “Master, not in line for promotion in the Provisional Navy” on June 2, 1864, while still in prison. From November 1864 until the end of the war, he served with the crews of both the CSS Fredericksburg and the CSS Richmond. Wragg was exchanged with the Atlanta’s officers, including William A. Webb, his former commander, who immediately was made commander of the CSS Richmond with the James River Squadron. Lieutenant Read was also exchanged and assigned to Battery Wood.1 When Wragg arrived, after spending sixteen months in prison, he had

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Map 7. The Peninsula between York and James River, Virginia. Battery Semmes: North of Trent Reach between bend in James River. Cox’s Landing: West of Varina on the James River


only one morning’s experience as a naval officer under fire. He was entering a battle in its final brutal six months. The squadron would eagerly welcome these newly released Confederate prisoners to fill the jobs of those men who had either deserted or died or were far less experienced. The crew of the ship to which Wragg was eventually assigned, the Richmond, was made up mostly of men who only recently trans-

James River Squadron to Semme’s Brigade

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ferred from the army. Sickness was a major factor in the attrition of men: living conditions along the James River were not conducive to good health. In the summer, mosquitoes bred in the stagnant pools along the edge of the river where the men preferred to sleep to avoid the stifling heat of the ironclads.2 At least in winter, the men could find shelter from the cold winds inside the ironclad. Battery Semmes was on a position above Cox’s Landing, “established in late September with Columbiads and Brook rifles [and part of] a garrison under the command of Lt. Mathew P. Goodwyn” with the purpose of defending the squadron. That opportunity came only four days after Wragg’s arrival, on October 22, 1864. The Federals opened fire on the squadron from a new fortified position on Cox’s Hill, armed with three thirty-pound and four twenty-pound Parrott rifles. The Fredericksburg and the Virginia II suffered severe damage. The Virginia had been commanded pro tem since August 1864 by Lieutenant Oscar Johnston, Thomas Wragg’s former instructor on the CSS Georgia. The Confederates on the shore batteries, Semmes (on which Wragg served) and Brooke, replied with an hour of heavy firing.3 The squadron’s last major battle was the Battle of Trent’s Reach (January 23–25, 1865). The plan had been to divide Grant’s army into three parts and destroy its “water base” at City Point.4 The plan was a fiasco that resulted in the removal of the Confederate commander, John Kirkwood Mitchell, and the court martial of the Federal commander, Richard Parker, for his mistakes and miscalculations. The squadron’s main enemy in its attempt to move downstream was the shallow river and the outgoing tide, and the difficulty in maneuvering the ships past obstructions in the dead of night.5 Lieutenant Read continued to play his usual aggressive role in the squadron, engaging in some daredevil escapades. It is not known whether Wragg also participated in these. Read and Wragg eventually would both be assigned to the Richmond. According to Thomas Wragg’s son, Sam, Wragg served on some torpedo boats during his six months with the squadron, while Read was put in charge of the James River torpedo boats in January 1865. On one of Read’s missions, beginning February 3, 1865, he led an overland expedition of 90 to 120 officers and sailors, including J.A.G. Williamson, James Peters, William McBlair, and James Thurston from the Atlanta, with a plan to attach


torpedoes to Union tugboats, which they would sail up the James River and use to sink Federal warships anchored at City Point. They were, however, forced to retreat without accomplishing their mission when a deserter informed the Federals of their plan.6 Serving with the squadron when Thomas Wragg arrived was his former commander/instructor from the CSS Georgia, Oscar Johnston. Johnston’s Confederate naval career was one characterized by continual reassignment. After the Atlanta’s capture, Johnston served on the Savannah Squadron’s CSS Savannah from June to December. He was then was sent north to become an instructor in the newly created Confederate Naval Academy on the school-ship Patrick Henry, where he was a professor of astronomy, navigation, and surveying. In the summer of 1864 he was appointed commandant of cadets. Between August and October 1864 he became commander of the Virginia II pro tem, still holding his position at the academy until November, when he was replaced by Lieutenant B. P. Loyal. According to a report to President Davis from Mallory on November 5, 1864, Johnston was made commander of the newly built Pedee. Johnston then took ninety men and officers to South Carolina. The launching of the Pedee took place in early 1865, but only “one assignment to duty was carried out by the ‘Pedee.’” The Pedee was destroyed by her crew around March 4, 1865, following the evacuation of Charleston and with the knowledge that Sherman would soon be on their doorstep. Admiral Semmes had taken command of the James River Squadron a few weeks before, and Johnston returned to the Squadron to command the Richmond, the ship on which Wragg was serving.7 On April 2, 1865, General Grant began his bombardment of Lee’s army, which was attempting to protect Richmond. Lee notified President Davis that it was a hopeless cause and the government officials immediately began their withdrawal.8 Admiral Raphael Semmes, who had only assumed command of the James River Squadron on February 18, was ordered by Secretary Mallory to destroy the ships under his command. He later reported: “The spectacle was grand beyond description. Her shell-rooms had been full of loaded shells. The explosion of the magazine threw all these shells with their fuses lighted, into air. The fuses were of different lengths, and as the shells exploded by two and threes, and by the dozen, the pyrotechnic effect was fine.


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The explosion shook the houses in Richmond, and must have waked the echoes of the night for forty miles around.”9 Rear Admiral David Porter, U.S. Navy, reported that he took President Lincoln to Richmond on April 4 and, although the president was overjoyed for the end of the hostilities, they found that all the rebel rams and gunboats had been blown up with the exception of the unfinished Texas and a small tug gunboat, the Beaufort. “The following is a list of the vessels destroyed,” Porter recounted. “Virginia, flagship, 4 guns, ironclad; Richmond, 4 guns, ironclad; Fredericksburg, 4 guns, wooden; Roanoke, 1 gun, wooden; Torpedo, tender; Shrapnel; Patrick Henry, school ship.”10 After blowing up the ships, the officers and men of the James River Squadron set off in different directions. The staff and students of the Confederate Naval Academy on board the Patrick Henry were assigned to accompany the Confederate treasury, consisting of about a halfmillion dollars in gold and silver, to Danville and eventually to Abbeville, South Carolina, where they “turned it over to the army” (and where it mysteriously disappeared). Captain John Tucker, at Drewry’s Bluff, took fewer than a hundred sailors and marines to join the Army of Northern Virginia. They were assigned to George Washington Custis Lee’s Division attached to Ewell’s corps on the retreat from Richmond, fought in the battle of Sayler’s Creek on April 6, and eventually surrendered with General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox.11 Lieutenant Charles Read had already left in March 1865, taking about sixty officers and crew from the squadron to Mississippi with an assignment to take the W.H. Webb past the Union ships guarding New Orleans. Admiral Semmes, including Lieutenant Oscar Johnston and his officers and crew from the Richmond, which included Thomas Wragg, joined the five hundred or so remaining in the squadron on foot to Richmond, where they arrived at 2:00 or 3:00 A.M. on April 3.12 Admiral Semmes described their trek: I was on foot, myself, in the midst of my men. A current of horsemen, belonging to our retreating column, was sweeping past me, but there was no horse for me to mount. It was every man for himself, and d—l take the hindmost. Some of the young cavalry rascals—lads of eighteen or twenty—as they passed, jibed and joked with my old salts, asking them how they liked navigating the land, and whether they did not

128 A Confederate Chronicle expect to anchor in Fort Warren pretty soon? The spectacle presented by my men was, indeed, rather a ludicrous one; loaded down, as they were, with pots, and pans, and messkettles, bags of bread, and chunks of salted pork, sugar, tea, tobacco, and pipes. It was as much as they could do to stagger under their loads—marching any distance seemed out of the question.

After arriving in Richmond and after some searching they managed to find a steam engine and rail cars and traveled by train to Danville, Virginia. They reached Danville about midnight on April 4, 1865, and joined with President Davis and his entourage. Davis ordered Semmes to take command of an artillery unit composed of the sailors of the James River Squadron. Admiral Semmes became brigadier general of this hastily formed army, now reduced to only four hundred men. “Lt. Johnston . . . late Captain of the Richmond,” was made colonel and placed in command of one of two “skeleton regiments.” They remained in Danville five days and busied themselves building gun emplacements.13 Semmes described the days as anxious and weary: “Raiding parties were careering around us in various directions, robbing and maltreating the inhabitants, but none of the thieves ventured within reach of our guns.” The first news of General Lee’s surrender on April 9 was from the stream of “fugitives.”“It was heart-rending to look upon these men, some on foot, some on horseback, some nearly famished for want of food, and others barely able to totter along from disease,” Semmes recalled. “It was, indeed, a rabble rout.” When the Confederate Army under General Joseph E. Johnston learned of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, it began to melt away “like a hillock of snow before the sunshine. Whole companies deserted at a time.” Semmes’s artillery brigade was then ordered to join General Joseph E. Johnston’s army in Greensboro. By the time they arrived, Semmes’s brigade had “dwindled to about 250 men.”14 On April 26, Joseph E. Johnston reached agreement with Sherman not to surrender his troops, but to allow them to “disperse” [italics Semmes]. No doubt, Thomas Wragg followed Semmes, General Joseph E. Johnston, Commander Oscar Johnston, and the men with whom he had shared so much until the constraints of “duty” to the South were lifted and he felt justified in returning home. There is nothing that has


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been found in the official record to determine when this occurred. The ultimate end for the James River Squadron came on May 1, 1865, when Admiral Semmes met with the Federal commissioner, Brevet Brigadier General Hartsuff at the Britannia Hotel in Greensboro, North Carolina. General Johnston was there, surrounded by Beauregard, Wade Hampton, Joseph Wheeler, and Daniel Harvey Hill. Semmes was given first preference. He produced the muster roll of his command and was provided with “guaranties” for each officer and soldier.15 Three marine groups signed the agreement between Generals J. E. Johnston and Sherman. The first two totalled 250 men: 1) General Staff, First Regiment and Second Regiment, Naval Brigade, Army of Tennessee, under the command of Rear Admiral and Brigadier General R. Semmes, the company of officers attached to the brigade for special service and seamen unattached to regiments; 2) the list of naval officers embraced in the agreement of General Johnston and Major General Sherman, officers and privates, Marine Corps, officers at Charlotte, North Carolina who had requested to be enrolled. A third group brought the total of men to 323 naval men: the list of marine officers at Charlotte who had requested to be enrolled, signed on April 28, 1865.16 Of the twenty-six men from the Atlanta who were imprisoned with Thomas Wragg, only seven were on the Semmes muster roll (Barbot, West, Micou, Williamson, Peters, Gibbes, and Skelton). Lieutenant Arledge’s service record in the Register of Officers states that he was paroled with Semmes’s brigade, but he is not on the list. King was paroled in Richmond; John Carey “disappeared” from City Point on October 6, 1864; Edward Johnston died in prison; Morrill was paroled on May 6, in Albany, Georgia; the pilot, Thomas Hernandez, returned to Savannah when he was released from prison, remarried (Jane), and resumed his career as a harbor pilot. He became blind in about 1894, died in 1903 at his home at No. 405 Jones Street, Savannah, and was cited as “the oldest of the Savannah pilots” in his obituary. It cannot be confirmed where the following men were at the end of the war: Wragg, Webb (no information beyond November 1864), the pilots Austin and Fleetwood, Beville, McBlair, Alexander, Turner, Freeman, Quarles, and Riodan. Oscar Johnston may have left when the news of Lee’s surrender reached the brigade, as he was captured and paroled on May 8, 1865, in Athens, Georgia.17 On the evacuation of Richmond, sixty to


eighty of Lieutenant Charles Read’s men from his February overland expedition (the latter of which included McBlair) were still in a Richmond hospital suffering from exposure. Lieutenant Read, Thomas Travers, the Atlanta’s gunner, Thurston, and the approximately sixty officers and crew members from the James River Squadron who left in March and attempted to take the C.S. ram W.H. Webb on the Mississippi River past New Orleans were captured on April 24, 1865. Read was again imprisoned at Fort Warren until July 24, 1865, when he was released “on oath and parole of honor.”18 Duty, honor, obedience were the words that brought Thomas Wragg into the Civil War and held him captive for four years. J. Thomas Scharf, former midshipman in the Confederate Navy, wrote in the conclusion of his History of the Confederate States Navy: Thus ended the “history of the navy of the Confederate States upon the waters of Virginia. . . .[T]hey had unflinchingly obeyed orders leading them into combat against outnumbering enemies; . . . they made an unsmirched record as hard and honest fighters, obedient subordinates and loyal patriots.”19

Part II

Civil War Veteran Reconstructs a Life 1865–1889

7

Confederate Veteran Returns to Reconstruction Georgia 1865

You know, at that time, the South was ghastly poor! Young men Of good families were driving street cars & milk wagons. . . . Pamela McDowall Wragg to Samuel Alston Wragg, 1942

When the Civil War ended on April 9, 1865, Thomas Wragg was twenty-two years old. He had no education beyond high school and what he had learned as a soldier and sailor. Wragg returned to Savannah, which had been economically devastated by the war, and moved back to Broughton Street with his father and family. He soon found out that, after four years of war, he was not the same man, and Savannah was not the same town. He could not adjust to life as his father lived. Even during the war, his relationship with his father changed. Early on he called him “Papa,” but by the time he was in prison, he called him “father.” John Ashby Wragg was a gentle man who cared about his children, yet there was friction between the son and father, similar to that frequently felt by men and women returning from

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college and their parents. But unlike most students coming home from college, Wragg walked the streets of Savannah and saw the parents of men who had died—men he had grown up with. Seeing them, he not only felt guilty at having survived, but was reminded of the horrors of the war and the memory of his friends’ deaths. Jobs were scarce, but Wragg could have remained in Savannah and apprenticed to his father and learned the medical profession first hand. Instead, he left Savannah for Thomasville, Georgia, where he and a friend from the war opened a bookstore. Considering the times, it was a seemingly poor choice of employment. He did not return to Savannah until 1870, shortly before his father’s death and two years after his marriage and numerous jobs. In Thomasville, Wragg met his future wife—Joseph Lewis Cooper, named after her father (who had no sons to give his name to) and called “Josie.” At the time Wragg met her she was living in Thomasville on Hopeland Street with her sister Anne Guillard Cooper Sheftall, recently widowed and mother of three children, Edward Tatnall, Cooper, and Dela Motta. Her husband, Colonel Edward Tatnall Sheftall, former solicitor-general of the Southern Circuit, died in 1864.1 Business at the bookstore was slow throughout 1865 and the beginning of 1866. People, both white and black, were more concerned with supporting their families than reading. Thomas Wragg’s father encouraged him with the possibility that business would be brisker when the growing crop came in. However, he warned, around Savannah the planters were complaining about the difficulty of “controlling labor.” In Black Politicians and Reconstruction in Georgia: A Splendid Failure, Edmund Drago explains that “[r]ice plantations near Savannah were in constant turmoil throughout Reconstruction.” “Controlling labor” meant not only keeping former slaves on the plantations after they were freed, but also paying them. Many former slaves left the state and headed west or north, or they went to the cities in search of work. Blacks had seen that freedom for white women meant staying at home, so many black men, wanting the same for their wives and children, took them out of the cotton fields. Ex-slaves themselves did not want to work as hard as they had before if they deemed their wages slim. Drago quotes one former slave speaking to another to illustrate this point: “If ole massa want to grow cotton . . . let him plant it himself. I’se work for him dese twenty year, and done got nothin’ but food and clothes, and

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25. Silhouette of Josie Cooper

dem mighty mean; now, I’se freedman, and I tell you I ain’t going to work cotton nohow.” Plantation owners whose workers remained gave contracts to their ex-slaves to sign, but since most of them were illiterate, they did not know what they were signing and were taken advantage of by the former owners. If they were given wages or allowed to become share croppers, Drago continues, “The former struggled along on eight to ten dollars a month, and the latter usually worked for only a one-fifth share before 1868. As a former slave observed: ‘Times warn’t no better after de war wuz over and dey warn’t no wuss. We wuz po before de war and we wuz po after de war.’” With the labor force at sixty percent of its former strength, as Thomas Wragg’s father wrote, there was “very little money afloat.”2 By 1866 Wragg’s brother Mac was married to Livingston Wigg and living with his wife’s relatives in Charleston, South Carolina. “He expects to go back to his steam boating as soon as the craft is ready which he thinks will be in 2 or 3 weeks,” their father wrote.3


Between the years 1862 to 1867, Thomas Wragg experimented with creative writing, both poetry and prose. His interest in writing and the bookstore may reflect ambivalence in his choice of career. Although he had told his father when he was in prison that he wanted to become a doctor, as early as 1863 when he was in the C.S. Navy, he secretly wrote prose (“Laurel Grove” and “Fort Sinai”) and poetry, under the pseudonym “Ego.” Beginning in 1862 Wragg began to collect various newspaper clippings, letters, and original artwork—drawings by “C. Floyd” and others (“C. Floyd” was possibly Josie’s Aunt Ann King’s first husband, Major Floyd of Darien, Georgia)—that he placed into a scrapbook dated October 1, 1866: “T.L.W.vis Ego.”4 He later presented this scrapbook to Josie Cooper, his fiancée, “with compliments.” The scrapbook became a symbol of their love: it was something they both treasured. Thomas Wragg’s scrapbook contains three poems, which he contributed anonymously to the local newspaper (see Epilogue): “They Say” (1865) concerning gossip, and (see Appendix) “What’s Trumps” (1866), a somewhat cynical view of ladies’ fondness for diamonds, and “Somebody will come tonight” (1868), a very tender, loving poem. It is not known whether any of his other poems were published. “Blighted Hopes” and “I’m Going Manie, Going” were handwritten and included among his letters and papers.5 All of his earlier poetry in his naval notebook were love poems.

Joseph Lewis Cooper (“Josie”) and the Alstons In 1865, Josie was seventeen years old. Her mother, Angelica Alston Cooper, who had been running her plantation in Madison County, Florida, before the Civil War without an overseer, could not continue to run it after the emancipation of the slaves. Therefore, sometime between 1865 and 1868 she sold all but the land and moved to Thomasville, where she taught school. At the time Thomas Wragg and Josie Cooper met, Angelica Cooper’s brother-in-law, David Walker, was governor of the state of Florida. Angelica Alston was the daughter of Robert West Alston (1781– 1859), great-grandson of Captain John Alston and Ann Wallis. The Alston family in the South consists of two distinct groups: the Alstons


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of South Carolina—descended from John Alston, born 1665, who moved to South Carolina; and the descendants of his younger cousin, John Alston, son of John Alston and Anne Wallis, who remained in North Carolina. Both cousins came to the United States from England in 1694 with the governor of the Carolinas, John Archdale.6 Robert West Alston was born in North Carolina, married Henrietta Green at the age of eighteen, and had thirteen children, ten of whom survived to adulthood. Colonel Robert Alston came to Sparta, Hancock County, Georgia, from Chatham, North Carolina. Colonel Alston met Andrew Jackson in North Carolina and continued to have a lifelong friendship with him. Andrew Jackson appointed Robert Alston to be “collector of customs” or “collector of ports” in Tallahassee after Alston moved to Florida in 1834 and lived at the plantation “Lousta” on Lake Miccasukie, Leon County. According to Thomas Wragg’s son, Sam, Josie’s mother, “Angelica,” married plantation owner, Joseph Cooper, of Hancock, Georgia (February 25, 1834). “I don’t know where the children were educated, but I know Grandma [Angelica Cooper] was educated at Mr. Beeman’s celebrated boarding school for boys and girls in Mt Zion near Sparta,” recalled Sam. “Probably there she met ‘Mr. Cooper.’ General Longstreet in his ‘Georgia Scenes’ mentions this school. Grandma said Mr. Beeman didn’t whip the boys. He knocked them down with a chair. He was a Methodist minister.” (Samuel Wragg was an Episcopal minister.) In addition to poetry by “Ego” and others, Wragg’s scrapbook contains items of historical interest, including articles on the Atlanta capture; the history of the Confederate submarine The Hunley, the first submarine used in time of war and recovered from the ocean floor near Charleston in 2000; the “diary” of John Wilkes Booth; and articles on battles of the Civil War and on Robert E. Lee after the Civil War. One of Josie’s most prized possessions, which she pasted into the scrapbook, was a letter from Andrew Jackson to her grandfather, Robert West Alston.7 Thomas Wragg and Josie also included any newspaper account concerning a family member, such as the following article about an incident involving the Freedmen’s Bureau written around 1865. It describes the assistance Josie and her sister Anne gave to their Aunt Ann (Ann Hunt Macon Alston King, wife of General Edward D. King of Marion, Alabama, and daughter of Robert West Alston).



26. Colonel Robert West Alston

The American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission was created by the “United States War Department in 1863 to suggest methods for dealing with the emancipated slaves.” After many months of disagreement between the House and Senate over its provisions, in March 1865 the bill establishing the Freedman’s Bureau was adopted. It was to oversee “‘all subjects’ relating to their [Freedmen’s] condition in the South.” Its life span was limited to one year. Problems arose, however, as the following incident shows, in the “tension between laissez-faire and interventionist approaches.”8 The Freedmen’s Bureau Encounter with Georgia Women—The Bureau Whipped. The following incident, related by the Thomasville (Ga.) Enterprise of the 12th instant, will serve to show both the pluck of Southern women and the outrages which even Southern ladies have to stand at the hands of a Radical Government.


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27. Annie Cooper Sheftall

The community of Fletcherville was thrown into a state of excitement on Saturday last, by an assault upon white ladies, by soldiers attached to the Freemen’s Bureau. The following are the facts, stated by a witness, as well as we can remember them: Mrs. Gen. King notified a colored woman living in a small house on her premises that she could no longer remain there, on account of highly improper conduct. The woman flew into a passion, made many threats, and applied to the Bureau for protection. On her return, she found that Mrs. King had put her things out of the house, and had also discovered a bundle of her own missing articles among the plunder. These proceedings enraged the woman so much that she struck Mrs. King a violent blow, but was deterred from further violence by the resolution of Miss Josie Cooper, niece to Mrs. King, who was also present. The woman now returned to Capt. White for the promised protection, and soon reappeared with three soldiers, armed and equipped as the “Bureau directs.” Besides Miss Cooper, another niece of Mrs. King’s was present, Mrs. Sheftall. Determined that the woman should not be redomiciliated on her premises, Mrs. King and her two nieces stationed

140 A Confederate Chronicle themselves in the doorway, to prevent the soldiers from returning the woman’s things to the house. One of the three soldiers, to the honor of his manhood, refused to participate in violence to women and stood aloof; but the other two, one a corporal, ordered the ladies to get out of the way, and allow the things to be returned to the house, threatening to shoot them if they refused. The ladies resolutely refused, however, and defied their threats of violence. The corporal now seized a heavy trunk and assisted by his companion, an Irishman, attempted to rush through the door, and thus prostrate the ladies by the weight of the trunk, and gain an entrance. Miss Cooper was accordingly prostrated and much bruised by the trunk, but the ladies now, in their turn, seized the trunk, and with their united strength, hurled it back through the door completely overturning the gallant corporal and his brave comrade, who now occupied a brilliant position flat on their backs on the ground, heels in the air, and in turn, held down by the trunk. They quickly scrambled out, however, and the gallant corporal, satisfied with his brilliant achievement, retired from the conflict. His comrade continued the fight a while longer, and pulled Miss Cooper’s hair, struck her twice with his clenched fist, from the effects of which, we are informed, she is still suffering. Finding the ladies invincible, and true to the blood of their family, these gallant representatives of the U.S. Army, withdrew to make their report to headquarters. Mrs. King is a very old lady, an invalid and almost helpless, while her two nieces are both very small, delicate ladies. Mrs. King states that she wrote to the agent of the Bureau in reference to the conduct of the colored woman, and requested her removal before the difficulty occurred; but that model of wisdom, justice and dignity, did not deign to notice the request. When the colored woman, however, applied for protection, three soldiers were promptly sent to her aid.

The reference “true to the blood of their family” appears to refer to the fact that they were members of the Alston family, made famous by Mrs. Ann Alston King’s brothers’ notoriety as combative men. Thomas’s scrapbook contains another article, this one from the Nashville American, October 30, 1886, titled, “The Fighting Alstons— They died with their boots on!”: “It has been for a century the tradition of the family that its men die with their boots on. For generation after generation this has proven true, and the history of this audacious strain of blood is interwoven with the history of those turbulent days when gentlemen fought at the drop of a hat, and a slight movement of the


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pistol finger was the answer to an insult or insinuation—the close of all argument.”9 Josie’s uncles, sons of her grandfather, Robert West Alston, and brothers of Mrs. King, were Augustus (1805–39) and Willis W. (1803–40). They were involved in a number of duels: Augustus Alston vs. Ward (both survived); Leigh Read, adjutant general of Florida, later killed Augustus. Willis then avenged his brother Augustus’s death and killed Read. Willis later killed a Dr. Steward in Texas. Dr. Steward’s friends, referred to as “a mob,” quickly retaliated and killed Willis. Finally, Willis’s son, Colonel Robert A. Alston (1832–79), lawyer and former owner of the Atlanta Herald and member of the Georgia Legislature, was killed in the treasurer’s office in Atlanta by Captain Edward Cox. Duels in defense of “honor” were the mindset of the nineteenth century, particularly in the South. Bertram Wyatt-Brown, in his book Southern Honor: Ethics & Behavior in the Old South, notes: “Historians of Southern mores are agreed that violence as an aspect of Southern life clearly distinguishes the region from the rest of the country.” He adds, “Violence was central for the maintenance of personal honor.” Honor has three basic components, according to Wyatt-Brown: “conviction of self-worth”; “the claim of that self-assessment before the public”; and “the assessment of the claim by the public, a judgment based upon the behavior of the claimant. In other words, honor is reputation. Honor resides in the individual as his understanding of who he is and where he belongs in the ordered ranks of society.”10 Prior to the Civil War, Francis Bartow spoke extravagantly of preserving his honor. He told his troops: “You go to illustrate Georgia.” Georgia’s reputation was at stake. However, defense of reputation or “honor” took precedence over preservation of life. And, as the description below of the Augustus Alston/Leigh Read duel by Hon. David Walker illustrates, there was at times a frivolous, staged quality to duels in defense of honor. The governor of Florida in 1866, David Shelby Walker was Josie’s uncle by marriage to Philoclea Edgeworth Alston (“Aunt Philo”, see Chapter 8).11 A brilliant lawyer, he was the nephew of General R. K. Call and had come to Florida with his brother George Keith Walker from Russellville, Kentucky. Governor Walker gave the following account of the duel, which took place at “Ingleside” in Florida (near “Lousta,” the home of Robert West Alston):

142 A Confederate Chronicle Ingleside was the home built by Colonel Augustus H. Alston after 1835 when he and his wife, Mary Helen Howard [sic Hawkins, per Joseph Grove’s book], came from Hancock County, Georgia to Leon County. From newspaper accounts and official records, Augustus H. Alston was soon very active in public and social life of the community. He took part in the Seminole War where he earned his title as Colonel. Another Indian fighter and lawyer was one Leigh Read, protégé of General Call, who had been promoted to Adjutant-General of Florida when Call was made Governor of the Territory in 1836. St. Marks, the Fort location, was then a hot bed politically and gathering point for embarkation of soldiers to and from South Florida where the fighting was going on. Finally things reached their climax in December of 1839. Colonel Augustus H. Alston challenged General Leigh Read and the day and hours, December 12th at dawn, was set. Weapons chosen, “the rifle, hairtrigger, one ball. Men to stand twenty paces, back to back; to wheel at the word one; to fire as soon as they pleased after the word, etc.” To the dueling ground just inside Florida on the Georgia-Florida border line, the Alston family sent two carriages. One with white horses denoting victory. One with black horses denoting death. Mrs. Alston, with her little son and a daughter, kept vigil at the upstairs west window commanding a view of the road over which the carriage would return, while all over the county the moment was tense for many persons because of the prominence of both families. Alas! All too soon was the carriage with the black horses seen driving rapidly over the road to Ingleside for sad indeed was the news of the instant death of Colonel Alston from the first shot fired from the rifle of General Read. Never could a more devoted family life been so cruelly disrupted, with several sisters of the dead man promising revenge and an only brother returning from Texas to fulfill such a revenge and to pay for it with his life.12

These activities of the so-called “Halifax Alstons” highlight the lawlessness that prevailed in the South in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Defense of honor was more important than laws against duels or even outright murder: “They put the Code above the Bible.” The fact that the authorities, in effect, “winked” at this activity, and that the public was titillated by it, perpetuated the practice. Thomas Wragg’s eventual death would be a consequence of it.

8

Courtship by Correspondence 1866–68

Such is the Nature of Woman. They love to rule but hate to be governed themselves in turn. What a beautiful night, the full moon looks down as though it were mocking me for not being with her I love next my God. Never mind old moon, tomorrow night will be my turn to laugh. Good night. Thomas L. Wragg “diary,” June 5, 1868

Josie Cooper and Thomas Wragg became engaged in July 1866. By this time, Wragg had abandoned the bookstore and obtained a job as a railroad agent for the “A & A Railroad” (now, Atlantic Coastline Railroad) in Whigham and later at Cairo, Georgia, fourteen miles by rail from Thomasville. This separation resulted in two years of “love” letters between Thomas Wragg and Josie Cooper. These letters provide insight into nineteenth-century mores and courtship practices and Wragg’s emotions in the postwar years. He frequently referred to his “peculiar disposition” and the “despondency of my nature.” Yet, in spite of his roller-coaster moods, he continued to function and joke, looking to Josie to raise his spirits.

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At the railroad station, Wragg kept a vegetable garden and chickens, and he could occasionally go hunting. But since there were few people to talk to, he spent many hours reading and writing—and contemplating his dismal life and shattered hopes. At age twenty-three, Wragg was five years older than Josie Cooper, who had spent her entire life in rural Florida and Georgia. From July 1866 to September 1868, when they were married, Josie saved over a hundred letters and notes between them. The first of these was a short note dated July 3, 1866. Courtship in the nineteenth century was not an easy matter, due to the proliferation of books of advice on manners and etiquette. John Kasson, in his book Rudeness and Civility: Manners in NineteenthCentury Urban America, states that “the most complete (but by no means definitive) bibliography of American etiquette books lists 236 separate titles, a number issued in multiple editions, published in the United States before 1900.” With the letters between Thomas Wragg and Josie Cooper as evidence, Josie slavishly followed their advice. Although both Wragg and Josie Cooper came from “prominent lineage and inherited prestige,” as well as relative wealth, both families had lost much of their money after the Civil War. Having manners and behaving as “gentility” would ensure that they separated themselves from “democratic vulgarity.” “A new kind of embarrassment and sense of shame emerged as a result, one that fed upon uncertainties of status, of belonging, of living up to often ambiguous standards of social performance in a society in which all claims of rank were subject to challenge,” writes Kasson. “To avoid exposing and shaming others and also to avoid participating in their shame became a major principle of public conduct.” This resulted in an intense concern with rudeness in the nineteenth century.1 Duels, such as those engaged in by Josie Cooper’s uncles, were closely tied to this mindset, since one’s “honor” was to be fiercely protected, and “rudeness” was any perceived slight. Etiquette was not only a means to separate the genteel from the vulgar; it took the form of “Social Law,” the “laws of etiquette.”2 In her letters to Wragg in 1866–1868 Josie often tries too hard to impress him with her writing and her manners, and she is preoccupied with the “rules of polite society.” Thomas Wragg responded in kind, at least in 1866, but his letters drop much of this pretense in 1867–68. Josie’s Aunt Anne King and Aunt Philo policed her adherence to these rules, at least

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in part. Aunt Philo (Philoclea Edgeworth Alston Walker) was daughter of Robert West Alston and wife of the Honorable David S. Walker, who, in 1866 when the first “love” letters were written, was governor of Florida. Aunt Philo required Wragg to meet Josie in the presence of Josie’s sister Anne Sheftall. All mail had to be under Anne’s scrutiny, as well. Thomas Wragg was reluctant to “call” on Josie if anyone else was visiting her, and they rarely appeared in public together. When they did appear together, Josie enjoyed mocking him (“your vain self,” “now, that’s a good boy!”), or, guided by her books on etiquette, accused him of “rudeness” and avoided any indication of familiarity with him in public. On the other hand, she persistently irritated Thomas Wragg by allowing the same man, Mr. Lanneau, to be her escort when Wragg was not available, resulting in gossip about them. Wragg did not object to Josie’s going to dances with other escorts, as long as these escorts were not always the same man. On this score, Anne Sheftall was baffled, as she thought that Wragg should not allow Josie to go without him. Kasson explains: “When middle-class women left the confines of their home to venture out in public, they entered a realm in which they felt—or were expected to feel—particularly vulnerable. Possibilities for intrusion and symbolic violation abounded. From an impertinent glance, an unwelcome compliment, the scale of improprieties rose through a series of gradations to the ultimate violation in rape.” In light of this, Wragg was very permissive for his day in saying that Josie should be able to attend whatever functions she desired and with any escort she chose—as long as they were different each time. As Kasson continues, “Many books flatly restricted to fiancés and near relations the men with whom a young woman might properly walk in the evening—a stance the humorist James Thurber would later parody in his mother’s apocryphal exclamation: ‘Why, when I was a girl, you didn’t dare walk with a man after sunset, unless he was your husband, and even then there was talk.’”3 Wragg’s job at the railroad station required him to spend many lonely hours. When he did have the opportunity to see Josie, he was reluctant to leave and was chastised for overstaying his welcome—based on those ever-present “rules of polite society.” The betrothed spent their time in various ways: she taught him to play chess, attended dances


(either with or without him), was active in the “Thespians,” and rode her “patent” horse. He played the guitar and read his poetry to her. Discussion of the books they read and exchanged between them was a major part of their lives. Anne Sheftall joined in this discussion, and she also played no small role as “match maker,” constantly trying to smooth over any rifts between Josie and Thomas Wragg. In her effort to prepare Thomas Wragg for marriage, Josie insisted that he learn his Catechism, read the Bible, become baptized and confirmed, and stop smoking and cursing. He succeeded in following her wishes in all but the smoking. He, on the other hand, brought her into the Episcopal Church, whereas she had been raised a Methodist. By 1868, the strain of the separation from Josie and of her flighty behavior—which frequently was contrary to his expressed desires— began to drag Wragg down. Memories of the Civil War were painfully with him as well, accompanied by a feeling that his future was bleak. The four unrelenting years of war that Thomas Wragg fought was an experience of stress in the extreme. He endured the heat of ironclads, woolen uniforms in July, food deprivation, prison in Boston in a casemate with one blanket for warmth, the constant threat of attack, the sight of his friends being blown apart, lack of sleep—all while needing to remain alert and ready to perform at his peak at all times. Many who fight in wars may recover quickly, but some never recover. They continue to suffer physical and psychological effects long after peace has returned and they have gone home. This “disorder” has been given various names: Da Costa’s syndrome in the Civil War, shell shock in World War I, battle fatigue in World War II, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after Vietnam and the Gulf War. Eric T. Dean, Jr., in his book, Shook Over Hell: Post-traumatic Stress, Vietnam and the Civil War, points out that very little has been written about PTSD in the North, and even less about the topic in the South. “In the more than 50,000 books which have been written on the American Civil War over the past 130 years, the focus has usually been on great generals rather than bleeding and bewildered soldiers,” he writes.4 Both during and after the war Wragg displayed many of the physical and psychological symptoms of PTSD: sleep disturbance, headaches, and depression. In the essay “Laurel Grove,” he showed not just sadness at the death of Bartow and


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Branch, but a death wish—“I envy you little sleeper.” This death wish surfaces over and over. According to the National Center for PostTraumatic Stress Disorder, a general feeling of detachment is also characteristic of the condition. “People who suffer from PTSD . . . have difficulty sleeping and feel detached or estranged. . . . A person may feel strange or ‘not himself ’ and feel disconnected from the world around him,” the center notes.5 On July 3, 1868, Wragg wrote to Josie: “I do not know why I am so despondent at times. I feel as though I . . . had no friends to comfort or advice me. Were I fit to die I would feel happy in the thought of being freed from the despondency of my own nature and relieved from the trials of this uncharitable world.” Wragg’s despondency never reached a clinical stage, and the separation from the woman he loved did not help relieve it, but his letters to Josie provide a rare glimpse into the innermost thoughts of a Civil War veteran. In a somber mood, and echoing the thought of “blighted hopes,” which eventually would become a poem, he wrote to Josie: “You ask me if it is not strange how dependent a person can become upon the society of one, even when others are around. With some it is truly strange, but with others the force of habit cause this dependent feeling. With some there is a true feeling of affection, an affection that nothing can destroy, while in others the shadow of the evening may completely obliterate, and leave no trace on the sands of time of any blighted hopes.”6 On the other hand, when in a good mood, Wragg demonstrated a wry humor. He wrote to Josie Cooper: “I fear that you will leave before I secure your picture. Until you give me one of yours I must keep the one I think looks like you” (October 30, 1866). On another occasion he told Josie that a friend had given him “preserved water melon rind.” “I wish you could have seen it. It was preserved in ‘Sorgum’ and thickened with soot or some other cheap thickening matter. I fed my chickens on it but even they look droopy this morning as though wound from not having had a good nights rest” (August 21, 1868). Following are the letters exchanged between Thomas Wragg and Josie Cooper between 1866 and 1868. Also included are a number of letters to Anne Sheftall, and one from Dr. John Wragg.


1866 July 3, 1866 [Note: Josie wrote on the back of this letter, “This is the first letter Dr. Wragg wrote to me after our engagement,” and enclosed in the envelope is a lock of hair, dark brown, tied with thread.] My dear Josie: Will you please send by boy, the guitar case that I spoke of last evening. I am anxious to send it to Mr. H. I sincerely hope you are feeling well this morning and free from a headache. If you are not I shall never forgive myself for having kept you up so late. Please tell me that my fears are unnecessary. Ever yours, Thomas

July 14, 1866 Mr. Wragg, I have learned from experience, that you are gifted with the bump of perseverance, for you have finally succeeded in getting a note from me, but I assure you it was not owing to my “great antipathy to writing” that you have not received one before. If I am awkward in expressing my thanks for those beautiful lines, I know your generosity will excuse me, as I am quite a novice in any thing of the kind, and my pen is not so practically trained as my tongue. I shall keep them as a memorial of one, I have known only to esteem; in future as I gaze on them, the dear scene of my early, and happy life will rise before me made soft, and beautiful by the memory of an acquaintance with the giver, which will more than cancel and throw in oblivion the sadder portion of my life. (I hope you found no trouble in “drawing up your Catechism.”)

Your friend, Josie Cooper. July 16, 1866 Miss. Josie! If I am guilty of any breach of etiquette so soon this morning by writing you this note, please pardon me & overlook this time, what if it is wrong shall not happen again. To quit ourselves successfully in the great contest on the field of life we must keep our eye fixed on the goal to which our hopes aspire amid all the obstacles that obstruct our way, and through all the windings to which necessity compels us. This Miss Josie is my constant aim. A bright love star shines tenderly down lighting the dark path that I have been so long pursuing—to guide me on and now


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can you wonder at my perserverance? . . . I only ment to explain & then ask if I could anticipate a pleasant hour or two in your most facinating company this evening. . . . I am your True friend, Thos. L. Wragg.

August 4, 1866 Dear Josie: I send you a few figs that I received this morning from a friend. I know you will appreciate them on account of their delicate flavor even though you do not appreciate the motive that prompts me to send them. I saw you yesterday afternoon going as I supposed to take a ride on your Patent horse by the schoolhouse: did you enjoy yourself? . . .Yours, Thomas

August 11, 1866, Monday night 11 p.m. My darling Josie! I send you a copy of “Advice to Young Men.” It is not as nicely written as it might have been, but you will pardon all defects. You told me last night that you wished to send it to someone: now take my advice and consider well before you do so. There are many persons who are so sensitive as to take offense at a trivial affair like this, and place you in rather an awkward position. Never make an enemy where you can secure a friend. I never saw you looking sweeter than you did this morning. The little red feather is quite pretty and very becoming. You will have to wear it whenever I come to see you. Did you send a note or message to me by anyone this afternoon? Hoping that you & Miss Philo may have a nice time in Tallahassee. Yours with much love. T. Advice to Young Men A lady, who signs herself “A Martyr to Late Hours,” offers the following sensible suggestions to young men who are in the habit of protracting their visits to a late hour of the night! Dear gentlemen, between the ages of “eighteen and forty-five,” listen to a few words of gratuitous remarks. When you make a social call of an evening on a young lady, go away at a reasonable hour. Say you come in at 8 o’clock, an hour and a half is certainly as long as the most fascinating of you in conversation can or rather ought to desire to use his charms. Two hours indeed can be very pleasantly spent with music, chess, or other games to lend variety; but kind sirs, by no means stay longer. Make shorter calls and oftener. A girl that is a sensible, true-

150 A Confederate Chronicle hearted girl, will enjoy it better, and really value your acquaintance more. Just conceive the agony of a girl who, we knowing the feelings of father and mother upon the subject, hear the clock toll 10, and yet must sit on the edge of her chair in mortal terror lest papa should put his oft repeated threat into execution, that of coming down and inviting the gentleman to breakfast. And we girls understand it all by experience, and what it is to dread the prognostic of displeasure. In such cases a sigh of relief generally accompanies the closing of the door behind the gallant, and one don’t get over the feeling of trouble till safe in the arms of Orpheus.

Lynchburg Virginian August 22, 1866 Miss Josie: If you are not engaged for the evening I will call and receive my first lesson from you in chess. If you expect anyone to call please let me know so that I may not intrude. Yours, Thos. L. Wragg

August 23, 1866 My dearest Josie, I am anxious to know where you will go after church tomorrow evening. If you intend going to your Aunts I will call over for a few minutes. I must see you before going to Savannah which will be the first of the week. My reason for asking is that I am ashamed to meet your sister and I know she considers me ignorant of the simplest rules of etiquette. I shudder to think of the last time I called. But you dearest, must forgive me, for twas impossible for me to leave the brightness of those eyes— although they did look a little sleepy before I left—to be with you is happiness, to be from you is pain. Wont you write me a few lines? If you only knew how much pleasure it would afford me you would not refuse. I am ever yours. Thomas.

No date, probably 1866: envelope to “Miss Josie Cooper, Enville.” Dear Josie! Our portion of the town is a little excited this afternoon caused by the Mayor and Council’s having a disagreement. Col. Mr. Glashan has


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resigned and council has given him until tomorrow morning to reconsider. I being next door overheard the disputes and wranglings, which has terminated in the withdrawal of the Mayor. The subject debated was the removal of Mr. McBanis house that stands at the head of Main Street, the Mayor did not wish to tax the people to pay for its removal, while the council did. Tomorrow more will be known. I heard someone talking on your piazza last evening or I would have stopped for a few minutes. Yours, T.

September 21, 1866 Mr. Wragg. I wonder if it is breaking one of the rules of polite society for a young lady to get up “Say so” and write a note to a young gentleman—if so I know you are kind and candid enough to tell me “That” I may never commit my-self again; You are sufficiently acquainted with me to know it is the least of my ambitions to remember and conform to those rules. I do what the heart dictates not the world—but enough of this prelude. I hope you will forgive me for seeing you leave last evening without offering you a shawl, or umbrella, it was so very thoughtless and selfish in me. But you can’t imagine how distressed I was and what a scolding Ann gave me. I vowed never to call you cross-eyed or say you belong to the W.T. and to tell you the next time I saw you who did as a recompense and you know I never break my word. I kept “Tom” in the house all night but he left me very unceremonious hour this morning. [Josie left unsigned]

September 21, 1866, Friday Morning Dear Josie: If you will accept my decision in regard to the propriety of your writing me this morning, I will state candidly, that when a person considers an explanation or excuse necessary, there can be no impropriety in lending said excuse. On the contrary, I think that it would be more of a breach of etiquette and the rules of polite society if the party offending did not offer excuses and without delay. I cannot quite agree with you, as to your acting always from the dictates of your own heart, but think from personal observations that you are easily influenced by some persons in some things. You need not ask my forgiveness for what you call selfishness, I have nothing to forgive, as I consider the ducking I got only what I deserved. You can, however, abide by the resolution made, not to refer

152 A Confederate Chronicle to the W.T.—provided you wish to do so. “Tom” says the reason he left so unceremoniously was because you never asked him to breakfast. Yours, T . . . .

September 25, 1866 Miss Josie! Please send by boy our guitar. I intend practicing for Miss Etta’s benefit.7 In haste, T.L.W.

October 2, 1866 Dear Josie! I have just received an important letter from Savannah which I am anxious you should see. Do not commence guessing, you cannot imagine who it is from. . . . You now perceive that you are not the only one who can get important communications from Sav’h. Do not say to yourself, ‘Oh chaw,’ its only from his sister or (using your elegant expression) ‘Suck your teeth’ and exclaim with your usual dignity—“I don’t care!”— for I am sure you will (a little) if what my letter predicts comes to pass. . . . Affectionately yours, T.

October 6, 1866 Dear Mrs. Sheftall: I return the little book sent me this morning, with my sincere thanks. It has been the source of much comfort to me this dark and gloomy day and I shall always thank you for remembering me who scarcely deserves to be remembered. You ask for my opinion of the book. I am almost afraid to venture one, but will say, if we could all display the sweet forgiving disposition of ‘Emma Alston’ at the time her Cousin Lewis left her, we too might reap the rewards of a clear conscience. This book is well written and would benefit others by a careful inspection. I will not suggest any particular person for fear of giving offence not intended. . . . Yours truly, Thos. L. Wragg


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October 9, 1866 If you promise to be as agreable this evening as you were last ‘your little Josie’ will be happy to have your dignity. Respectfully, Joseph Cooper

October 30, 1866 Dear Josie: I shall never forgive myself for having prevented you from attending the Club. Everyone enjoyed themselves splendidly while you were forced to remain at home to entertain me. How selfish in me; if I had thought for a moment I would not have thrown anything in the way to prevent you enjoyment. I am always doing something wrong. . . . I fear that you will leave before I secure your picture. Until you give me one of yours I must keep the one I think looks like you. Our mutual friend Mr. S. acted like a brute last night, he got drunk and everyone noticed it. But what more could you expect from a blackguard. I would like so much to tell him my opinion of his highness. It will be impossible for me to leave town until Thursday morning. If you will put up with my company again before leaving & will state when you are disengaged I will call. Your pleasant sweet voice acted like a charm last night & when I left my headache was gone. I hope it did not remain with you? Please excuse this scratch as I am very much worried & feel blue. Write me a few cheering lines, such as you know I like to get from one who on earth is to me all that I love. Ever yours, Thomas

November 14 Mrs. Sheftall! I have just seen Capt. Shearer who has kindly promised to take charge of the pkg for Miss Josie. Send it to me this evening and I will see that it goes safely. You did not surely send my note to Miss Joe? She will never forgive me for what I said in it. . . . I suppose Miss Josie is just about this time taking a walk through some romantic grove talking of past happy days and with_________now don’t tell her this or I’ll have it to account for before long. I would like so much to know what it is that you wrote

154 A Confederate Chronicle her about me. You said perhaps I would not like it and I am so curious to know. My freedman will wait for the pkg and also for an answer to the questions asked, which I know you’ll not refuse to send. I am Your friend JLW

November 16, 1866, Thomasville, Georgia My dearest Josie! Your note telling me that you were near Station No 4 was rec’d this morning. If you had not told me sometime ago (when you thought of going to Florida,) that you would only write and give me your address, I should certainly have been much disappointed in receiving the few unsatisfactory lines you had only time to write. However you have my full forgiveness this time provided you promise in future to do better. It would give me much pleasure to write you a nice long letter, but fear that before I could complete it you would be en route for home. I must therefore content myself with a few lines and keep all that I have to tell until your return. I hope you are having a nice time at your sisters and that she has so much recovered as to relieve you from any fatiguing duties. I suppose your old friend—who your mother was telling me about a few evenings ago, has been to see you he is agent at nr 4. and I judge from his name that he must be very bright and sharp. It is so pleasant for old friends to meet, where there has been real friendship displayed. Of course friends that have never been tried cannot be relied on. Some of my happiest moments have been spent with those I have not seen for years, and where they have been kind to me, I can almost reverence them. You must certainly attend the “charade” about to take place in “Madison.” I will expect a glowing description of everything on your return. You must tell me how “Dinksie” looks and what he says and who the prettiest girl is and you can give her my love, if you want to, if not, keep it for your self. . . . I wish so much that I could be with you tonight to reassure you of my fond love and hear your sweet voice say that it is returned. You cannot imagine how much you are missed and more so as I did not see you to say goodbye. It was so cruel in you Josie to leave without sending me a note to tell me of your intentions, and I am tonight so blue that I am silent to all around me. I try to console myself with the hope of soon seeing you again; that your stay will be short and when you do come you will allow me to see more of your darling face. The Circus will be here on Tuesday. Thomasville is wild with expec-


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tations. I am going with some little children, who are nearly crazy to go and have not one to take them. On Monday there is to be a concert. I will not go unless I feel in better spirits than I do tonight. You are tired reading my dull & dry letter so I will close, hoping if I cannot see you soon to hear from you. With much love, I am ever yours. Do come back. T. . . .

December 10 [probably 1866] Thomasville, My dearest Josie! As your sister writes to morrow I will avail myself of the opportunity and send you a few lines. Of course I must obey your orders and forward all my letters through her so as to prevent Miss Philo from suspecting you of communicating with one so unworthy of your kind considerations. I will sanction the arrangement provided you promise to write me a nice, long, and affectionate letter telling me all that you see, do and hear, how you are enjoying yourself and how others enjoy themselves in your company. The latter I can well imagine—who could pass any thing but a delightful time in Miss [Josie] Cooper’s company! I do not believe in monopolizing (generally) but if I could, I would like to make an exception in my case and claim your every thought. If this is what is known as selfishness, then I am the most selfish man in the world; but can you wonder at it when your own dear self is the cause? . . . I am compelled to go to Savannah on Thursday. Business calls me there before Christmas, which is impossible for me to defer. I may return before the 25th however, you shall know when to expect me back. All to me is dull and monotonous without you. The days pass slowly on while you are away, my only consolation, when seized with despondency, is to sit and gaze fondly on your sweet semblance and think there is one that loves me and that she is happy. This is truly, consolation to me. It makes me happy to think you are so too. I must agree with “La Rochefoucauld” who in his beautiful language says. “It is a kind of Happiness to know to what extent we may be unhappy.” Now how much more miserable I could be when I think that instead of a short separation we could be forever parted. But if I continue in this weak indulgence of my feelings I shall never give you the local news of this Charming little town. I suppose your sister keeps you posted as to all that transpires in the community. So I shall confine myself to the most important facts. Tomorrow night poor old Dr. Thomas takes his third wife “for better or for worse.” He is from all

156 A Confederate Chronicle appearances much excited, has lost his appetite, and has nothing to say, is always occupied in thought and looks like he was about to be hung instead of married. I wonder if everyone looks like he does on the same occasion? Next in order comes . . . Tom Young and Miss Georgia Sloan, who will step off on the 20th. Tom, looks wild but scarcely so much excited as the Dr. The time of course has much to do with it and I’ll bet you a kiss that on the 19th he will scarcely be able to communicate his wishes. I think Miss Georgia has displayed bad taste in falling in love with him instead of me, don’t you think so? The reading Club met at Miss Tom Jones last night. Everyone enjoyed a sociable time and a nice supper. Miss Ella and Miss Fields were among the number and added greatly to the beauty of the assemblage. My protégé Mr. B did not return until ten A.M., which is another evidence that the Company was agreeable. I never stay out anywhere until two unless the company is very agreeable, and I judge others by myself. Our friend Mr. Sheffield as usually on such occasions was drunk, which fact everyone present knew. Miss “Tex” was not there, ashamed undoubtedly to be seen in his company. He was confined to his room the next day unable to attend to his business. . . Ever yours, Tom

No date Dear Tom I owe you many thanks for the book—it came so very opportunely as I was in most need of fashionable ideas, but it is valued most as coming from one who is so much dearer to me than all the earth. In haste, this time. Yours, Josie

1867 The following letter from Thomas’s father, Dr. John Wragg, is the first indication that Thomas Wragg had been contemplating moving to Florida. He did not do so, however, until he obtained his medical license in 1878. He also had not told his father about his engagement to Josie.


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April 6, 1867, Savannah My dear Thomas: Yours of the 3rd has been recd and I assure you were read with much pleasure. The excuse you give for not writing is an excellent one and one which conveys much satisfaction to me. There is nothing in my opinion more conducive to a young man’s happiness and well being in the world as constant occupation, not that I am opposed to rational amusement that I look upon as healthful & reasonable. But I mean to say avoid idleness it is the root of all evil. Nothing now gives me more unhappiness than the difficulty there seems to be in the way of both [brothers] Mc & Ashby’s getting employments. If I could only see you all in a fair way of getting along in the world I believe I could leave it without a regret. I hope if you make up your mind to embark again in commercial affairs that you will maturely consider the chances which present themselves of success & have a full knowledge of the character of whoever you associate yourself with. What part of Florida have you in view to go to & what is the nature of the business you contemplate engaging in? Write to me when ever you have time & if it should so be, where you engage in business that you can extend a helping hand to Ashby—remember that he is in need of your aid. The poor boy has not had the advantages the rest of you have & the loss of his mother just at the time he stood most in need of her care & direction is a misfortune the effects of which he will feel to the last of his days. His mother’s affections were wrapt up in him and affection to him will be as though it were offered to him. I spent between two & three weeks most agreeably in Charleston & left it when I did with regret and only from a sense of duty. Your GM W’s [Grandmama Mary Ashby I’on Wragg’s] health has improved since she returned from Pendleton.8 She was down stairs at every meal whilst I was there & seemed to enjoy my visit exceedingly. I found them all well on my return. Jesse [Wragg Anderson] you doubtless have heard has had a daughter born. Jesse & the baby were both doing very well ’til a day or two since when Jesse had quite a severe attack. She has however recovered from it and is now getting on quite well again. I hope you will be able to pay us a visit before long. All here join in love to you. Your Father, JAW

August 16, 1867 To Miss Annie Sheftall, present Dear Mrs. Sheftall! I feel myself unable to write Miss Josie a note tonight, but if no one

158 A Confederate Chronicle will be with you I will postpone my visit to the rehearsal until tomorrow evening and call. I am extremely sorry she thinks I have been in anyways unkind, God knows I would not speak one word or do one action that I thought would give her a moment’s pain. If I have done anything to cause any unpleasant feelings I shall seek her forgiveness. In return I do not ask any sacrifice on her part for any uneasiness she has caused but trust when “I know her better” to see the folly of my fears. Your friend, T.L.W. If I come it will not be until I am certain that no one is with you.

August 13, 1867 My dear Josie: There will be no entertainment tonight, it being put off until tomorrow. . . . Have you gotten what you forgot last night? . . . Do write me a nice little note, something inspiring that I can kiss as having so recently left your sweet hands. T. Dickery says, “Dang it,” he “never heard of a rain coming every Tuesday night before.”

September 9, 1867 Dear Josie I thought last night that you only make use of the word impolite to tease me, but your note fully convinces me that it was intended & perhaps your lips were restrained from lettering this reproof for a longer period than you wished fearing to give offence. I will state that I am unaware of any rudeness or impoliteness perpetrated by me either last night or at any other time since I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance. If those little pleasures that I enjoy & you (as you say) dislike, are when indulged in by me, so . . . construed by you as rudeness or anything else, than yours truly, who tries to be a gentleman and a rowdy will refrain from a selfish pleasure before committing any act so very annoying to you. What I wish to impress on your mind is that my actions which you confess are. . . are not intentional, and hereafter I shall try and improve from examples set by my superiors. I will also be polite if possible for the short time I remain. . . . Yours, Tom


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October 27, 1867, Cairo #20, A&ARR Dear Josie: I cannot be in town soon enough to see you to the Thespians on Tuesday evening and I write so that you can make other arrangements. If I can persuade your escort that it is certainly injurious to walk so far at night I will then have the pleasure of seeing you before I return on Wednesday morning. But should I fail in this, then my only chance will be at the Concert. I hope all are well & in better spirits than I am. My feelings are of the bluest kind. I am all alone to day with no one with whom I can even ask a question. I am too sad to write. Yours, T.

October 29, 1867 Dear Josie: I cannot come in tonight, as there is not one at the station but myself. You cannot imagine my disappointment. Ihave been looking forward with so much pleasure to this evening ever since I left. My only consolation at nights, when Ihad finished my work for the day was to think I was one day nearer the appointed time, when at least for a few hours I would be happy. Ihope this evening will pass off pleasantly and for the time forget that I am not there. Read my favorite piece of poetry tomorrow evening and it may come true [Somebody will come tonight? See Appendix]. I can write you no more. Yours, T.

November 18, 1867, Cairo #20, A&ARR My dearest Josie! I have an opportunity of sending you a few lines by Mr. Hansell who promises to see you and deliver this. Let me again caution you against your kind Cousin and beg you not to go anywhere with him if you can possibly avoid it. I learned this morning that he has caused trouble between Mr. Sarann and Mr. Grant [the Episcopal minister] by making false statements to Miss Lenard Seward as coming from Mr. Sarann. I have been reluctant in believing him to be a liar but now am convinced that he has lowered himself by falsehood. I did not ask you what he accused others of saying about you

160 A Confederate Chronicle but determined to find out elsewhere which I have done. If this remark was made I shall seek an explanation from the one to whom it is credited. If it was only a lie on the part of the other, he shall be held responsible to me for making use of the remarks with which he has tried to cause trouble. It shows the meanness of his soul to manufacture such lies to the injury of one to whom he professes friendship. I write him tomorrow on the subject, and also Mr. Strohhart to ask an interview. I hope you enjoyed yourself at the dance last night. I could not feel contented thinking that you were in the company of a would be gentleman, but unfortunately a blackguard. I will never recognize him again. Should my belief be false and he has spoken the truth I will go to him and tell all that I have said and thought and say that I have judged him harshly. I believe I have told you how quick men are to take undue advantage and make remarks that a true gentleman would not be guilty of? You have placed yourself in a position to be thus spoken about & cannot blame them for so doing. Knowing the littleness of their souls & the slight claims they have to gentility or honor, I am angry & will say no more until I have an opportunity to express my feelings to others than yourself. I have been quite busy since I got back and until now have not had time to write I intended to do so yesterday. I was feeling very badly all of yesterday and know that you would not object I took a hot punch just before going to bed last night, which has caused me to feel better. I know I would feel badly, if I did not tell you of it. My kind regards to your sister and Aunt & much love for yourself. I remain, yours in haste. T.

December 9th, 1867, Cairo My darling Josie! Your letter of the 3rd has been rec’d. The happiness it has caused me you cannot imagine nor can you form any idea of the pleasant emotions it produced until I see and tell you how completely changed my whole manners and looks have been ever since its reception. The Piney woods could no longer offer any inducements for me to remain and I took the train on the same evening for Thomasville where I could go and occupy our little sofa and read over and over again your sweet and soothing words. My darling sweet heart, your absence has caused me to feel as though I was left alone on some desolate Island far away from home & friends and like the dead—those that are gone before us to the other shore, completely forgotten. But then comes your dear letter full of love


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and cheerfulness driving away my sadness & bringing back to memory those long and dreary days of my imprisonment when feeling the same loneliness of life I was made happy by a few lines written by those dearest to me, cheering and consoling me in my solitude. I have been very busy since you left and only find time about once a week to see your Aunt & sister . . . Alas, poor “Thespians!” Mosquitoes, sand flies and owls will chant a dirge to your departed hopes, and future generations will point with sorrow to the graves of the poor “Manatee hunters,” once the rising stars of the theatrical world. Must I accompany this party and share their fate? Sometimes I think I shall and bury myself too in the wilds of Florida, but there is one that whispers in my ear Stay, & I will not go. I must be where I can see you darling sometimes. But now for the news. Mr. Law of Sav’h, one of the Engineer Corps, is to be married to Miss Mallie Lester on Christmas Eve. They are making grand preparations and the invitation seekers are on the tiptoe of expectation. The ladies were in town a few days ago shopping and crowds of young men headed by the invincible Tripett visited them in the evening, hoping no doubt to be remembered on the night of the supper. This looks very mean to me, but it would be a strange world if all of us were alike. I am acquainted with all the Wrights from Sav’h but as there are several brothers I am at a loss to know which one it is at (Station) #5. Try and find out his given name. Mr. John Wright is a good hearted young man although not of the upper 10; his brothers are not worth knowing—they were in the Army with me and I know all about them. I went to see old Mrs. Grant [wife of the episcopal minister] yesterday. She was very much moved at seeing me, it being the first time since the death of her son. She looks upon me as one of her children and I am glad to call her mother. She has been one to me since mine was so suddenly taken from me. You must see her when you return. I know you will like her. She is so kind to me. Speaking of kindness, your own sister [Anne Sheftall] is the kindest of the kind. She likes me I know. . . . . . . You say in one portion of your letter that “it is a happiness to feel there is one who although sometimes condems me, still I know there is not a thought of mine expressed to him that interest and sympathy are not felt.” Tis true darling, I do not uphold all that you do. I only disapprove of some of your actions but do not condem you, as it may not always be your fault. We are to a certain extent governed by the opinions of others, and act contrary to our judgement through the influence of others. Whereas by acting as our own conscience dictated, far different results would follow. My advice to you has always been prompted by the

162 A Confederate Chronicle love Ihave for you. My sole object was & will be to guard and protect you from harm and unhappiness & to this end I would give my life and consider it well bestowed. Never tell me dearest that from selfish notions I try to influence, such actions are foreign to my disposition and, would in my eyes look mean and low. Love as you say is the only thing by which you will be governed. Then by love alone do I try to govern you—not govern but influence. . . . There is to be another wedding in the neighborhood Ihope to attend & will no doubt enjoy myself as it will be so different from any that Ihave seen. It is a regular Piney woods marriage & I just know it will be rich. If I have time to write again I will give you a description of the bride and groom. Yellow and red will be the predominant colors. Pink vest for the groom and yellow dress for bride. How brilliant they’ll look. But more anon. You must write me as soon as this is recd for I am very lonely out here darling, and a letter from you cheers me up so much. . . . My kindest remembrances to your sister. With much love and a kiss for my darling. I remain Yours devotedly, Thomas.

December 26, 9:00 p.m., Cairo Dear Miss Josie: . . . The 1st of next year I hope will see me changed in many respects. I have opened a new leaf in my book and have tried to prepare my self for the change. To one of my peculiar disposition this change is hard to accept, but I am determined to conquer my feelings for once and faithfully pursue the course I have traced on the Great Chart of Life . . . My kind regards to your Aunt and Sister I remain ever yours, T.

1868 January 5, 1868, Thomasville, Sunday Evening Dear Miss Josie: It may be impossible for me to come in tomorrow night to the dance so let me urge you again to accept any escort that may offer and be agreeable to you. If I can come you may rest assure that I will do so. In explanation of my words to you tonight I can only remark that I


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was hurt at the rebuke you gave me. I had hoped at least that my affectionate demonstrations would not be so offensive as they have proved. You may think, (and perhaps justly too) that I am making a “mountain out of a mole hill,” but remember, that a heart that is weaned by disappointment is easily wounded. Tis not my wish to part with one I love so dearly in any other way than that of the most affectionate nature but you will not permit my feelings to be too clearly explicit, if they are, a gentle rebuke is my only recompense. If I have offended you I will strive to do better if you are willing to accept the changes. You think it would be a kindness to relieve me from what you think an unhappy engagement for me. I only want your love, if this is refused me Hell would then be to me a resting place. Yours or no other, Thomas.

January 7, 1868, Cairo My own darling: . . . I have thought and thought whether I should tell you all that has made me, for the past four or five months, so sad, and recurred while with you. I think it will be best to make known to you my troubles and I have set aside my next visit to do so. You may think the cause very foolish, but ere you censure me remember my disposition, which you have had time to know, & even those traits that I have tried to conceal are well established in your memory. Mrs. Grant [wife of the Episcopal minister in Thomasville], if she is with you tonight, may speak of me, if she does you must remember that I and her idol son were like brothers, & therefore much may be said only to recall past recollections. Oh how I shall wait and watch for Saturday when I can again look in your sweet face and have you lean your head on my shoulder telling me of your affections and changeless love. This sweetheart is my only consolation. I will expect to see you on the steps if it is a pleasant evening, so don’t disappoint. Your devoted lover, Thomas

January 15, 1868, Cairo, 5 p.m. Dear Josie Yours of this morning has just been received; I regret my inability to come in this evening to participate in the pleasant dance that you are to have. I regret exceedingly that I will be detained out here. You know how extravagantly fond I am of dancing & seeing you too, but nevertheless I

164 A Confederate Chronicle will be deprived of these pleasures tonight. I hope you may enjoy your self as much as you anticipate, at any . . . I console myself (if there is consolation to be had in the thought) that in the kind of pleasure you are happy. I will think of you tonight, perhaps with pleasant emotions, otherwise I will forget you. . . . I will not promise to be in town on Saturday for fear that I may be disappointed. It is probable that I cannot come. . . . Yours, T.

January 16, 1868, Cairo I hope late hours and bad weather have not made any one sick Dear Mrs. Sheftall Your note of the 15th was only received this morning too late of course to be acted upon. I insist that you will not think me unwilling to oblige, but if you will recall our conversation on the night of the last dance while sitting on the steps, you will remember the reason I gave for not asking Miss. Joe ever again to deny herself pleasures that she is so devoted to & seems most happy while participating in. In future no objections on my part shall in the slightest degree influence her against anything she feels the desire to do. I trust you will not construe this as obstinacy on my part for you know my ideas on the subject & the steps I have taken to have things changed. Tis far more pleasant for our likes or dislikes to be anticipated than to ask for them to be gratified. Miss Joe does not misconstrue my present desire to attend these dances. But I do not intend to complain to you. I have only tried to show as well as I could my reasons for not wishing to make the proposition you asked me to do in your note. Give my love to Miss Josie & do not let her see this note. Your friend, T.L.W.

January 23rd, 1868, 1 o’clock a.m. Miss Joe I hope you will never make an engagement & then cause me to feel that I am an intruder. Had I known that there was anything between you to communicate in private I should certainly have withdrawn sooner, although it seemed to require both your hints & his to get rid of me. Still I will state that had I known the object of these winks & nods, my seat would have been vacated before. You need not look for me on Saturday as I have a previous engage-


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ment. Nor will I venture to come fourteen miles during the week only to be sent off until some more convenient time. Yours truly Thos. L. Wragg

January 31, 1868, Cairo My darling Josie! Your note and the gloves arrived safely this morning. As the freight train is delayed somewhere between here and Bainbridge, I will write and send this by h. . . . I am so sorry that you were disappointed on Wednesday night. Your disappointment & feelings of loneliness could not equal mine, for around you are friends constantly to whom you can talk & laugh while I have no one with whom I can exchange a pleasant word or thought. I do not actually believe that I have smiled once since I saw your sweet face. Now who has most right to complain? But as you say tis a consolation to look forward to Saturday night and with me this pleasure seems all there is granted me on earth. But I am satisfied for it embraces more pure happiness than all the evenings together, spent in the society of others. The only enjoyment I see away from you besides anticipating the pleasures of seeing you, is your notes. But Josie, even they sometimes cast a shadow before them, which chills my heart and causes a doubt to absorb my mind. I will tell you why. I have in my life had occasion to read letters from engaged parties & they were so different from yours, not in the formation of letters or in any other way, but the warmth and affectionate tone in which they were written, while yours sometimes (you see I am charitable) are cold and perfectly devoid of any feeling of affection. This I believe is contrary to your true feelings, & if I am right in this assertion then why not, in your notes, that even in their coldness brings pleasure to my heart, claim me as you should one that soon will be nearest to you in earth. But I find myself preaching a sermon when I only intended thanking you for mending the gloves. I am much pleased with “Pique” & hope you will read it too. There are many passages that I want you to read anyhow, if you do not wish to read the whole book. I have something for you; can you guess what it is? Tell me everything that you imagined it to be when I come in. What splendid weather for exercise. I suppose you are in the house but little. Take care of yourself and don’t get sick. It was so cold last night that a cup of water I put on a red hot stove was frozen when I got up this morning. “And that’s a fact.” Kind remembrances to Mrs. King & your sister with much love, I am ever yours, Thomas


February 21, 1868, Cairo My darling Sweetheart; The missing note that I though[t] I had handed to the Mail Agent, has come to light. I found it quietly stowed away in one of my coat pockets. On Saturday night you shall have the pleasure of reading it and can then imagine how I felt to think other eyes than yours should see it. Today has been exceedingly gloomy to me and how badly I’ll feel to see the train pass this evening & I not get on. But I am never satisfied. I believe if I were to see you every day during the week I should not be surprised if I found myself wishing for the “Iron wheel of time” to cease its motion so that I might see you more. It will be much harder for me to stay out here now, as business is exceedingly dull and I have but few ways of killing time. Were you only here I would not ask what the rest of the world was doing? I explained to Mr. Roff the cause of our absence last night, and also expressed your regrets at not seeing him. He was disappointed, but of course did not blame you. I hope Miss Budd was as generous. I hope they enjoyed themselves. I am sure I did more than if we had met. Let me beg you Josie not to have anything to do with these two persons. I mean in their love scrape. I know you will say you will not, but even now you are being made a “go between.” An expression of your opinion can do no harm, but where you do more and anything unpleasant takes place, your best friend will censure you. Mr. Strobhart perhaps would not be so unkind as to ask this of you or blame you for anything you do, But so completely would I shield you from one moment of pain, that by a few timely words can be presented I will run the risk of displeasure & bear the mortification of having him or any one else pointed out as a model of kindness and one worthy to emulate. You may have found in some others all that you know I do not possess, but could you have found a more devoted friend? The train is nearly here and I must close. Kind regards to your S. with much love & a kiss I am ever yours, Thomas . . .

February 22nd, 1868 Dear Tom, Please bring this evening all the poetry of your composition that you have with you, “that is a good boy.” Oh! To day is Saturday and I am so glad, I will be on the steps waiting for you this evening. Ever yours, Josie


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March 14, no date, Cairo My darling Josie! . . . I regret to hear that you have been “mad.” What could have caused it? I hope before I come you will have gotten better for I am terribly afraid of “mad women.” The request for me to “come in soon” was very faint I attribute this however to your eyes and will not get mad because it was not more earnest. So you can look for me on Saturday if nothing prevents. If you are well enough meet me at 6 o’clock on the bridge. If I do not see you there, will come over after supper but I am premature, perhaps I can’t come at all. I got a long letter from my grandmother [Mary I’on Wragg]; will show it to you next time. She is now over 85 years old but still writes with out glasses. You think no doubt that I inherit my sight from her as I saw more than I ought to last summer when Mr. S was in such great demand. You remember I used to see more than you wanted me to? I thought you were going to send your mothers letter to me? “State secrets” prevented I suppose—well I will be satisfied to hear a portion of it. You must not for get that you have something to tell & ask me when I come in. Darling I must not cause your eyes to pain so I will stop. I remain, Ever yours.T . . .

March 15, 1868, Cairo My darling Josie! . . . I am very lonely to day, in fact have been and always am when away from you. I believe could you be with me always I would never visit to see anyone else as long as I lived. This is not extravagant for so devoted am I to you my darling that the society of others would seem a mockery to pleasure. I met Mr. Grant (Charlie) on the train Monday night and during our conversation he remarked that “the more he saw of you, the more he admired my taste.” How very pleasant it is dear Josie to listen to remarks like these. I know your intellectual mind, and appreciate it the more for having so limited a share myself. You think different but I have weighted mine in comparison to yours and find it sadly wanting. Teach me darling to be good and I will repay you with a devotion that is not often found among men. I can teach you to love, but more than that I must be the scholar. My amusements out here are few. An hour or two in the morning and afternoon with my little vegetable garden is all that I can bost of. My

168 A Confederate Chronicle only pleasure is in writing to you or reading one of your dear notes which I kiss over and over as I read. My pastime at present is perusing the novel so kindly lent me by you. I am interested but cannot read mine more than a chapter or two at a time. Kind regards to all, with much love and two kisses for yourself (if you’ll have them). I remain devotedly yours. Thomas

March 18, 1868, Thomasville If you can not make this out, I will read it to you when you come. Dear Thomas Please dont make yourself so unhappy about me though it is very pleasant for me to know there is one who loves me as you do and to prove it I have fully returned that interest & love. . . . I have the blues when I hear of your being sad or lonely. I wish we could have spent the day together as you “insinuated” that only when away from me were you sad or lonely. A thousand thanks to Mr. Grant for his compliments, though really Thomas, I do not expect that you would have expressed yourself as you did. You know that I detest flattery. So will comment no farther on that part of your letter. You must not appeal to a higher power than me to “teach you to be good” which I hope you will and I will try and follow your example. You little know the influence that you have on me. There is one thing if you would only quit, oh, how happy it would make me: and that is cursing—will you not? If you come on Saturday let me know tomorrow. . . . It is getting late & I know Ann is very sleepy so I will close. Ever your own, Josie

March 19, 1868, Cairo My darling Josie Your sweet note has just been recd and has caused me too much happiness. I have only time to say look for me on Saturday. Do not censure me for only writing a line or two but the Pass train is already here and I cannot say all that I wish now. Think of me to night nine or ten o’clock. I will then be writing a longer note to you. Darling Josie your request that I should give up the ungentlemanly habit of Cursing shall be granted, and from this day I cease. Devotedly yours, Thomas I could read every word of your letter


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March 20, 1868, Cairo My dearest Josie! . . . The deep love and kind interest you express for one who, until he met you, has seen but the shade side of the great picture of life and never knew what it was to be loved by a fine and lovely woman. My affections for many years have been as it were searching for a resting place trying to find some sympathizing heart to whom I could trust with my love, but until two short years ago my searchings were all in vain. I met you and my passionate love was rekindled. I loved you but feared almost to cherish the hope of ever winning your esteem days and weeks passed by and still I could see in changes in you, which would warrant my asking your love or speaking of the feelings that then pervaded my mind. I could stand it no longer. I must know and trembling with anxiety I asked you were free and loved me then a little. I have struggled to increase your love or make my self worthy to be the possessor of your pure undivided heart. I have succeeded and I thank God that my affections have found a permanent resting place. I will try and be all that you desire and prevent if possible your regretting the choice you made. . . . I have nearly finished the Discarded Daughter and am quite pleased with it. Will return it Saturday. Hunt me up something else by then. . . . Kind regards to Mrs. S and your aunt [Anne King]. God bless you darling. Yours devotedly, Thomas I send six kisses. You took the other two, so I send more this time.

May 1, 1868 My Darling Josie! . . . Your suggestion about writing to my grandmother is a very good one but tomorrow I will write to my father and tell him of my intentions relative to being confirmed. Don’t you think this a good idea? How very bitter your mother is against Episcopalians, about dancing, it depends much with whom you dance and the kind of dances you participate in. I think so at least. Should you join in one with me it would be all right, but with any other I think it wrong. What an expression of selfishness. However, as your mother says as long as you are a Christian it makes but little matter what church you belong to. I have been very lonely for the past few day’s. Coming to see you only makes me regret more my situation. I console myself by thinking in a few short months I will be able to come to you when ever my business will allow & if I cannot you can come out here.

170 A Confederate Chronicle Oh how happy I will then be striving to lead a better life and having an angel to show me the right path. Josie, darling, without you to cheer me on I feel that I must sink by the roadside and give up the prize that all Christians are hoping for, but with your kind voice and gentle hand I feel that the task will be light, could we only walk hand in hand to the great throne of our father, and ask admittance for two loving hearts to his home, how happy, doubly happy would we be to think that nothing would then separate us for ever. . . . You must be certain and let me know when your mother comes as I am anxious to see her. Why did you not send me all of her letters. I was just getting interested when I came to the end. You’ll show it to me when I come in won’t you? . . . The trains are running on their schedule, and I will have to be up until 11 1⁄ 2 and again at 5—how . . . pleasant. You had better not go to church on Sunday morning, but read the service and a sermon at home . . . it is so hot to be in the sun & the walk is too long for you to take. Will tell you something that will undoubt surprise you. It certainly has me. You express the hope that we have had our last misunderstanding. Darling it will not be my fault the next time. How is your sister’s little boy? I trust he is at least out of danger, poor little fellow, how he has suffered; remember me kindly to Mrs. Bobo when you see her again.9 I will have the pleasure of talking to an enlightened man when Capt. H. gets back from his trip in the country, a pleasure not often granted me out here. But I am at the end of my paper and must say good night. My kind regards to your sister and Aunt with two kisses and much love for your dear self. I subscribe my self Your devoted lover, Thomas

May 5, 1868, Cairo Dear Mrs. Sheftall! Your note of the 4th was rec’d by high train this afternoon. I am truly glad that you have written me on this subject for I can now fully and without reserve explain to you my reasons for not calling while in town Sunday and Monday. Miss Joe and myself do not exactly agree as to the propriety of her receiving the attention of Mr. Lanneau. I know to a certain extent she is compelled to see him but this does not in my opinion justify her in allowing him to join her on every occasion. The plan is an admirable one and so far has succeeded in making one, at least, unhappy. ’Tis gotten up for the purpose of separating us. And by our mutual friend Dr. B, this I would not say did I not have good grounds for making the assumption. And Miss Joe seems willing to be an instrument in


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this accomplishment. I have made up my mind not to join her again until she is willing to give up the attentions of one of us. I do not think I am to blame for this decision. Could you know my feelings on being taunted by being “cut out” and the remarks that continually reach my ears about Miss Joe and Mr. L. you would not blame me for the decision. I do not doubt her love for me, Lord grant that I never shall, but I do doubt her prudence and judgement. Her action cannot rise from vanity for I believe her as free from it as any woman on earth. Then why does she act as though she were free of engagements and only desired to please herself. She told me once that she has refused to be seen in the streets with him, again, not because I disliked it, however, but because people were noticing it. Thursday week in the afternoon proved that a few short hours had changed her resolutions. Do not I beg think I am making complaints or growing Luke warm. I only think it my duty to explain why I did not call. God knows Mr. Sheftall I love your sister perhaps too well and you more than all my friends combined. Are we to have a repetition of last summer’s proceedings? If so I trust I may never live to witness it. You fear that some misunderstanding exists between us; rest assured there is not. She knows for I told her my intention when last we were together. Oh that I could recall the happy moments I have spent at your little home where no one seemed anxious to interrupt two loving hearts. You mention that she was unhappy when she heard I was in town and had not been to see her. I regret to hear this, I did not think she would expect me. Again you say I am too honorable to take advantage of this confusion. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the good opinions you entertain. ’Tis all I possess, rob me of my good name and I would indeed be ruined. Trust her to me and she is safe. I thank you kindly for your warm assurance of friendship. May you never have cause to regret having known me. If I could but repay you for all that you have done for me and the interest you manifest, then would I feel as though a weight had been removed from my heart. Those things that we are most anxious to do are always the most difficult to accomplish. Never think that I am so unkind as to feel that you are a “meddlesome old woman.” I do appreciate your goodness and always shall. I must now sue for mercy and beg that you will not expose my ignorance or hold me up to censure by causing me to write an “address” for Tatt [Annie’s son]. At school my compositions were always dull and stupid, though I often sat up until midnight taxing my brain for a few original ideas, but ’twas no use and I am sorry to say since my school days I have not improved in the least. Anything that will not display too much of my ignorance I will be happy to do for you.

172 A Confederate Chronicle I am glad to hear that your mother will be with you on Saturday. I hope I may be able to see her before she returns. I have this evening written to my sister about your Aunt’s house. I do not think she would be willing or able to keep house and therefore if there is a chance to rent it do not wait. If I have said too much Mrs. Sheftall pray pardon me. I feel so blue that it would be a happiness to die. You may call me weak, true I am, and know no remedy. I must beg you not to let Miss. Joe see this. She will think I am unkind in having censured her. Destroy after reading and should I have an opportunity I will give my reason for all I have said in this note. I have already occupied some of your time than I should have done but trust you will pardon me this time. If you can find times to write me I will be most happy to hear from you. I remain, Your true friend, TLW (11:00 P.M. Excuse mistakes.)

May 6, 1868, Cairo My dear Josie! . . . I have written home and in my letter mentioned my intentions of being confirmed. I know my father will be overjoyed to hear it. And I sincerely hope it will be the cause of my leading a better life. You have but few of the temptations to overcome that continually surround me. But with God’s help I will strive to be able to follow the true path. I am naturally of a very sad disposition and when I take up my little bible and see how far I am from being what a Christian should be, my heart sinks within me & I feel that I am indeed cast out from our Saviors heart. I am in need of sympathy, without it I feel unable for the task. Oh if I had one living heart to whisper sweet words of Consolation to my restless spirit, then would I renounce the world and live within that heart . . . Kind regards to my friends Mrs. S and also Mrs. King. I remain with love, Thomas

May 12, 8 am Dear Josie: I did not get off on the Pass train this morning as I was feeling too badly, but will leave on an Extra that goes in a few minutes. I trust on my next visit that I will feel better and be more agreeable and entertaining. I also hope that before your mother leaves I may have the pleasure of seeing her as I am anxious to have a talk about our future [marriage]


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arrangements. Do not let any thing emanating from your brothers cause you any unhappiness.10 Your truthfulness I appreciate so much and if you say that these reports are false I would believe you, though the world were to accuse you of duplicity. Should they be true never mind what they are—tell me. I am generous to a fault. I only feel sad when I think you fear to trust me. Ever your own T

May 13, 1868 Dear Thomas; . . . Tom, I have been so unhappy about you since you left, thinking of your suffering out there with no one to amuse you. I have thought often that I was glad we were poor, of how happy we would be living away from the world, of what a paradise Cairo would be, but if ever I see you sick, then I wish to be rich. The confidence you have in my truthfulness with God’s help will never be misplaced. Oh! I believe it would kill me if I thought you doubted me for one moment. Promise me whenever you may hear against me, to cast it from your mind without asking me. You must come on Saturday. Mother will be glad to see you. She has learned to love you. I knew she would. I would have thought any one crazy if they had told me two years ago that I could love any one more than her. Write me what time you will get here Saturday and write a little longer note than the last. Well, I am too sleepy to write to the end of the page, so good bye. Your affectionate Josie

May 14, 1868 10:30 AM My darling Josie! . . . I am pleased to hear of another candidate for Confirmation (Miss B) I suppose Mr. Grant must have seen her before he left. Do you know where she is to be baptized at? I think I would rather be sprinkled if the mornings are as cold then as they have been for the past day or two. You must have misunderstood me about my having written to my father [e.g. about their wedding plans]. I intended doing so but until now have neglected it. I wrote to my sister of my intentions but have not heard from her yet. I think of writing to Father either tonight or tomorrow. . . . Ihave been tramping through the woods this afternoon and feel

174 A Confederate Chronicle tired so you must excuse me this time from writing a long note. . . . Kind remembrances to you mother, sister and aunt, and warmest love to my little Josie. I remain, Ever yours, T.

June 1st, [1868], Cairo If you can read this, you are a good scholar. My darling Josie! . . . Your letter brings me tidings of more imprudence on your part. Going to church again in the hot sun? Remember a constitution injured in youth can never be restored no matter how careful you may be here after. Of course you could not help going to Mrs. Grants after having offered your services. I wish, however, that it had been otherwise. . . . I have spent a most miserable time since I left. It gets duller and more uninteresting every day. What will become of me in July and August is hard to foresee. You ask me “if it is not strange how dependant a person can become upon the society of one, even when others are around.” With some it is truly strange, but with others the force of habit cause this dependant feeling, with some there is a true feeling of affection, an affection that nothing can destroy, while in others the shadow of the evening may completely obliterate, and leave no trace on the sands of time of any blighted hopes. How pleasant it must be to feel that Mrs. Grant is now near you. It is a pleasant afternoon walk and sometimes we can call on her while taking our little strolls. I read my Bible yesterday but did not have a prayer book to read the service. My Bible has lately become more interesting and every night I read a chapter. In fact have done so even since you gave me the one I have. Heretofore it has been only a sense of duty and not one of pleasure that prompted me to read in it. God grants that my heart may be so changed as to see the necessity of giving myself up to Christ. I am so happy to hear that everything has passed off pleasantly in Fletcherville since I left. I trust it may always be so. . . . Give my regards to your Aunt & sister and for you dearest Josie, more love than I can express. Ever yours, Thomas How do you like my paper? P.S. The man in the glass says he won’t kiss me but you must do so yourself. Thomas Wragg’s “diary”


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Sunday May 31st, 1868 I did not arise this morning until breakfast was on table. I do not know why, but for the past month I have been feeling wretchedly, both mentally and physically. I have fallen off in weight from 137 to 126 and know not the cause unless it is from the unsettled state of my life, which continually preys on my mind. The day has been devoted to sleeping and reading my Bible. Thank Lord I can draw some consolation from his words. I have read in the British Essayist Lamartin, Madam De Stael and Bonapart, three noble characters. I have been thinking of my little darling that cruel fate keeps me away from. Is she thinking of me? But why should I be sad if she is not. There are others who claim her thoughts and are entitled to a chance. I have written to my sister, but my letter was one of those dull ones that no one likes to receive but how can I do better with nothing of interest to write about. I will close this quiet Sabath with a prayer for myself, Josie and all who strive to do good and ask our father to give us peace in his world and happiness in the one to come. Oh Lord watch over my own darling Josie and shield her from sin and harm this night.

Monday, June 1st 1868 I was aroused this morning, after a miserable night’s rest, by the departure of the repair train, which was a little after day light. Could not sleep again. After making my toilet took breakfast. To day like all the rest to me out here was monotonous in the extreme. What would I not give to be thousands of miles away from this section of the country? There is not one inducement for me to remain. By reading, sleeping and thinking the day was passed and with it my sadness to some extent. In the evening I recd a note from Miss Joe which, though not entirely satisfactory, still pleasant enough to drive away the blues. After writing and wishing myself away on some uninhabited island all alone, I fell asleep to awake to another lonesome day.

Tuesday June 2d Today I have nothing that I can relieve my mind of by putting in writing. This afternoon took a trip to #19 for a little relief from this wretched life. Oh woman, is inconsistency a part of your nature? I fear to trust one for honesty. Would that I had never known their inconsistent nature. But to my bible and bed.


Wednesday, June 3rd Up bright and early. Nothing of interest to note. I find it hard to pass off the time from the time I get up until dinner. After that I generally sleep an hour or two until the arrival of Pass train.

Thursday, June 4 What an age it seems since I have seen my darling little sweetheart and to think it is two long weary days before I will hold her little hand in mine and look in her sweet face. I cannot stand being so far away from her. I believe I will take a trip to Thomasville this evening if only to be near her. Would that she were mine and no separation to cause me so much unhappiness. I wonder what she is doing now. Am I ever in her thoughts?

Friday, June 5 I could not resist the temptation and went to Thomasville yesterday. Did not leave the Depot but sat and talked all the evening with Chisholm and Sam Hayes. I was amply repaid for the trip by getting a sweet letter note from Josie. How prone they are to censure us for our faults while they dislike so much to be reminded of their imperfections. Such is the Nature of Woman. They love to rule but hate to be governed themselves in turn. What a beautiful night the full moon looks down as though it were mocking me for not being with her me love next my God. Never mind old moon, tomorrow night will be my turn to laugh. Good night.

Saturday, June 6 At last Saturday has arrived & anticipating the pleasure of seeing Josie makes me happy. Oh that it was now the time of realizing what I look forward to with so much anxiety, but patience. I took a long tramp yesterday and saw four fine deer but something turned them from passing my stand and I got a long shot, too far to do any execution. I find that by going out now and then the time passes more rapidly and I think hereafter I will indulg more freely in this amusement. It is now one o’clock p.m. and only 2 hours before the train comes. I will have to finish this after I return to Cairo. Is she thinking of me? No.

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June 5, 1868, Cairo My darling Josie I have just returned from a long tramp in the woods and must beg you to forgive me for not writing a long note. I am feeling too badly to collect my ideas this afternoon. To reply and criticize in detail your note to me yesterday would occupy more time than I have before the arrival of the Pass Train and as I promised to send a note this evening, you must be satisfied this time with only a line. Do not feel hurt at what I said in my last note to you. I certainly appreciate everything you do to please me. You owe me no duty as yet, and I regret that you feel obliged to censure me for want of magnanimity. I will explain my self more fully when I come in and you can judge me then, I hope with more clarity. Please forgive me dearest for not writing more. I remain your devoted sweetheart, Thomas Look for me at about 6 on Saturday.

June 10, 1868, Cairo My dearest Josie! I arrived safely after a dusty ride of fourteen miles, made more miserable from the fact that every turn of the engines wheel carried me further from you. I cannot positively decide about going to Savannah until Thursday or Friday, by which time I will hear from my sister. If her trip is not postponed, I will go down, if it is I prefer to wait a little longer. Oh! How I would love to go north with her. She is so good to me I know I would enjoy myself so much. I will have to get rich before I contemplate these pleasant journeys. . . . And now dear Josie, “par precaution” let me again beg you to be careful of yourself, and avoid the sun, take a short walk in the cool of the evening and this gentle exercise in the course of a month will cause you to feel like another person. . . . But my dearest I will close as it is getting quite late. . . . Kind regards to your aunt and sisters with much love for yourself I remain devotedly yours. Thomas P.S. Ask Miss C. if my French is right.


June 16, 1868 I will come over at 10 1⁄ 2 and see how you like the [wedding] dress. If there is anything needed to complete it, I can get it when I go to Sav’h. My sister’s note to me inside will explain all about it. Hope you are feeling well this morning. Will do as you request. Yours, Thomas

July 3, 1868, Cairo My dear Josie! I fear Miss Bobo [Josie’s sister Roberta] has formed a very poor opinion of my disposition from my looks and actions yesterday afternoon. Have but one regret & that is she should have noticed how extremely sensitive I am. . . . I would have been willing to have staid out here a month if I could have only seen you yesterday while you were at home. I will never forgive my self for not going down to the train, then I would have recd your note and had a few happy moments, I do not know why I am so despondent at times. I feel as though I . . . had no friends to comfort or advice me. Were I fit to die I would feel happy in the thought of being freed from the despondency of my own nature and relieved from the trials of this uncharitable world. We talk of human life as a journey, but how variously is that journey performed. There are some who come forth girt, and shod, and mantled, to walk on velvet lawns and smooth terraces, when every gale is arrested, and every blow is tempered. There are others who walk on the Alpine path of life, against driving misery, and through stormy sorrows, over sharp affliction: walk with bare feet, and naked breasts, jaded, mangled, & chilled. The latter I feel sometimes in all its fearful misery and wish for the end of the “three score years and ten” allotted to us on Earth. Enough of such thoughts. Kind remembrances to all. I remain with much love, Thomas

July 6, 1868, Thomasville My dear Mrs. Sheftall! I fear you think me the most ungrateful person on earth and from appearances I am, but before I will lose your good opinion & friendship I will explain my reasons for not accepting your kind invitation to the last evening. Now please make due allowances for my peculiar disposi-


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tion, on which you know is so very odd. In the first place I have been anxious to see Miss Josie alone for a few moments both on my last visit & since I have been here this time. All my exertions have been in vain and it has made me feel so badly besides I believe she has exerted her self to avoid being left with me for a moment. I know her duty towards Miss Bobo as a friend and a stranger and I also know her duty towards me. One evening to me was all I asked which I think could have been spared even though it deprived her of a few hours of pleasure. You know Mrs. Sheftall my only object in coming to town is to see her and if I am deprived of that pleasure, Cairo or anywhere else will be more agreeable than Thomasville. Now feeling as I do tis natural for me to object to be with her as a friend only and for this reason I acted so ungratefully, not because I did not feel thankful for your kindness—far from it. I can never repay half that all of you have done for me. I do not know the reason but I cannot feel (like she does) happy, in company with others. This may seem unnecessary but our dispositions vary, some good some bad. Again, you no doubt heard of the remark Miss Budd made while we were walking a few afternoons ago and how unkindly I took it. When she requested Miss Joe to appologize. She instead of trying to excuse my fault and say I did not leave them for that, condemed me and said if it were her she would not appologize for it. Was this kind? I do not think so. She might have shielded me as much as possible; had this been done I would not care what the remark was, I would have felt that there was one who would have been for me instead of condemning me also. These are little things Mrs. Sheftall but sufficient to bruise a sensitive heart that knows more of sorrow than happiness. I am on every occasion made the subject of ridicule, not that I would object were it only at home but among strangers it seems to afford the most pleasure. I am not complaining were I so inclined I might most bitterly. But simply trying to regain the friendship I fear I lost last evening. I know the few pleasures Miss J has & I would not mar them for a moment therefore when she is so well satisfied I do not feel justified in forcing my self on her and thus destroying those pleasures she seeks to have uninterrupted. I do not like to hear you speak in such a despondent way as in yr note yesterday. Cheer up, better days are in store for you, for me all seems dark but one little spot. Should I lose your friendship & Miss Joes love, then would I be supremely miserable and nothing would tempt me to remain in this country. I hope the young ladies as you are well this morning. If you would only take my advise . . . but tis no use to ask it. I am your true friend. T.L.W.


August 4, 1868, Savannah My own darling Josie I . . . write a line tonight and tell you of my safe arrival at home. I found all well and glad to see me, though not at all demonstrative in their feelings: this is a family failing (except with me). . . I cannot tell you any news or explain the fashions but will wait until I return. Look for me either Thursday or Friday. I will watch for you on the bridge, I will be on the platform of the last car. All my friends ask me if I am married the report of which has . . . here. I deny the slander and say I have no idea of doing so. Love to Miss K[ing] and my good friend Mrs. S[heftall]. Affectionately, Thomas.

August 21, 1868 (Hope you are feeling better today) Darling Josie Yours of 20-th enclosing one to my sister has been received. Your sickness is the only thing that saves you from a good scolding both for exposing yourself, at this particular time, to the sun, and also for disappointing me with only one half sheet of paper. However I will not scold as you are so unwell but trust you will do better in future in regard to both complaints. I send today your note to Caro & stated also when I would be in Savh. I am sorry nothing has been heard of your Aunts watch. If she would only have Fanne arrested perhaps through fright she will tell. Get your Aunt to send for Spears and tell him to take her off like he intended putting her in jail and see what effect that will have. I have made strict inquiry out here & find that Doc came out on the train Monday night and started back on Tuesday after sunrise. No one knows why he came, except that he said he was hunting work, not very likely, or he would not have returned so soon. I am convinced in my own mind that he knows all about the theft, and is equally interested in the affair. If I was the looser the last one of them should be arrested and kept until I was satisfied of their innocence. I would then have the consolation of knowing Ihad done all in my power to recover it. Do ask Miss King to try what Fanne will tell by sending for Mr. Spears; I wish I was in town and had full power to act I’d make some one suffer. If the guilty, for their guilt, if the innocent for their not being free from suspicion. I cannot come in before next week, though I would like so much to see you. It will be better to stay now that I am here, as you know how


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very hard it is for me to leave or for you to let me go, when I am in town. The time is not far distant when I can spend two weeks with you, with but little interruption. When you write again, which I trust will be soon, tell me how the “Dramatic Corps” comes on and when they have their first public entertainment. My friend Mrs. Stuart sent me over quite a treat. Yesterday in shape of preserved water melon rind. I wish you could have seen it. It was preserved in “Sorgum” & thickened with soot or some other cheap thickening matter. I fed my chickens on it but even they look droopy this morning as though wound from not having had a good nights rest . . . I did a smart trick the evening Left you. In putting on my “Cairouniform” I took from my vest pocket about eleven dollars and put it on the bed in the depot and there I left it. I wrote to Mr. H. by next train, which was not until the following day, and fortunately he found it. I’ll lose my head some of these days, but it will be from a different course than carelessness, I expect. Please write me soon darling and cheer the dull days that intervene between now and the time to come to you. I am devotedly yours, Thomas

September 3, 1868, Cairo Darling Josie! Although Ihave nothing of interest to tell you still I will not make that an excuse for disappointing you. I recd a letter from Capt Anderson [Jesse’s husband or father-in law] who again states his intention of coming up [to the wedding] on the 24th. He begs me to give his love, but I don’t know that I shall. . . . Caro writes me she will be ready when I go down. The dress you wrote her about is the very kind she had been intending to get. I also got a letter from Father and as he complains of my being reticent in telling him anything about you I will write him to day all I know. Drawing your profile in the margin and giving the best or principal traits of your character & sic. I know he will be satisfied with the description. Saw Mr. Grant [Episcopal minister] last night & learned that you had been over to see him in the afternoon. I surprised him I think by engaging his services for the 24th, he did not look for it quite so soon. You must be certain to write me by tomorrows train and let me know if I shall come down Saturday or wait until next week. I am anxious to see you and know how everything has been arranged before I go to Savannah & if you have not decided let me insist that you do so at once.

182 A Confederate Chronicle Remember that only three weeks intervene & before we are aware of it they will be gone. Decide positively & do not let the feelings of anyone prevent your doing so. I will look for a note by Fri night’s train. Do not disappoint me. Love to yr mother and sister with much for your dear self. I am. Ever your own, Thomas

18 Sept 1868 Office of Edmands, Gardner and Co. General Shipping and Commission Merchants Savannah, Ga. My darling Josie! I have only time this afternoon to write you a few lines before the mail closes. My trip down was not as fatiguing as I anticipated. I availed myself of the comforts of a good bed in the sleeping car and had sweet dreams of her I was leaving in Thomasville. All the family I found quite well. My father was just about leaving for a little hunting trip in the country so only saw him for a few moments. Caro I found all ready to accompany me back on Monday and I believe she is as anxious for the time to arrive as I am. Mc wanted to know if Caro was the only one I intended to invite, whereupon I gave him his invitation and solicited his presence, but he will not be able to leave his wife & she cannot absent herself from her little charge. I will send this balance of the invitations off tomorrow. Please say to Mrs. Sheftall that I cannot find the cloth she wants. there is something very much like it but suppose that will not do. I have gotten a pair of kid slippers but I think the price enormous, they ask $2.50 for them. I have made arrangements to have them exchanged if they do not suit. The braid I have matched to a T, but got two pieces as one would not go all around the dress. Tell Miss Annie Maxwell that the letter has been safely delivered and I await the pkg. But if I go in the mail will close my letter will be like the one the Irishman wrote and carried himself. Kind regards to mother and Aunt with much love to self & sister, I remain, Ever your own Thomas About twenty of my friends say they are coming up on 24th but I told them it would be on 28th and begged them to come then.

When Thomas Wragg deadpanned this last remark, it is not known whether Josie took it as a joke, or was horrified to think of twenty


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guests arriving four days after the scheduled wedding. Compared with customs of today, Wragg’s treatment of the whole subject of the wedding is unique. Yet even he could see the irony of Mr. Grant’s response when hearing that the wedding day was scheduled for September 24, 1868, after a two-year engagement that must have seemed an eternity for Thomas Wragg: “What, so soon?” On the other hand, Wragg didn’t inform his father of his plans, or tell him about Josie, until the wedding was almost upon him. Dr. John Ashby Wragg did not attend the wedding, as evidenced by letters written a year later (Chapter 9) in which he expressed a desire to meet her. Thomas Wragg also failed to invite his brother Mac until the latter prompted him. Wragg’s sister, Caro, was the only family member, it seems, involved in the wedding preparations and the only immediate family member who attended. Caro purchased the wedding dress in Savannah, the larger metropolitan area, when Josie could not get one in the more rural Thomasville. Unfortunately, no pictures survived from the big day.

9

Railroad Agent, Bookkeeper, Farmer, Store Owner, Conductor, Doctor 1868–78

Above all things be prudent and not expose yourself to rain or the sun, take moderate exercise and continue with the Iron . . . Thomas L. Wragg, 1869

Thomas Wragg married Josie in Thomasville, Georgia, on September 24, 1868, at the residence of Mrs. A. A. King by the Rev. Mr. Charles Grant. Wragg gave her a gold ring that he had made himself from a gold coin given him when he was in prison. While it must have been difficult for Thomas Wragg and Josie living separately during their courtship, the years of their marriage between 1868 and 1878 were even more trying. During this decade, Wragg changed jobs about six times and their residence about five.1 Thomas Wragg and Josie had three children in the space of five and one-half years. Pam was born in March 4, 1870, in Savannah; Thomas, Jr., was born on April 15, 1872, in Thomasville; and Samuel Alston was born on August 11, 1875, in Milledgeville. Following his job with the railroad, and after his marriage, Thomas and Josie Wragg went to Bainbridge, Georgia, where Thomas kept books for a supply merchant. In Bainbridge, the lives of the Wraggs were

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Railroad Agent, Bookkeeper, Farmer, Store Owner, Conductor, Doctor

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stressful, since they lived in a boarding house run by Josie’s aunt Ann King and apparently shared at least their dining table with others. Wragg worked keeping books until midnight, and the other residents of the house irritated him. In a letter to Josie he wrote: “The woman under us is still as noisy as ever & the little brat turns up as often as before. It’s hard to tell who is the most annoying of the two.” Again in December 1868 Josie was visiting her mother, and Thomas Wragg groused: “I fear your mother’s predictions will come true about Mr. Grant; they always come to pass when attended with misery.” His poor humor was not lightened by the living conditions or his very tedious and unchallenging employment: I have been at the store writing until 12 o’clock for the past two nights, and expect to be here until midnight tonight. I will try and get my books written up so that when you return I will not have to go to the store. I am so glad you were not here to the party; it was the most rowdy affair I know of. Most of the men were tight, or I judged so from the noise and firing of pistols in the yard. I was thoroughly disgusted and returned thanking the fates that you were away. Mrs. King tried to smooth it over, but failed I think.2

In August of 1869, a female friend raved about Thomas Wragg to Josie. She appears to have been one of the “boarders” who shared the dinner table with them in Bainbridge: Bainbridge, Ga. Josie: Your spirit must certainly be with me this morning my sweet friend for I am continually thinking of your bright face and many laughs. . . . I had the pleasure of dining with your high lord yesterday—he was of course as usual—just as sweet . . . pleasant and agreeable as possible. You have a noble husband Josie & I charge you to look well to his interest— he is in my opinion one of the noblest of God’s creation—he is all that you could desire—handsome, intelligent, kind, courteous & polite— affable, Christian like & charitable & don’t get jealous when I tell you I love him for his own sake, for yours . . . because he is lovable and good, altho’ I fear I have been too lavish or perhaps extravagant, maybe enthusiastic . . . which he so richly deserves (pardon me) at the same time he should be proud to call you wife. In you I have seen much to admire &

186 A Confederate Chronicle love tho’ our acquaintances has been short yet I soon discovered the beautiful parts in your character. I found no fault, perfect in every thing and oh! Josie, there was in particular, one thing in you that won my heart—it was your devotion to your husband, your whole thought was of him. Even in the little chit chat, the kind and affectionate manner in which you would always speak of him made my very soul thrill with emotion. . . .3

Since their marriage and while they were living in Bainbridge, they had not made a visit to Savannah to visit Dr. John Ashby Wragg, as evidenced by a letter from him written to “my dear daughter” dated March 11, 1869:4 Nothing in the world would give me more pleasure than to see you and form your acquaint’ce. There is a place in my heart for any one connected with my children and none of them I assure you fill a larger space in my affections than does Thomas. From childhood he has never given me one cause for uneasiness of any kind & I pray God to prosper him in all his undertakings. A father’s blessing is all I have to bestow so far from following your advice in advising him not to be kind and attentive to you I am sure he can’t be too much so unless it should be to the detriment of his business and I know him to well to suppose that such would be the case. . . .

A few months after this letter, on June 15, 1869, Dr. John Wragg wrote again to Josie, this time mentioning Thomas Wragg’s longing to move to Florida: Thomas mentions in a letter I rec’d some time ago that he thought of removing to Fl. When he wrote he did not seem to have formed any definite plan. When he does settle his plans I hope you will let me know them. What part of Fla he goes to & what are the prospects of success he has. He ought to consider maturely before he gives up a certainty, small though it may be, for uncertainty. I can’t help saying that I am sorry for the move because it will be taking you still farther off from us.5

Perhaps this desire to move to Florida was fueled by such remarks as these from Dr. John Wragg written to Thomas Wragg on an earlier occasion:6


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I should like nothing better myself than to take a trip to Florida but I would want to be free to go to what part of the State I chose & not be bound down by business. I still continue my fondness for sporting & there is no place in the wide world where it can be had in greater perfection than in the land of flowers & of—mosquitoes. The fishing in Florida surpasses any thing I ever imagined before going there. Upon one occasion we started from Smryna to go to a sheephead ground to fish for those fish. The wind had come on to blow very brisk from the eastward and we could not reach the ground. It was proposed that we should anchor where we were under the lea of a marsh Is. surrounded by mangrove trees. Here, tho’ we were on no known ground & with the most inferior bait (small muscles), we in 2 or 3 hours fishing filled 2 flour bowls with sheephead weighing from 2 to 7 lbs each; all caught with a rod & reel. Farther south on Indian River, the fishing is still better. The hunting too is of the finest description & I might give you an account of some of my deer stalking with the rifle & the astonishment I excited in some of the old hunters there at my endurance and success, but I may become tedious & will stop winding up by saying that the infernal Yankees stole my rifle & I think at 60 it is about time for me to turn my thoughts elsewhere, which I pray God to help me to do. . . .

From Bainbridge, probably in early 1870, the Wragg family moved to Savannah, Georgia, and lived at 55 Jones Street (now the south side of the 300 block east between Lincoln and Habersham), where Pamela was born. Dr. John Ashby Wragg had moved his residence to 110 S. Broad (probably 18 East Oglethorpe between Drayton and Bull) and used his Broughton Street residence for his office. At this time Thomas Wragg began in earnest to study medicine with the aid of his father and the latter’s medical library. Sounding like the doctor that he was to become, Thomas Wragg advised Josie, who had just had her first child: “You did not tell me if you have commenced taking the Liver Regulator. You had better do so at once. . . . Above all things be prudent and not expose yourself to rain or the sun, take moderate exercise & continue with the Iron. . . .”7 Pam was born in Savannah at their residence on Jones Street, and she was four months old when the following letter was written (July 31, 1870).8 Thomas Wragg was very much the proud Papa, but concerned about Pam, who had had a bad fall. Again, his employment is in doubt, as he tells Josie that he will attempt to find something permanent, but


has an offer of something temporary. Wragg told Josie she may think of him as “indifferent and lukewarm,”“cold and unconcerned,” explaining that his “feelings are not demonstrative.” On August 4, 1868 (Chapter 8), Wragg had told Josie that his family were “not at all demonstrative in their feelings: this is a family failing.” Therefore, although among the diagnostic criteria for PTSD are avoidance and emotional numbing expressed as detachment from others, it is not clear what the case is here. My darling wife! . . . The House is about the same as when you left. Old Matilda [housekeeper] flying about as usual. She asked how you & the baby was & when I told her of the fall she got, wanted to know what kind of folks we were to let “de chile fall & you looking right at it. Law! I neber see such people since I born.” I finally explained that we were not looking at her just at that moment & she must kick up her heels & go over. She cooked me a nice lunch to take out & before leaving insisted on my eating a plate of soup. Among other things in my basket was a “Huckleberry” pie, which I found very good. Mr. Wilkins came down this morning . . . I will try and get Employment in Savh. Something permanent, before accepting his offer . . . He says our little baby is the sweetest little thing he ever saw. Do when you write tell me how she is if any livelier than when I left, I am so anxious about the poor little thing. How sad it would be if she did not recover her lively disposition, but cry & take no notice of anything. Do try darling & arouse her & make her like she used to be & may God let her be a comfort to us when the summer of our lives has gone, let us rear her, darling, to usefulness & teach her all that makes woman lovely. Especially Christianity. . . . . . . Oh! Darling when you are taken from me I will then curse my miserable self for ever causing you one moment of pain or regret. I wonder sometimes if I could live after you were gone? No, a miserable suicides death would be my end rather than be forever crushed by the most fearful of all misfortunes. You look upon me sometimes my wife as being indifferent or lukewarm & and it may be that by my professions now you will not fully believe that I am not, however I will ask you to believe me sincere when I tell you that even at those moments when you look upon me being cold and unconcerned, I love you with an affection known but to few in this world. My feelings are not demonstrative. Would to God they were for then the whole love of my heart would be known to you & you would never say again “Boy you don’t love me.” But let us promise


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each other to be more trusting & never let anything cause us for a moment to think that we are not cared for by each other. Write me all about yourself and little Penie. With much love and many kisses for yourself & my little Baby. I remain, Your devoted husband.Thos.

Dr. John Wragg, who had been sick off and on for a year, complaining of fevers, died on October 9, 1870, of malaria. The family was still living in Savannah at the time. After his father’s death, Wragg took his inheritance and that of his unmarried brother Ashby and sister Caro and invested in 380 acres of land in Scriven County, Georgia, on the Black River in the hopes of becoming a planter. This attempt at farming lasted all of three years, and it resulted in his losing everyone’s money. Thomas Wragg’s real estate transactions during the period 1872–75: On January 10, 1873, for the sum of $300.00, Wragg sold one half of the property, sold to him on January 2, 1872, and located near the Savannah River containing 552 acres, to Joseph B. and Mary I. Bond—his brother-in-law and sister. The land, which had a $2,000.00 mortgage on it, was “bounded on the North by lands formerly of Dr. Peter Stolesbury but now called Julia A. Livingston Land on the east by Estate of W. Conner’s land, Savannah river; William Prior’s land on the south; and on the West, William P. Carmichael’s land . . .” On January 13, 1873, Wragg purchased 380 acres in Scriven County, Georgia, on the Black River for a down payment of $750.00 and a mortgage of $1,500. The deed was signed by Curtis Humphreys, Sr., and was recorded in Book V, folio 1956196, on April 14, 1873. The land was bordered by the lands of Sodowick Bozkin, Bzous Bozkin, Dr. Top, E. W. Sowells and James O. Billings.9 By 1875, Wragg was already selling some of the land he had bought in 1873, as a deed from Thomas L. Wragg to William Prior indicates: “Shriven [sic, Scriven] County, Georgia: Dr. W. L. Top Land, E.W. Sowell’s land. The above plat represents one hundred acres of land Situate in said county on the waters of Black Creek.” Wragg received $650.00 in the transaction. Thomas Wragg’s son Thomas, Jr., wrote: “He went to Milledgeville from Scriven Co. and opened up a grocery store. I remember spending the day with him several times. [Sam was] born at that time, 1875. The


store business busted and he got a job in railroad, either as conductor or baggage master.”10 In a letter to Josie dated circa 1875, with the heading “Office of Savannah and Charleston Railroad Co., Savannah, Ga.,” Wragg wrote that he was seeking employment and was working as a conductor for the railroad. “There will be a train of Yankee troops from Florida today which I may have to take as far as Gemassee, have heard nothing of the extra night train that is expected to be put on, hope if it is started to get on it as Conductor.”11 Throughout this seemingly endless job hunt and effort to make a living, Wragg continued to study medicine. His daughter, Pam, wrote with pride: “Then, when he was about 35 years old, he passed the [Georgia] State examining Board that allowed him to practice. Probably the doctors in Milledgeville helped him in his studies, which really began when he was in prison in Boston. I imagine it required much strength of character and the will to have the profession to carry it through.”12 Thomas Wragg had an insider’s opportunity to learn the medical profession, both by watching his father manage his medical practice and through access to his father’s medical library. However, while his father obtained a medical education from two of the finest medical schools in America and Europe, Thomas Wragg was too poor to follow in his footsteps. It was not unusual for an aspiring doctor of Thomas Wragg’s day to understudy another established doctor—a form of apprenticeship. In 1825 the Georgia Legislature passed the first act regulating the practice of medicine in Georgia. A license was required for all who wanted to “practice physic and surgery or any of the branches thereof or in any case to prescribe for the cure of diseases for fee or reward.” Yet, a doctor was only required to have a license to practice, which was obtained by passing both written and oral tests; he was not required to intern in a hospital or attend medical school.13 Wragg was fortunate that he passed his Georgia licensing test when he did, for in 1881, he would have been required to attend medical school as well. License to Practice Medicine The Board of Physicians of the State of Georgia. To all who these presents shall come, Thomas L. Wragg is hereby licensed to Practice Medicine and Surgery in conformity with an act of


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the Legislature of the State of Georgia entitled, ‘An act to regulate the Licensing of Physicians to Practice in this State.’ In testimony whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names and affixed the seal of the Board, at Milledgeville this thirty first day of May 1878. William H. Hall, M.D., President J.L. Harris, M.D., Secretary14

Throughout the nineteenth century, when Dr. John Wragg and his son Thomas Wragg finished their schooling, a doctor did not automatically become part of a respected profession, nor was his status in society elevated.15 Also, in the nineteenth century, the average citizen could not afford a doctor, was (probably justifiably) distrustful of them, and tended to prefer home remedies until the situation became desperate. Dr. John Wragg obtained status through both his medical school education and by being the son of a wealthy planter before becoming a planter himself. When he decided to join the Medical Society of Savannah in 1850, he was one of the first doctors in the city, and he already possessed high social status. He maintained his position by continuing to serve the more wealthy planters and citizens of Savannah. Although Thomas Wragg had the family background for social status, circumstances after the Civil War compelled him to obtain his medical license through apprenticeship and not medical school. As a result, his only hope for respectability as a doctor was to succeed at healing, and to court all classes of people and earn their trust. By the time Thomas Wragg became a doctor, established doctors were advising young doctors to begin their practice in frontier communities if they hoped to make a living. “In 1901 a financial handbook for doctors put the earning of an average city physician at $750 and those of a country doctor at $1,200,” notes Paul Starr.16 The larger cities, such as Savannah in 1878, were overcrowded with physicians and surgeons, putting into perspective Thomas Wragg’s decision to take his young family to “Coonbottom” (Concord), Florida, and to frontier living as soon as he obtained his medical license. It is also clear, from earlier letters from his father, that for years, Wragg had his heart set on moving to Florida.

10

“Coonbottom” to Quincy 1878–89

No man would immigrate into Florida—not out of Hell itself! J. Randall Stanley, History of Gadsden County

Dr. Wragg and Josie’s later children remembered the lawlessness of the region surrounding “Coonbottom” (Concord) and later Quincy, Florida, and the fear that they shared in the years between 1878 and 1889. In regard to the move, there was just a hint of friction between Josie and Dr. Wragg. Wragg had gone down to Concord (“Coonbottom”), Florida, and, after buying a horse and buggy and renting a house, sent for the family. Josie was concerned that she was taking her family to a lawless “frontier territory.” As the family left Milledgeville, Georgia, in a little “spring wagon” to take the train to Concord, Dr. Wragg’s daughter Pamela remembered Josie telling the children, “‘It is a very poor place to bring you children.’ I remember I didn’t like it as I thought it was a reflection on Papa.” Thomas Wragg, Jr., commented on the move and alluded to the tragedy to come: “From Milledgeville he went to Coonbottom and hung out his shingle. The blackout came just as things began to look bright.”1

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“Coonbottom” to Quincy

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And life did become bright. The Wragg children fondly recalled frontier living in a small town, remembering it as a place of simple pleasures, a place where your neighbors were family, where the school was one room, and above all, where the family enjoyed respectability and Wragg, as a doctor, was needed and valued. Concord, Florida, is located just across the Georgia-Florida border in the northeast corner of Gadsden County. The family remained in Concord for about two years, living in “the house across from the Rices.” Dr. Wragg’s sister Caro and Josie’s sister Annie were especially concerned for Thomas Wragg’s daughter Pam, both for her safety and because they believed a young lady could not receive the proper cultural exposure in Florida. They promptly (1879) took her back to Savannah, Georgia, where she attended the Massey School for two years. In 1880 the family moved to Quincy, in the center of Gadsden County. Dr. Thomas Wragg signed several contracts in 1886 and 1887 with the Florida Railway and Navigation Company to be the company “Surgeon and Physician,” covering the territory from Quincy to “River Junction and half to Tallahassee.” He may have had this position for the entire time he was in Quincy. In 1887 he was also asked by the Equitable Life Assurance Society to be the “Chief Medical Examiner for the town of Quincy.” In addition to his private practice, this would have meant a fair amount of travel. Josie was frequently left alone in the house when Dr. Wragg was out on calls, and she would dress up as a man, with a man’s hat and pipe, and sit with a light behind her in front of a window making a silhouette to anyone passing by the house. The children were made to hide and play on the floor. Samuel Alston Wragg gave another version of this time to the Riviera Times, Coral Gables, Florida, in a January 26, 1951, article on his life: “My father was the only doctor in Quincy, then a little town of about 300,” the dean said, “and often he was out on calls far from home. We were only a few hundred yards from the Georgia border and in those ‘wild and wooly’ days the planters would come across from Georgia and whoop it up drinking and shooting. My mother would make us all lie down on the floor and keep quiet so that we would escape the stray bullets. That was Florida in the early days; they only do that in Texas now,” he laughingly added.2



28. Dr. Thomas Lowndes Wragg

29. Samuel Alston Wragg



30. Thomas L. Wragg, Jr.

31. Pamela McDowall Wragg

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The county of Gadsden was created and approved on June 24, 1823, by Governor William Duval, who replaced then-Major General Andrew Jackson and became the first civil chief executive in Florida history. Gadsden County now encompasses the territory south of the GeorgiaFlorida State line between the Ochlockonee and Apalachicola rivers on the west and east and Leon and Liberty counties on the south. The county seat, the town of Quincy, was founded in 1825, named after United States Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. The town was incorporated in 1828.3 J. Randall Stanley’s History of Gadsden County reportedly caused a local stir, at least in part due to its emphasis on certain families over others. He eventually threw in the towel on the project, ended his book in mid-sentence, never included an index, and left his manuscript with the Gadsden County Historical Commission, which had it printed “as is” by the Gadsden County Times in 1948. What his book reveals is that, both before and after the Civil War, Quincy was a very “closed” society of “plantation aristocrats,” run for years by a limited number of families. Like many small towns where newcomers are not easily accepted and existing families are often interrelated, there was an underlying distrust of strangers and a tendency to protect one’s own. The land in the county was rich, fertile, and well suited to agriculture, resulting in the proliferation of large plantations. Tobacco growing was introduced in 1830, and before the Civil War these plantations were little “kingdoms.” Everything needed was produced on the premises, and the owner had sole authority over the administration of the plantation and the lives of the slaves. The plantation owners had plenty of time to engage in pleasurable pursuits, such as horse racing (the “Jockey Clubs,” which Andrew Jackson and his friend, Robert West Alston, enjoyed, as evidenced by the letter from Jackson to Alston in Thomas Wragg’s scrapbook).4 A number of the most respected citizens were also actively involved in the local politics and administration of the county. Some of the most prominent citizens of Quincy in the 1880s were DuPont, Love, Dismukes, Foreman, Ellis, Stewart, Pittman, and Munroe. Today five of these are names of Quincy streets. At the time the Wraggs lived in Quincy, they were also major players surrounding the murder of Dr. Thomas Wragg, played major roles in the power structure of the


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town, or were connected to each other through marriage, shared experience, or business interests. Dr. Wragg had his private practice in his personal residence, located at what today is 220 Jackson Street and part of a “Historic District” and “walking tour” for the city of Quincy.5 Dr. Wragg frequently recruited his son Sam to hold the ether over the patient’s face while he operated. The ether would overcome the assistant, who would eventually need to run from the room for air. Medical practice was primitive in many ways, as this letter from Wragg to Josie indicates: “Am sorry Penie [Pamela] suffered from the arsenic; I am under the impression that I told her about the swelling, if I did not I certainly intended to do so as this happens very often & it is only necessary to suspend the medicine.” John S. Haller, Jr., in his book American Medicine in Transition: 1840–1910 points out that physicians had used the sulphides of arsenic since ancient times, prescribing it both externally and internally. It was believed to kill dozens of illnesses as well as to increase resistance to disease, infection, and environmental pollutants. “Sixty different preparations were tried therapeutically in the history of its use,” he notes. In addition, Haller reports, “twenty or more were still in use by the end of the nineteenth century.” The concern of doctors in the nineteenth century was not whether it should be administered, but rather in what proper dose. One supporter argued, “Let us use the medicine. . . but use it discreetly. Let us not repudiate it; but let us beware of its overdose.” As with arsenic, doctors of the nineteenth century were overly eager to engage in “doctoring” when none was needed and might prove to be harmful: As in previous centuries, physicians relied too heavily upon the virtues of the materia medica and not enough upon the recuperative powers of nature. Armed with cups, lancet, and leech and provided with calomel, tartar emetic, arsenic, and an assortment of other drugs, doctors proceeded to bleed, blister, puke, purge, and salivate patients until they either died from the combined disease and treatment or persevered long enough to recover from both. . . . Doctors seldom questioned the reliability of older remedies and fewer still were willing to experiment except by increasing dosage or extending the range of the drug’s applicability. If patient mortality was high, it was no worse than most doctors experienced and no less than the public expected.6



32. Dr. Thomas L. Wragg residence, Quincy, Florida, in 1889 and 2001


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Payment for Wragg’s services frequently took the form of food or merchandise—a load of wood, 2 dozen eggs, 2 sacks of flour, 112 pounds of pork. On one occasion, a black man walked all night carrying a bale of hay to Dr. Wragg as all he could afford as payment for medical services. Wragg’s medical appointment book for 1883 indicates that his practice was reasonably successful, as it shows annual billings of $7,041. A physicians’ guide edition from 1890 to 1905 “estimated the average physician’s income at between $1,000 and $1,500.” In the early to mid 1840s, the average number of patients per day, rural and urban, was between five and seven, with more in urban settings and less in rural.7 Dr. Wragg billed 1,558 patients and 29 were “free,” showing an average of 30 patients a week. In the month of June 1883 alone, he delivered 27 babies, 20 of whom were “success,” with 7 “fail.” The family that came to him most frequently was that of Senator Elisha Paul Dismukes, which made 68 visits in the year; almost all were infants. The Dismukes had 10 children, and all but 2 eventually died and are buried in the Quincy Munroe Family Cemetery. The second most frequent family to visit was that of Judge E. C. Love, which made 34 visits in the year. Judge Love lived across the street from the Wraggs. Thomas Wragg’s son Sam visited Quincy as an adult in the early 1940s and wrote to the local Quincy paper describing his memory of the people, places, and events of the years 1881–89. Young Samuel Wragg was a “Huckleberry Finn,” full of mischief and always stretching the boundaries of the permitted. There is nothing in this account that alludes to his father’s death, but the names of some of the prominent citizens who played major roles in the town and in the lives of the Wragg family appear (including Elisha Dismukes and Judge Love):8

Gadsden County Times, Quincy, Fla. An Old-Timer Recalls Early Days in Quincy (The following article on Quincy and Gadsden County in days gone by was written by Rev. S. Alston Wragg, rector of St. George’s Church, Helmetta, N.J. who re-visited Quincy recently. Like all reminiscences, it may be in error in spellings of names or identifying locations, but it appealed to the editor as an unusually keen report of the Quincy that used to be.) Memory plays me a curious trick in old age. Happenings of twenty,

200 A Confederate Chronicle even ten years ago are misty, confused. Names fail to come readily. We place events, which occur in one year, two years later or five years earlier. We meet Jones and call him Brown. We forget entirely the events, the acquaintances of nineteen-fifteen or nineteen twenty-five. But the names and scenes of our childhood come back clear and strong. I am sure, with just a little prodding, I can remember the names of nearly all the men and women, boys and girls, I knew in those first seventeen years of my life spent in this small Florida town. Perhaps this is not so difficult; after all, as Quincy had but six hundred inhabitants in those days, and the addition of one family a year was an event. We were just one large family and of course one does not forget the names of the members of his own household. Recently I had the great pleasure of visiting Quincy, meeting old friends of long ago and visiting the scenes of my childhood. How many names and scenes of the past were remembered, which, for years had been, if not forgotten at least not recalled to mind! Walking to the end of the street running from Court House square, down by the old brick school house, two names suddenly came into my head “Hungry Level” and “Lick Skillet.” Are these names familiar to the present generation? “Hungry Level” was that settlement at the top of the hill leading down to Quincy Creek on the Faceville road. On the right hand side was the home of the Burghardts—Gus and Fred and John and Miss Bertha and Miss Mattie—names doubtless familiar to all. Next was the Ben Smith home. Tom was one of my best friends and business partner (chickens and eggs). Then came Ben and Paul, Roy and other younger children. Beyond these homes and on both sides of the street lived the colored population from whose homes came many of our cooks and washerwomen, our other servants, laborers and craftsmen. I remember Burkett Reed lived there. For many years, through heat and cold, wind and rain, in fair weather and foul he drove the sixteen miles each way daily to Concord (Coonbottom) as a mail carrier. Another prominent citizen among our colored population who lived there was the village shoemaker. His shop was just opposite Uncle Dave Wilson’ livery stable—and every morning and night he stumped back and forth between Hungry Level and shop on his crutches. He had lost one leg above the knee. He not only repaired but made shoes to order, and high boots, worn by many gentlemen in those days, but beneath the trousers. “Lick Skillet” was another negro settlement at the foot of the hill, leading to the old F. R. & N. Railroad station. On top of the hill stood


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Judge Malone’s residence. I remember Guy Cooper lived in “Lick Skillet,” next door to his little shop where he bought and sold country produce. Back of him on the street parallel to this lived Henry Holliman, one of the best negro carpenters in the town. And there were many others. I don’t know who was responsible for the naming of these charming suburbs. Guy Cooper had a brother, Zeke, I believe, who lived over beyond the old cemetery—a few hundred yards back in the woods. This section is now built up with attractive modern homes. But then the woods extended as far as the main road running in front of the Dr. Munroe and Henry Howard home. Zeke was the champion possum hunter of the town and many a hunt I had with him on cold winter nights. He also had another distinction. Quincy Creek in the rainy season would overflow its banks and form on either side lagoons of varying sizes. Cooper would go, and often we would accompany him, to one of the lagoons and wading in would stir up the bottom with a stick until the water was thoroughly muddied. The fish would rise to the top for air and the slaughter would begin. I know we often made a haul of twenty or thirty three-pound bass (trout we called them) at one time. Strange to say that while we continually fished Quincy Creek I never knew of anyone catching one of these with hook and line. Those were not the days of the Dowaziac minnow. Quincy Creek brings back memories of the “wash holes” where we spent sometimes the whole of a summer day, having for mid-day refreshment watermelons cooled in the creek, and shall I admit it, often stolen from some convenient patch. I know Dr. Davidson was one source of supply as his garden extended back as far as the woods bordering on the creek. But it took a thief to catch a thief. Nothing delighted us small boys better, while waiting in the offing for our turn at the hole, (the big boys ducked us and tied our clothes into hard knots, making swimming with them anything but a joy) nothing delighted us better than to find the stolen melons in the creek below and after a feast on them place the empty rinds in their place. These wash holes changed location from time to time. The last and I believe the best, was just a few yards above the bridge on the old road leading from Quarterman Hill. There was a large open meadow there, just to the left of the road at the foot of the hill and sometime, surface water formed a considerable pond. It was there that we first (and last) enjoyed winter sports. It was in the winter of ’88 I believe. Florida was visited with a severe freeze. The

202 A Confederate Chronicle orange trees, and there were several in Quincy, were killed. All over the state they were severely damaged. But a second freeze a few years later gave all groves above the frost line, the coup de grace—and it was many years before orange growing became commercially profitable. It was not until 1900 that groves as far north as Palatka came into bearing. Mr. Ed Hargrove, an old Quincy resident, had a fine grove at that place. But to return to our winter sports. First there was a slight snow and for a few hours, snow balling was in order. Then for a week, the ponds and lagoons, even Tan Yard Branch were frozen solid. The pond in the meadow near the wash hole was ideal for skating. Of course we skated on our shoes in lieu of anything better. But Harper Davidson whose ancestors must have lived in some northern clime produced a pair of real skates and was the envy of all. And do you remember Harper’s high wheel bicycle? The first and the only one of that type ever ridden in Quincy. Harper was the only one to venture on it, but it took the half of Quincy to see him do it. And how many recall Quincy’s first opera house? It stood just or nearly opposite the Methodist Church. Davidson’s drug store was the only other building on that block. Davidson’s drug store was on the corner opposite the present First National Bank. (Editor’s note: Evidently the Quincy State Bank.) The northeast corner was occupied by the Elisha Dismuke’s store in what was known then as the Dismuke Block. Most of the original buildings are still standing. The opera house was occupied by the village carpenter and wheelwright, a Mr. Armstrong. When a “show” was “on” the carpenter’s shop, bench, tools, wheels and other paraphernalia would be placed in the rafters overhead, the shavings and dust were swept up, and benches formerly resting on the rafters above, put in place. The “shows” were both professional and amateur. I remember only one of the former—“Grip Scott the Moonshiner,” in which the moonshiner was constantly remarking “That’s what I ’lowed when you first driv up.” The prime mover in the amateur theatricals was Mr. DeVergue. I don’t know where he came from. I believe he was in charge of the cotton warehouse in the Dismuke Block. He undoubtedly was of French extraction with the French flair for the artistic and beautiful. He was author, producer, stage director, sceneshifter and scene painter—everything that went into the production of a theatrical performance. These usually were of two kinds, “Tableaux” and “Variety Shows.” I remember one of the tableauxs, a group of angels—Jule Smith, Mr. Ob Smith’s daughter, a lovely blond, with golden curls, was the central figure. I fell desperately in love—we were both seven. The tableauxs were lighted up


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for thirty seconds with red flares, while actors and audience held their breath. Then the curtain descended amid appreciative applause. I remember another performance in which the group of ladies and men of the town took part. Charley Curtis sang a solo “Hobble! Gobble! Wits my name—King of the Cannibal Islands.” And a group of ladies sang a song with the refrain “Gobble! Gobble Ga.!” The wheelwright, Mr. Armstrong, was bitten by a spider, black widow, no doubt and died. The building was then torn down. But carpenter shops seemed to be the logical place for our opera houses. The next was an abandoned shop in the bottom, below Uncle Tom Mathew’s store and between Ike Simmons blacksmith shop and another of like import on the far corner. Here the seating was of a more permanent character. There was one front door where the ticket taker took his stand. I don’t believe there were reserved seats. One play I remember quite well—“The Count of Monte Christo” was advertised and in order not to miss anything I secured a nail keg and sat between the front row seats and the footlights. These were small kerosene lamps with tin reflectors. Unfortunately just before the curtain rose the manager stepped out and stated that because of the fact that the stage was too small for the dungeon scene another play would be substituted—“I’m Hard Tom, the Scout of the Rio Grande.” Sometimes a first rate performer came to town. On one occasion the leading lady was of such prominence, the price of admission was beyond my slender means. But a wooden box, placed near a window with a generous crack allowed me both to see and hear the entire performance. Nor was I alone. Standing beside me was one of the town’s most prominent and wealthy citizens. He had sent his wife in, but why buy two tickets, when one and a soap box served the purpose. One winter, John and Fred Burghardt used the building for a skating rink on Friday nights—25c admission, skates provided by the management. My brother and I were allowed to go regularly all winter as it was our favorite pasttime. Previous to this John Dismukes had a skating rink in his father’s cotton warehouse. Unfortunately the skating season that year came in Lent. My mother [NB: Josie] strongly forbade me spending money on amusements in Lent. But John and I knew a trick or two. It was arranged that I should skate in Lent and pay after Easter. While the word consinestry was unknown to us, we seemed to have been thoroughly familiar with its principles. And so the ethics of the matter having been waived, I went merrily on my skating way. Of course, after Easter, when payment had to be made I explained the situation to my mother. As I recall it, a large switch from a pear tree formed an important part of the final settlement. The next opera house I believe was built especially by Random and

204 A Confederate Chronicle Ward, next door to their general store on Rotten Row. Two stores occupied the ground floor. Random Ward always had passes to the “shows,” one for himself and one for a friend. His popularity always above the average, increased steadily as the appointed day approached. I came in for my share. On one occasion Frank Sterns and I actually became real actors in a first rate performance. Of course we didn’t star, but had, at least, prominent parts. It was the operetta Mikado, played by the Templeton Company. It was our part to carry banners on each side of the Mikado as he came on and off the stage. Once instead of preceding him off the stage as we should, we lagged behind and Kako had to shove us off. Templeton was the father of the famous actress, Fay Templeton, by his first wife, Alice Vane, a famous primma donna of her day, born in Charleston, S.C. Templeton had divorced her and married again, but both wives were in the cast, though the first was an actress of note, she was demoted to a minor part and wife number two was leading lady. I remember that Alice Vane stayed while in Quincy at the home of Mr. Tom Mitchell, and that night with tears, unburdened herself, to the family. One “show” I was not allowed to attend. A horse show had been advertised, but the question arose as to whether the underpinnings of the Opera House would stand the weight of a dozen horses going through their paces on the stage. But after reinforcements had been made the show was allowed to go on. Nothing happened and I was sore for weeks afterwards. On my recent visit to Quincy I went down to have a look at the “Big Ditch.” What a transformation! Instead of the bare walls of red clay— arose shrubbery and mighty trees growing from floor and sides, and apparently no increase in size since fifty years ago. At that time the “Big Ditch” was an eighth wonder of the world. It was the mecca of all our citizens young and old alike on Sunday afternoons. Only for a brief period did it have a rival for our attention, Mr. Sandy Wilson and Mr. Horace Shaw were building homes for their respective brides-to-be. For several months, each Sunday afternoon, we would visit the scene of operations, step from sill to sill, walk from room to room, comment, criticize, add, subtract and otherwise suggest alterations to the plans of owners and architects. But above all did we view with admiration and amazement the immensity the spaciousness of these palatial dwellings. Mr. Wilson was the first to have a real bathroom in the house. It was filled bucket by bucket from the pump on the porch. As a reward for weeding the front garden, Billy and “Tar” Love and I were allowed to bathe in it.


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But returning to the “Big Ditch”—that portion of the town lying south and north between the “Tan Yard Branch” and Uncle Tommy Dee Wilson’s home was a depression and received much of the drainage from the East and West sections of the town. To carry off this drainage a deep ditch was dug clear across the town, beginning at the north and ending at the “Tan Yard Branch”. At this south end the water cascaded from a small hill-top to the branch below. In course of time, like a Niagara Falls in miniature, the water continually eroded and cut back and up the hill toward the town. As the mouth of the ditch increased in size and depth, the erosion became progressively greater and in time the ditch became a large gully over 100 feet wide and perhaps as deep. At last it reached the first East and West street and the Town Fathers realized that a serious situation confronted them. For months the matter was discussed at Town meetings. Temporary preventives were applied but to no avail. There were plenty of back seat drivers. Every Sunday afternoon a self-appointed committee of engineers, civil and hydraulic, mechanical and just plain engineers, discussed, advised, agreed, disagreed and suggested sure remedies. At last a happy solution was arrived at. The extreme end of the drainage ditch was boarded in and the water was carried over the edge and down to the bottom over a wooden sluice. The erosion was stopped and the water proceeded to bore a hole at the bottom, somewhere in the direction of China, but nobody minded. I have often wondered what would have happened had steps not been taken to check its growth. I am satisfied that within at least ten thousand years the ditch could have extended to Judge Love’s back yard, half of Quincy would have been engulfed. Communication between the East and West sections of the city made only by huge suspension bridges, and we would have had at our very doors another Grand Canyon with visitors from all parts of the globe coming to view this scenic wonder. “The Grand Canyon of Tan Yard Branch.” As a small boy I lived near the Big Ditch and often spent sleepless nights thinking of that dire event ten thousand years hence. Which reminds me of the story of the professor of astronomy: “Gentlemen in ten million years the sun will have lost its heat and everything on this planet will die from frost and cold.” An excited student’s voice: “Professor, how long did you say?” “Ten million years.” “Thank God, I thought you said a million.”

In the following letter from Pam to her brother Sam, written in 1948, the names that played a central role in the Wragg’s lives—Love and Dismukes—are again mentioned. Judge Love was married to the


daughter of John McFarlin, “greatest builder (packing houses) in the history of the tobacco shade industry,” and Elsie Davidson, daughter of Col. R. H. M. Davidson. Mrs. R. H. M. Davidson was president of the Ladies Aid Society, and Mrs. Elisha Dismukes was one of three vice presidents.9 [During the two years I attended the Massey School in Savannah] the family moved to Quincy and was settled in the house behind the Dismukes place. As soon as I arrived (must have been summer of 1881) Robbie called and came over every day afterward, to introduce me to the other girls who called—Elia Love, Sallie Davidson, Bessie Gibbes etc— all dressed in their best and made formal calls! You had told some one, Mama said, that you “mustn’t play with any little boys except the Davidsons”—which she didn’t of course. It would have been fine advice to a new doctor’s son! I must have gone to Quincy about 1881. Went to the Red School House. Then we moved to the other house and the summer of 1883 I spent with the Dismukes in St. Augustine. . . . Part of that time you and Thomas were going to Miss. Mary West—In the yard— stealing potatoes from Aunt Caroline.

Pam’s formal education must not have been too important to Josie or her aunts, since in the spring of 1884 she was taken out of school and visited Annie Sheftall again in Savannah. “We returned to Quincy just in time for the commencement dance and Judge Love remarked that the ones who were not there for exams shouldn’t be allowed to go to the dance! Well, we went and had a grand time, dancing with Alf McFarlin and Rod Shaw! No other partners allowed!!!” Pamela Wragg continued: The winter of 1885 Aunt Peny [Pamela McDowall] and Miss Gena came to visit us and I returned with them to Charleston. The next morning [I was escorted] to Uncle Mac’s 19 New Street and I entered the Memmenger School. Never had I gotten up so soon and seen so many “monitors” and had so many restrictions in a school, didn’t like it, “eyes gave out” and I quit! Spent the balance of term learning to dance and taking music lessons from Cousin Mary Roper Wragg, 15 Legare Street. Left Charleston June 2nd, 1886 “much to the regret of my many friends,” so the News and Courier said—the three or four line article upsetting all the staid Wraggs who landed down on Aunt Livingston [Wigg Wragg, married to Andrew McDowall Wragg, Thomas’s brother] “The very idea of a person by the name of Wragg being mentioned in a newspaper!”


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Fall of ’89 I went to Longview Texas to visit Annie [home of Cooper Sheftall, Annie’s son]. In the fall of ’90 Annie moved to Birmingham. I went there with her, then on to Quincy where I found the [William M.] Corrys in [our] house. While I was in Longview, Thomas came on his way to St. Louis. Now, you were probably old enough! to remember from ’90 to present date.10

In the above article and letter, the major event in the children’s lives—their father’s murder on April 10, 1889—is “skirted.” Pamela is guilty of extreme understatement in recounting her return to Quincy and finding “the Corrys” in her family home. And “Thomas came on his way to St. Louis” refers to his move to St. Louis (Josie would follow in the summer of 1890) after the murder of their father. Pam’s mention of the shock of the Wragg ladies in Charleston at having anything published in the News and Courier would appear to be a trivial aside, but it is significant as a reason for Josie’s behavior after Dr. Thomas Wragg’s death: notoriety, even favorable, was not to be tolerated in the nineteenth century.

11

Power, Kinship, and Murder: 1889–91

If you grew up in Florida, Chattahoochee meant crazy! Ron Hayes, Daytona Beach Sunday News Journal

According to Josie Cooper Wragg, one day a Miss Mary or “Mamie” DuPont (b. 1866 in Quincy) came to see Dr. Thomas Wragg because she was expecting a child out of wedlock. Dr. Wragg delivered her child—a girl—in his home-office on Jackson Street. Mamie told Dr. Wragg and Josie that the father of the baby was Senator Elisha Paul Dismukes. Thomas Wragg was, in fact, the Dismukes’ family doctor, not the DuPonts’. The senator was married to Annie Foreman, Mamie’s aunt and sister of her mother, Ellen Foreman DuPont, a highly respected member of the community. Mamie’s father was Charles Wesley DuPont, city marshal and collector and the son of the late State Supreme Court Justice Charles H. DuPont. The time of the birth of Mamie’s baby cannot be pinpointed, but it was sometime between 1886 and 1889. Someone told Mamie’s eighteen-year-old brother, Charles I. DuPont (b. 1871), that Dr. Wragg was the one who had or was having an illicit affair with his sister. Enraged, young Charles DuPont set out to defend his sister’s and his family’s honor. On April 10, 1889, Charles DuPont 208

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shot an unarmed Dr.Thomas L.Wragg in the streets of Quincy in broad daylight in front of several witnesses. Wragg was shot three times—in the neck, breast, and thigh. Dr. Wragg survived the night, attended to by his friend, Dr. MacIntosh, who came down from Thomasville, Georgia. The Quincy Herald reported on Saturday April 13, 1889: “Wednesday morning . . . C. I. DuPont shot Dr. T. L. Wragg three times producing wounds from which he died Thursday afternoon. As the matter is now being investigated by a coroners jury, we refrain from comment upon this unfortunate affair.” Rebecca White (“Miss Pinkie”) was nursing Dr. Wragg and described his last minutes to Josie’s mother: “Our doctor died this evening about four o’clock. No words can tell the agony of the household you left not long since so happy, so happy! Mrs. Wragg is brave and does not rebel against Heaven only repeats ‘Oh why does God want only broken hearts.’ . . . The wound which he received at first caused much pain and fever, but it ran its course rapidly and he is at rest. He, one of the best, kindest, most lovely of men at rest.”1 Thomas Wragg’s brother Mac wrote stiffly and pompously to Josie his condolences at the news: “I have just heard of the terrible affliction you have met with . . . hoping that you will be able to bear this sad bereavement with Christian fortitude.” Following is a timeline of events in the days following Dr. Thomas Wragg’s murder. April 11, 1889. Quincy Herald (Q.H.), Thursday: “Dr. Thomas L. Wragg died at 4:00.” April 12. Q.H., Friday: “Dr. W. B. Foreman [Charles I. DuPont’s uncle and Chief Physician of the State Hospital for the Indigent Insane] came down to Quincy from Chattahoochee.”2 April 12–16. Coroner’s Inquest: Witness Certificate, No. 8; State of Florida, Inquest No.1, 1889. Josie was paid 50 cents for attending the Inquest “held on the body of Dr. Thomas L. Wragg, as a Witness in behalf of the State from the 12th day of April to the 16th day of April.” Signed by Augus Nickolson, clerk, countersigned by Mark W. Munroe, Chairman of County Commissioners. May 8. Q.H.: “Dr. George Wragg Lamar, formerly of Savannah, Georgia, offered his services to the public. His office is at the residence of the late, Dr. T. L. Wragg.” May 11. Q.H.: “Senator E. P. Dismukes and W. M. Corry of the Tobacco



33. Joseph Lewis Cooper (“Josie”), widow, St. Louis, Missouri

Syndicate are hosts in Quincy to the Governor Fleming and 110 people from Tallahassee including many Capitol officials, all the attaches of both Houses—secretaries, clerks and pages, as well as railroad officials to celebrate the opening of the ‘Florida Central and Peninsula Railroad.’” June 1. Q.H.: “Debts owed to Dr. Wragg should be paid to Mrs. Wragg.” June 18. Gadsden County Courthouse: Dr. T. L. Wragg died intestate. The total value of his personal property was $1,500. The Honorable David S. Walker and his son signed an affidavit or bond of $3,000 for Josie, guaranteeing that all Dr. Thomas Wragg’s debts would be paid. More than fifty years later, Thomas Wragg’s son, Samuel, attempted to confirm the facts of his father’s death and wrote to the prosecuting attorney assigned to the murder: William H. Ellis. Mr. Ellis responded with the following on June 26, 1945:


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From: William H. Ellis, 1414 Kentucky Ave, Gainesville, Florida To: Rev. S. A. Wragg, Box 502,Charleston, S.C. Dear Sam: . . .Your father was assassinated about fifty two or three years ago. I do not remember the exact date, and my files are all in Tallahassee and, of course, are not available to me at this writing. I had been admitted to the bar about a year or two and was employed by the Walkers of Tallahassee to assist in the prosecution of your father’s assailant, young C. I. Du Pont and at the time that he shot your father he was about twenty or twentyone years of age. C. I. Du Pont said in justification of his act that Dr. Wragg was having illicit social relations with Du Pont’s sister. I thought that the truth or falsity of such a statement would be a material issue in the case and went to work to discover and examine the evidence if any on which such statement rested. As a result of this search for evidence of Du Pont’s statement I was unable to discover a single fact that amounted to so much as a suspicious circumstance against Dr. Wragg or against young Miss Du Pont with any alleged lover of her. During the long period of time, which has elapsed since the awful tragedy of your father’s murder, I have never had the slightest doubt of his innocence. Your father was a highly respected and honored citizen of Quincy and was beloved by hundreds of people, both in town and in the county of Gadsden. Of course you know that I could not pronounce upon the truth of young Du Pont’s statement as to his sister’s illicit relation with Dr. Wragg or anyone else, as for that matter, from the evidence of my own senses. I never heard of any aspersion upon her character before the tragedy and I never discovered as I said above after the tragedy any evidence against her or Dr. Wragg involving their honor. . . . Your friend, W. H. Ellis

Mr. Ellis’s memory is very selective. He told Samuel Wragg that his father was innocent of adultery. However, Ellis did not mention in his letter why the grand jury never met, whether any further legal action was taken against C. I. DuPont, and if not, why not. In fact, Charles was never prosecuted, and a number of very high-level citizens of Quincy participated in a cover-up to allow him to go free. Josie’s lawyer at the time was D. S. Walker, Jr., a former three-time mayor of Tallahassee and son of her uncle, Judge David Shelby Walker of the Second Judicial Circuit, Gadsden County, and former governor


of Florida. The following letter from Walker suggests that someone or some individuals having knowledge of the court system or through their considerable influence managed to have all the papers necessary to bring DuPont to trial—“disappear.” It is intriguing that Mr. Walker mentions the “complicity of others in the murder,” the meaning of which is sealed in the grave. It is clear that, by this letter, Judge Love was informed about the “cover-up” and disappearance of the bond money, and yet he apparently did nothing about it. It is also clear that Judge Love had a conflict of interest in handling the case, since for years he had been closely associated with Charles I. DuPont’s grandfather, Charles H. DuPont. November 20, 1889, Quincy, Florida Hon. E. C. Love: Dear Sir: I learn that none of the papers concerning the prosecution of Chas. I. Du Pont for the killing of Dr. Thos. L. Wragg can be found except a lot of papers in the shape of affidavits attached together. The bond given by Du Pont for $10,000 to secure his presence before the present term of Court is missing. So also the bond of the one Braswell who was a witness before the Coroner’s Jury that investigated the killing of Dr. Wragg. You inform me that you have given to the Grand Jury the papers above referred to. I think from an examination of these papers except the affidavits of R. F. Jones [clerk of the court; appointed to be Grand Juror on November 1888 for term of court] and Dr. Scott that they can have no effect before the Jury except to prejudice it against the State in the prosecution against Chas. I. Du Pont for killing Dr. Wragg. Under these circumstances I desire to say that I think that the name of O[wen] W. Pittman, who took the said bond, who was the Coroner, who presided at the inquest referred to, Mac Oestreicher, and R. F. Jones, who witnessed the killing of Dr. Wragg, and Dr. Scott be given to the Grand Jury as witnesses for the State. I feel justified in writing this much as I am a relative of Mrs. Wragg and am employed by her to aid in having the slayer of her husband properly presented to the Grand Jury. I will add that you will see by an examination of the papers in the possession of the Grand Jury that with the exception of what is stated by R. F. Jones and Dr. Scott, there is nothing which could be received as evidence any where as to the killing of Dr. Wragg. John A. Stuart is also a witness of the killing of Dr. Wragg and will testify to the complicity of others in Wragg’s murder and should be summoned to testify before the Grand Jury. The fact that


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34. Hon. Edward C. Love

the papers referred to above are missing should I think be presented to the Grand Jury. I desire your aid in having all this matter presented to the Grand Jury. Most respectfully, D. S.Walker, Jr.3

Power and Kinship: Historical Background and Setting for Thomas Wragg’s Murder The Honorable Edward C. Love was among the earliest and most influential leaders of the conservative Democrats, along with the Hon. Charles H. DuPont, an early state Supreme Court chief justice (1859–67; b. 1805, d. 1877). From 1854–56, E. C. Love was mayor or “Intendant” of Quincy. During the Civil War, the grandchildren of Edward Love, ancestor of the large Love family, fought alongside the children of the Hon. Charles H. DuPont—Abraham Strong DuPont, Joseph H. DuPont, and Charles Wesley DuPont (father of the murderer, Charles I. DuPont)—in Company G (Young Guards), First Florida


Infantry, along with Elisha P. Dismukes. The Loves and E. P. Dismukes served again side-by-side in the Eighth Florida Infantry, Company B.4 In 1876 E. C. Love was chairman of the Second District Democratic State Executive Committee. During the election of 1876, Judge Love called for a conservative state convention: “At this time the Democratic leaders were well fortified with experience, and some had become unscrupulous pastmasters in the technique of combatting rascality and crushing numbers with counter rascality.” The election resulted in a win for the Democrats, a “return of white supremacy” and an end to carpetbaggers and “radical” Republican dominance in the area. One of the developments that weakened the “radicals” as “conquerors” of the region was the adoption by the Democrats of some of the political practices of the radicals—“intimidation, bribery and violence.”5 Before Judge Charles H. DuPont’s death in 1877, he joined with Edward C. Love, S. B. Love, Judge White, and General Allison in the Gadsden County Agricultural Association “to encourage the emigration of settlers and capital from the North in the hopes of reviving the pre-war tobacco industry, and the development of the many natural resources found in the distinctive highland region.” In 1885, Judge Love was the dean of the Gadsden delegation to the state convention when the present constitution of Florida was signed. Love and the other delegates who signed this historic document “received a degree of immortality rarely obtained in public life.”6 In 1867 there had been an invasion of Yankees in the form of Carpetbaggers; in 1887 a second “invasion” came, this time of tobacco growers from New York. One of these was William Murray Corry, who, incidentally, moved into Thomas Wragg’s house after his murder. William Corry came to Gadsden County—according to J. Randall Stanley, author of The History of Gadsden County—“incognito” as manager of “Straiton and Storm” and set about quietly acquiring lands for growing tobacco. “The Owl Cigar Company was organized in September 1887, and Mr. Corry immediately undertook the work of putting the nine plantations in production.”7 An enthusiastic Quincy editor (W. W. Keep, Florida Herald, probably in 1892) wrote seriously and facetiously of the changes in the county: “Five years ago . . . there were less than 10 tobacco houses standing in the


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county. Now there are over 1000. During the past 21 months, the business of the Quincy State Bank, which was established two years ago, has doubled. . . .” Humorously, he continued: “The tobacco planters have thrown away their old buggies and sold their brokendown horses, and now sport fine new turnouts. They have paid their old debts, lifted the encumbrances on their realty, and their credit is good again at the Quincy State Bank.”8

The improved economic conditions inspired the creation of the Quincy State Bank in 1889. In August 1889, E. P. Dismukes was elected the bank’s first president, only four months after Dr. Thomas Wragg’s murder.9 Senator E. P. Dismukes was a “one man show” for the town of Quincy during the years 1885–91. He owned as many as two thousand acres of land around Quincy, was mentioned in the newspaper almost daily, and attended or hosted almost every function attended to by the influential dignitaries of the town and state, including Governor Fleming. Among Senator Dismukes’s many positions—as well as president of the Quincy State Bank—were chairman of the Board of County Commissioners, chairman of the Sub-Tropical Exposition, and member of the Board of Education of West Florida Seminary. On February 9, 1889, The Times Union provided biographies of state senators and included the following: Dismukes, Elisha Paul—Quincy, Gadsden County, Sixth Senatorial District, Democrat, merchant, Presbyterian, married, age 49. Senator Dismukes was born in Davidson County, Tenn. and moved to Florida when a boy of only nine years old—in October 1850. . . . He has been in the mercantile business since November 1865. For eight years he was a member of the Democratic Executive Committee of the First Congressional District of Florida. He has been Chairman of the Board of County Commissioners for the year 1886–1888. Senator Dismukes is married to Miss Annie Foreman of Quincy. They have only two boys left out of a family of ten children.

Clearly, E. P. Dismukes was one of the most influential men in town, if not the state of Florida, and he was at the peak of his career. However, without any explanation, he abruptly resigned as president of the bank, retired from his other business positions, and packed himself and his family off to Columbus, Georgia, some 175 miles away.10 The year was



35. Senator Elisha Paul Dismukes

1892. He was only 51 years old. In light of Josie’s statement and Wragg family history that he was the father of his niece’s illegitimate child, this sudden change of direction provides strong circumstantial evidence that his affair with Mamie DuPont became public knowledge and made his life untenable in Quincy. The Wragg family believed that he had direct “complicity,” if not sole complicity, in the death of Dr. Thomas Wragg by telling Charles I. DuPont, his nephew, that Wragg was the guilty party. It is clear from Walker’s letter that the cover-up of the Wragg murder was resolved secretly and with at least several individuals in collusion—i.e., evidence and documents, even money, were removed from the court records. Thomas Wragg was the convenient fall guy for Dismukes’s indiscretions. Doctors have always been vulnerable to accusations of inappropriate intimacy when they met their female patients in private; Wragg was an easy mark. If Dismukes was the one to implicate Thomas Wragg, the fact that Dr. Wragg was his family physician and both families were very close would make such an action even more cowardly and base. It was a desperate move. More than one individual assisted in protecting the murderer from prosecution, and they may not have known initially it was E. P. Dismukes who was having the affair with Mary DuPont. It would have


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been easier to believe that Dr. Wragg was the guilty party because he was a newcomer with no “kin” in town. And they felt their cover-up justified at a time when many put the “code above the bible”; C. I. DuPont was defending his family’s honor. The question arises—who was Charles I. DuPont, and where did he go after the murder?

Charles I. DuPont and the Florida State Hospital for the Indigent Insane In the 1980s, both the Daytona Beach Sunday News Journal and the Tallahassee Democrat published articles about Chattahoochee, Florida, bearing provocative titles: “Insanity Is Chattahoochee’s Main Industry,” said one; “Hospital Replaced River as Job Source,” added another. Wrote Ron Hayes, the author of the first: “If you grew up in Florida, Chattahoochee meant crazy.”11 North of Fort Gadsden, near the point where the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers merge to form the Apalachicola River, is the “Arsenal” built during the Seminole Indian Wars. The remains of the Arsenal, with its lands of about eighteen hundred acres, were ceded by the U.S. Government to the state of Florida in 1866 and occupied as a penitentiary for ten years. Since 1876, the site has been used as a state hospital for the insane. It is located in Chattahoochee, a small town about twenty miles northwest of Quincy on the Georgia border. Five buildings remain from the original Arsenal, including the administration building, which houses the superintendent’s residence and is listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings. Andrew Jackson lived in the building when he was stationed there as commanding officer of the Territory. The superintendent of the hospital from 1885 to 1889 was W. D. Moseley. The chief physician from 1882 to 1892 was W. B. Foreman, brother of Ellen DuPont and Annie Foreman Dismukes and the uncle of Charles I. DuPont and Mamie DuPont.12 The Quincy Herald’s reporting for the period 1889–90 (the period shortly after Thomas’s murder) is revealing. First, the Herald provided a running commentary on the travels and activities of its more prominent citizens and other dignitaries. As early as 1887, the Herald reported that Mrs. E. P. Dismukes (Annie Foreman Dismukes) and her niece, Miss Mamie DuPont (who was or would be having an affair with


Annie’s husband), visited Annie’s brother, Dr. W. B. Foreman, at the mental hospital. The day after the murder it was reported that Dr. W. B. Foreman—Charles I. DuPont’s uncle—traveled from Chattahoochee to Quincy. Dr. Foreman’s arrival at this precise moment suggests that he was called upon to accompany C. I. DuPont back to the mental hospital. Later in the year, and as late as March 1890, the paper reported that C. I. DuPont made several visits to Quincy from Chattahoochee, often accompanied by one of his sisters and/or by daughters of W. D. Moseley: “Mr. C. I. DuPont, who had been spending some time at Chattahoochee, was in town the previous day” (September 21, 1889); “Mr. C. I. DuPont, accompanied by his sister, Miss Evie, and the Misses Moseley [daughters of the Superintendent of the Hospital for the Indigent Insane] came down from Chattahoochee last Tuesday to visit friends, and see the tobacco plantations” (October 12, 1889). Since the town of Chattahoochee had no schools, no churches for whites, only one store with one owner-operator, a police force of one, and had as its main industry the state mental hospital, it could be assumed that Charles I. DuPont either was a patient at the hospital or was taken there by Dr. Foreman to “hide out” until the legalities were swept aside.13 If Charles I. DuPont were a resident of the hospital before he murdered Thomas Wragg, he might have remained there and died there. However, the Gadsden County census for 1900 lists both the employees and the inmates at the State Hospital for the Insane, and Charles DuPont’s name is not on the list. He is also not on the U.S.GenWeb Archives’ list of names of inmates buried at the State Hospital in Chattahoochee. On the other hand, if Charles DuPont died at the State Hospital, there may not be a record because the stigma of mental illness cast a shroud of confidentiality over those who were buried at the hospital. According to an official with the Florida State Task Force to catalog all of Gadsden County Abandoned and Neglected Cemeteries, “There were a lot of prominent people (in Gadsden County at the State Hospital for the Insane) at one time. They have been forgotten, just as the slave or the lowest person.” A county historian commented on the hospital’s renewed interest in its former inmates: “Now they’re getting into the deep records, the maps and plats that list who’s buried in it. It’s been a secret for a long, long time.”14 An article in The Tallahassee Democrat described the hospital’s cemetery:


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Down in swampy lowlands, beyond crisp white buildings of the Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee, beneath traffic whirring by on Highway 90 lies a huge abandoned cemetery. Hidden from view and mostly forgotten, row after row of graves of indigent mental patients— 5,500 in all—stretch for acres under brambles and branches of twisted trees. Rot and time have erased patient’s names and dates from handhewn pine grave markers with grooves that show they once formed crosses. What’s left resembles curvy driftwood stumps sprouting eerily from the woodland floor—along with lots of questions about who’s who. And so, patients from Florida’s first mental hospital, circa 1876, rest their bones anonymously. From 1885 to 1926, they were buried in muslin-lined pine boxes by other mental patients.15

Certainly, if Charles DuPont were a resident of the hospital, a trial would have exposed the fact. In late–nineteenth-century Quincy, one could hardly have the grandson of the highly respected former state Supreme Court justice, Charles H. DuPont, brought to trial with its inevitable embarrassing consequences. Charles was also the grandson of Arthur Foreman, an influential tobacco producer and former mayor of Quincy and the father of Annie Foremen Dismukes and Ellen Foreman DuPont. If the strategy was to avoid trial, which might expose DuPont’s possible mental illness, it evidently worked quite well, since C. I. DuPont never was prosecuted for the murder of Thomas L. Wragg, which occurred under circumstances that can only be described as a criminal conspiracy. Moreover, the disappearance of DuPont’s $10,000 bond money clearly suggests a payoff by the DuPont or Foreman family to a person or persons unknown, since Charles’s relatives were the ones who presumably posted the bond. As written above, D. S. Walker, Jr., Josie’s attorney, wrote to the Honorable E. C. Love on November 20, 1889, indicating that the grand jury still had not met and that the witness reports and evidence for the prosecution was (mysteriously) missing. On December 14, 1889, D. S. Walker, Jr., was dead: December 14, 1889 Tallahassee Floridian, 10th District: Death of Mr. Walker. David S. Walker, Jr., is no more. Death crept silently in about noon Friday and suddenly cut off his brilliant young life. Apparently he was in perfect health, but congestion was at work, and life ended before any of

220 A Confederate Chronicle his friends realized that he was ill. Judge and Mrs. Walker were in Pensacola, where Judge Walker was presiding at court, and the blow to him was severe. David S. Walker, Jr., was born in this city in October 1846. At the age of fourteen he enlisted in the Confederate service, but was soon discharged, owing to his youth. He then attended Howard’s College, Marion, Alabama, for one session, after which he joined Captain King’s independent cavalry company of Alabama, but finally returned to Florida and entered Captain Houston’s artillery company, serving to the end of the war. After the close of the war he was employed in the internal revenue department under M. A. Williams, collector. In 1874 he began the practice of law in Tallahassee, and soon became prominent in the profession. Mr. Walker was three times elected mayor of Tallahassee. He represented Leon County in the Legislature of 1883, was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1885, and member of the State Senate in 1887.16

December 1889. Pamela McDowall Wragg and Thomas Wragg, Jr., left Quincy. Thomas went to St. Louis, Missouri; Pamela went sightseeing out west with Anne Sheftall, and then joined Thomas, Jr., in St. Louis. Josie would join them when Samuel Wragg finished school in June. David Walker’s death at this particular time provides fuel for additional speculation as to sinister acts. Certainly his death must have been of great assistance to Charles I. DuPont in escaping prosecution. Josie was never able to prove that the accusations of adultery were false.

1890 March 29. Q.H.: “Mr. Chas. I. DuPont came down from Chattahoochee last Sunday and spent the week with his parents.” Ca. June. Samuel Alston Wragg graduated from the Quincy Academy, and he and Josie departed Quincy for St. Louis, Missouri. October 14. Q.H.: “Evie DuPont, sister of Charles I. DuPont, left Quincy to visit relatives in Edgefield, South Carolina.” July 20. Q.H.: Former Governor David S. Walker died. (B. May 2, 1815.)


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1891 October 6. Q.H.: Judge Edward C. Love died in Atlanta, Georgia.

1892 Month unkown: E. P. Dismukes abruptly and, without explanation, resigned his position as president of the Quincy State Bank, withdrew from all other town business, and departed Quincy with his entire family for Columbus, Georgia, never to return. There is no information as to what became of Mamie DuPont’s illegitimate child. One possible explanation is that she was “taken in” by DuPont relatives and raised as their own. After 1890, Mamie, her brother Charles, and their parents completely disappeared from the records of the state of Florida. Nor do they appear in any available records for the states of Georgia, South Carolina or Alabama. This absence of information suggests that the entire family moved away, as did Dismukes, when their presence in Quincy became an embarrassment. By 1892, all the players in the tragedy had abruptly left Quincy or died. Judges D. S. Walker, E. C. Love, and D. S. Walker, Jr., were dead. The Thomas Wragg family had moved to St. Louis. Elisha Dismukes’s entire family moved to Columbus, Georgia. There is no trace of the C. W. DuPont family in the public record. Their descendants or distant relatives could possibly hold the key, but locating those who are willing to reveal the secrets long kept is another matter. Dr.Thomas Wragg was buried in the Quincy Eastern Cemetery with a simple stone marker for his burial site. Dr. Wragg’s obituary read: He was a brave soldier of the Confederacy, and after the great disaster, showed the indomitable force of his character by acquiring his profession under almost overwhelming difficulties. He was a good man, an honest, upright, courageous man of fine intellect, sound judgment, and one who did his duty faithfully under all circumstances. His profession, to which he was devotedly attached, enabled him to alleviate suffering and soothe distress. No one, however lowly his or her station in life, appealed to him in vain. His charity was only limited by his power to bestow, and many hearts bleed for the loss of their loved friend and

222 A Confederate Chronicle physician. As a husband he was faithful, loving, gentle and thoughtful, as a father a considerate friend, an indulgent tutor. Of every attribute necessary for a full manhood he was possessed to the highest measure. As a useful, honorable citizen, no one excelled him, and few will be found who can fill his place. A friend.

Thomas Wragg was born into a family of aristocrats, and by the age of seventeen was accustomed to privilege. He was then drawn into a war that destroyed his visions of a promising life. He bemoaned his “blighted hopes” for the future, but “he did his duty under all circumstances.” He was an “honorable citizen.” After all is said, he did admirably with the hand he was dealt. However, there is a touch of irony in the fact that the young man who murdered him thought he was doing his duty and preserving his family’s honor.

Epilogue

Running from Scandal

They say—Ah! Well, suppose they do! But can they prove their story true? Suspicion may arise from naught, But malice, envy, want of thought. Why count yourself among the “they” Who whisper what they dare not say . . . They say—but why the tale rehearse, And help to make the matter worse? No good can possibly accrue From Telling what may be untrue; And is it not a nobler plan To speak of all the best you can? They say—well, if it should be so, Why need you tell the tale of woe? Will it the bitter wrong redress, Or make one pang of sorrow less? Will it the erring one restore, Henceforth to “go and sin no more?” They say—oh! Pause and look within! See how thine heart inclines to sin!

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Watch, lest in dark temptation’s hour Thou too shouldst sink beneath its power! Pity the frail, weep o’er their fall, But speak of good, or not at all! “They Say,” by “Ego” (Thomas L. Wragg) 1866

Almost immediately after the death of Attorney Walker in December 1889, the Wragg family departed from Quincy, Florida, for St. Louis, Missouri. Pam and Thomas, Jr., left Quincy in December 1889. Josie and Sam remained until Sam finished school in the summer of 1990. Without a court ruling, which would have helped to exonerate Dr. Wragg, Josie foresaw the prospect of having to face society with his scarlet “A” on her chest. She would be the walking reminder of the town’s newest scandal, the subject of whispers. Even her brother-in-law Mac had referred to the murder as her “affliction.” An example of this type of gossip is evident in the diary of Dr. Charles H. Hentz, a resident of Quincy who had moved away for a number of years. In evaluating the veracity of the entry, it should be noted that Dr. Hentz was related to Elisha Dismukes through Hentz’s wife—a Munroe—and Dismukes’s first cousin.1 The biased statement implies that the murder was justifiable homicide—that the DuPonts were the victims. In fact, the true “load of shame” would be if Dr. Hentz discovered that Mamie’s lover was her uncle Elisha Dismukes. 1889: Early in May we learned of the dreadful tragedy in Quincy—the killing of Dr. Wragg by young Charlie Dupont; it was a shameful affair that culminated thus shockingly. Dr. W. had for a long time had improper intercourse with Miss Mamie Dupont—a very pretty girl; but unfortunately a disgrace to the family—She gave birth to a baby a few years previously, & since then it seems that Dr. W. had been taking shameful advantage of his position; had imposed on the mother & helped to bring down the load of shame that overwhelmed the unfortunate family.2

In Josie’s world, in her time, the choice was clear: she packed her belongings and moved as far away as she could get from anyone she knew. Dr. Wragg’s medical practice, which he had spent eleven years

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establishing, was immediately taken over by Wragg’s nephew, George Lamar, son of Pamela Wragg Lamar and recently out of medical school. By late 1889, Dr. Lamar had already beem appointed a member of the Board of Examiners for the Gadsden District of the state. In the summer of 1890, Edwin Weed, Episcopal Bishop of Florida, became Sam Wragg’s mentor or surrogate father and arranged for him to attend the University of the South, “Sewanee,” to begin preparing to become a minister of the Episcopal Church. The responsibility for assisting Josie with the move to St.Louis, and for her and Pam’s support, fell on Thomas, Jr., whose plans of becoming a doctor like his father were never realized. In addition, Pam’s chances for marriage evaporated with her father’s death and her mother’s move and retirement from society. No one in the family knows what Josie did in St. Louis or if she knew anyone prior to moving there. She told Judge D. S. Walker that she planned to take in boarders, and he approved of her decision, but warned her to be careful about whom she trusted. She lived with Thomas, Jr., and Pam initially at 2908 St. Vincent Avenue and subsequently at 2858 Eads Ave. Angelica Cooper wrote to Sam in 1896 and said that she had visited Josie, but that “I was there only five weeks in all, but the Gunters, Taylors and Elmores and others of Cousin’s friends (were all) I saw, as she [Josie] goes out but little, many did not call that would have done so.” Josie succeeded in “disappearing” from society. Sam attended Sewanee for six years, graduating in 1896 with B.A. and M.A. degrees. From Sewanee he went to the General Theological Seminary in New York. While there he met Emma Louise Sparks, the daughter of a Welsh immigrant—the Rev. Mr. James William Sparks. Mr. Sparks wrote to Bishop Weed in April 1898 to ask him if Sam had the family ancestral connections to be worthy of his daughter. Bishop Weed said, with tongue in cheek, that Sam could “hold his head pretty high at times.” He then commented on the murder: Sam’s Father was murdered in Quincy, Fla. by a man who thought he, Dr. Wragg had wronged his sister. It was one of those risks which Drs have to run, and when he was dying Dr. Wragg said, “Bring the man to me and I will prove that I have been a friend to him and his family.” Mrs. Wragg knew the circumstances and told me of them. Besides I have



36. Graves of Thomas and Josie Wragg, Quincy Eastern Cemetery, Quincy, Florida

heard the same thing from others. The Wraggs have always been honorable people and I do not believe the Doctor could have done what he was accused of doing and I think this is a common sentiment.

Josie came east in the fall of 1899 to meet Sam’s bride and stayed with Annie Sheftall, who was living with her son Edward and mother Angelica in Gadsden County, near Quincy, Florida. Suddenly, Josie became ill, and her nephew, Dr. George Lamar, treated her. Although he thought it was not serious, he told Sam to come and see his mother as soon as possible. Sam left for Quincy from Palatka, Florida, and it appears he arrived only hours before she died on December 16, 1899—of “typhoid malaria.” Annie Sheftall buried her sister Josie beside her beloved Thomas in the Quincy Eastern Cemetery. Although Josie convinced her children of the need to keep silent about the circumstances of Dr. Wragg’s death, they in fact loved, respected, and admired him. Without their careful preservation of his letters and papers, his story would never have been told.

Appendix

Thomas L. Wragg Poetry

1863–68 I am Going Manie, Going I am going Manie, going Peace and joy are fading fast, Since in dulcet tones you tell me That for me the die is cast. Let thy warmth egg nogg support me, Fill me with a generous glow; I drink to Many’s eyes one bumper Ere I to the army go. Though my heart may break at parting, Should I of the fates complain? Won’t some other bright-eyed charmer Ease my woe and cure the pain? Though her winning smiles inflicted Pangs severe enough to kill, The naked eye can plain perceive That I’m alive and kicking still. Let no wretched conscript wonder Who the mitten did bestow, Manie gives the walking ticket And I’m obliged to go. Standing by a large, black bottle, Filled with glorious Eau de Vie, 227

228 Appendix

I can bow with calm submission To my Manie’s harsh decree. Should fair Jackson villains tell you That my heart with love is sick, Tell them that you know me better That I am a “perfect Brick.” Say in spite of all my folly I am not as yet undone That if time & place permitted I would woo them every one I am going Manie, going From the lustre of your eye Stay old time you wretch and let me Tell those beaming orbs good bye. Fare thee well my bonnie lassie Truth hence forward will I tell Give me one, but soft time passes Manie, sweet one, fare thee well. Jacksonville, Alabama, “Ego” January 1864

Wert thou but Mine I dream sweet dreams, and in their blessed light I seem to feel their soft arms round me twine: The vision fleeth with the shades of night, But not my earnest prayer, ‘Wert thou but mine.’ ‘Wert thou but mine.’ Tonight the stars are set In the blue heaven but dim and cold they shine. Oh, they were brighter on the eve we met, The eve I whispered love, ‘Wert thou but mine.’ ‘Wert thou but mine.’ Those words fall low and sweet As the rich carol of that voice of thine; Then let our lips in roving passions meet, And echo back the words, ‘Wert thou but mine.’ ‘Wert thou but mine.’ Within these words is kept, The secret where life’s wildest hopes combine; All other passions in my heart have slept, That ever wakes and sighs, ‘Wert thou but mine.’

Appendix

229

‘Wert thou but mine.’ I have no other prayer, I bow my knee before no other shrine; Each spot is holy if thy form be there; Earth would be haven itself! Wert thou but mine. Notebook, 1863

Thomas’s lady friends must have pressed him to reveal his identity or to prove that he was the author known as “Ego.” He wrote a number of poems on this subject. In one he wrote: “Now since I’ve told who ‘Ego’ is, I’ll make but one request, that you will promise after this To let the subject rest.” His CSA Naval notebook contains various versions of this one:

Ego You speak of your Byron, your Shakespeare or Green But just let me ask you if you have yet seen The last poem by Ego entitled, “All’s Lost?” If not, do get it what ere be the cost. You ask for proof? I only say A trick you cannot well deny I’ll prove to you that I am still The truest friend you have . . . You speak of old “Byron” and “Shakespeare” and “Green” But just let me ask if you have yet seen The poem last set forth by Ego’s bright pen Entitled “A Caution to Wife Seeking Men.” The subject embraces a lady quite young Who could not to save her restrain her own tongue The summers she had passed had numbered eighteen But still of this gay world she had not enough seen. Notebook, 1863

230 Appendix

My Love and I My Love reposes on a rosewood frame A “bunk” have I, A couch of feather down fills up the same Mine’s straw but airy. She sinks to sleep at night with scarce a sigh With waking eyes I watch the hours creep by. My Love her daily dinner takes in state— And so do I (!) The richest viands flank her silver plate. Coarse grub have I. Paris wines she sips at ease her thirst to slake I pump my drinks from Erie’s limpid lake. My love has all the world at will to roam Three acres have I. She goes abroad or quiet sits at home So cannot I. Bright angels watch around her couch at night, A Yank with loaded gun keeps me in sight. A thousand weary miles now stretch between My Love and I To her, this wintry night cold, calm, serene I waft a sigh And hope with all my earnestness of soul To morrow may bring me my parole There’s hope ahead! We’ll one day meet again My love and I. We’ll wipe away all trace of sorrow then. Her love lit eye. Will all my troubles then beguile And keep this wayward reb. from Johnson’s isle. Notebook, 1863

Appendix

To__________Picture Go then if she whose shade thou art No more will let thee soothe my pain Yet tell her it has caused this heart Some pangs to give thee back again. Tell her the smile was not so dear With which she made thy semblance mine As bitter is the burning tear With which I now the gift resign. Yet go, and could she still restore As some exchange for taking thee The tranquil look which first I wore When her eyes found me calm and free? Could she give back the careless flow The spirit that my heart then knew? Yet not, ’tis vain, go, picture, go— Smile at me once, and then adieu! Go then, if she whose shade thou art Will not concede to this, I cannot gain your warmest heart And hold this envied bliss. Notebook, 1863

To Keep a Secret of the Heart This is the only boon I ask— Pray do not feel distressed. And yet I would not have you say You liked some other best. You see I do not ask your love But only a return Of friendship which I’ve tried to gain But you have tried to spurn. I’ve heard it often times discussed, If in a woman we could trust To keep a secret from their kind Should they feel otherwise inclined

231

232 Appendix

My slight experience teaches me That this taxation cannot be; Their little minds they do not know And therefore cannot well forgo. Notebook, 1863

Published Poems (Includes “They Say,” preceding the Epilogue) What’s trumps? There are so many cards to play, So many ways to choose, In love and politics and war, That forwarding our views, With ladies fair and statesmen wise, Or men of lesser bumps, Before we lead our strongest suits ’Tis well to know what’s trumps. Once, worshipping at beauty’s shrine, I knelt in bondage sweet, And breathed my vows with eagerness, And offered at her feet My soul, well stored with Cupid’s wealth A love-cemented lump; A king of diamonds won the trick, My heart was not a trump. Raving to see my rival win Upon a single rub, As he had played the duce with me, I followed with a club! Two days within a station house, Reflecting on my sin, I found as others may have done, Clubs very seldom win. Grown wise by sad experience, I ceased to deal with maids, I shuffled youthful follies off And turned up Jack of Spades;

Appendix

And still I find, as dust is scarce, And smaller grow the lumps, That though the spade’s an honest card, It is not always trumps. But in the world of outside show, Where Mammon rules the throng, To ease the little joints of life, And smoothly pass along; To find an antidote for care, And stern misfortune’s bumps, One card is very sure to win— Diamonds are always trumps. Published anonymously, “Ego,” 1866 Scrapbook Somebody’ll Come To-Night I must bind my hair with the myrtle bough, And gem it with buds of white; And drive this blush from my burning brow, For—somebody’ll come to night. And while his eye shall discern a grace, In the braid and the folded flower, He must not find in my tell-tale face The spell of his wondrous power. I must don the robe which he fondly calls A cloud of enchanting light; And sit where the mellowing moonlight falls, For—somebody’ll come to-night. And while the robe and the place shall seem But the veriest freak of chance, ’Tis sweet to know that his eye will beam With a tenderer, happier glance. Twas thus I sang when the years were few That lay on my girlish head, And all the flowers that in fancy grew Were tied with golden thread. And “somebody” came and the whispers there But I know my soul went up in prayer, And “somebody’s” here to-night.

233

234 Appendix

I blush no more at the whispered vow, Nor sigh in the soft moonlight; My robe has a hint of amber now, And I sit by the anthracite, And the locks that vied with the glossy wren Have passed to the silver gray, But the love that decked them with flowers then Is a holier love to-day. Published anonymously, 1868 Scrapbook

Notes

Introduction. A Time of Prosperity and Peace: 1843–1861 1. Judith DuBose and her sisters Anne and Mary (or Marie) were of French Huguenot ancestry. See Margaret Simons Middleton, Henrietta Johnston of Charles Town, South Carolina: America’s First Pastellist (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1966) for copies of the three sisters’ portraits. The originals are at the Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina. See also Henry A. M. Smith, “Wragg of South Carolina,” 121–22. 2. George C. Rogers, Jr., Charleston in the Age of the Pinkneys, 9. 3. Edward McCrady, The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670–1719, 586, 589. 4. Ibid., 589–92, 621. 5. Alberta Morel Lachicotte, Georgetown Rice Plantations, 71, 75. 6. Savannah Georgia Medical Society obituary and citation by Dr. Theodor Starbuck in the “Savannah Physicians’ Biography,” col. 702, item 9. 7. Ronald L. Numbers and Todd L. Savitt, Science and Medicine in the Old South, 191. 8. Buddy Sullivan, Early Days on the Georgia Tidewater: The Story of McIntosh County & Sapelo, introductory quotation, 171; 346, 527. 9. Ibid., 172, 177, 162–63. 10. Ibid., 177. 11. David Doar, Rice and Rice Planting in the South Carolina Low Country, 39–41. 12. Sullivan, Early Days, 163. 13. John Ashby Wragg’s obituary, Thomas L. Wragg scrapbook, Pamela Wragg Chase Hain papers (hereafter: Author’s papers). 14. Daily Morning News, June 12, 1860; July 3, October 10, and May 14, 1861. 15. There may have been bedrooms in the basement or on the second floor of the carriage house as well. For many years in the twentieth century, the house was a pawnshop. Mills B. Lane restored the exterior as part of the work of the “Bee Hive Foundation.” The Swing family now owns the house.

235

236 Notes 1. The OLI, Company B, and the Eighth Georgia Infantry from Savannah to Bull Run: 1861 1. Mauriel Phillips Joslyn, Charlotte’s Boys: The Civil War Letters of the Branch Family of Savannah, xv. 2. Ibid., xvi–xviii. 3. City of Savannah Directory, 1860, Vol. 2: Business Directory; Savannah residente quoted in Alexander A. Lawrence, A Present for Mr. Lincoln: The Story of Savannah from Secession to Sherman, 5–6, 8, 5. 4. Lawrence, A Present for Mr. Lincoln, 7, 15. 5. Ibid., 15. 6. Ibid., 131, 8. Mercer quoted in ibid., 6–7. 7. Bartow quoted in ibid., 3. 8. Lawrence, A Present for Mr. Lincoln, 8. Mercer quoted in ibid., 15. Symbolism of the flag: A snake avoids confrontation and is peaceful unless stepped on, and then it will strike back with deadly results. 9. Lindsey P. Henderson, Jr., The Oglethorpe Light Infantry: A Military History (hereafter: The OLI), 9–13. 10. Robert Paul Jordon, The Civil War, 45. 11. Berien McPherson Zettler, War Stories and School-Day Incidents for the Children, 60; Henderson, The OLI, 14. 12. Major Alfred H. von Kolnitz, A Panorama of Three Centuries of History Viewed from Charleston’s Famous Battery, 23. 13. Zettler, War Stories, 46. 14. Warren Wilkinson and Stephen E. Woodworth, Scythe of Fire: A Civil War Story of the Eighth Georgia Infantry Regiment, 14 n. 24, citing Editors of Time-Life Books, Echoes of Glory, 88. 15. Wilkinson and Woodworth, Scythe of Fire, 26, 27, 34. “The State of West Virginia was not admitted into the Union until June 20, 1863. . . . The transfer of the counties of Berkeley and Jefferson from Virginia to West Virginia was not recognized by Congress until March 10, 1866” (U.S. War Department, War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies [hereafter: ORA], Series 1, Vol. 2, Serial 2: 4). 16. Wilkinson and Woodworth, Scythe of Fire, 94, 26. 17. Ibid., 26. 18. Brigadier General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, C.S.A. (1818–93), was born in Louisiana and graduated from West Point in 1838. In April 1861 he was the commander in charge of the shelling of Fort Sumter, which marked the beginning of the Civil War in Charleston, South Carolina. During the first battle of Manassas he commanded the Confederate Army of the Potomac, which consisted of the brigades of Bonham, Ewell, D. Jones, Longstreet, Cocke, Early, Evans, and Holmes. 19. June 4–9 troop movements from Wilkinson and Woodworth, Scythe of Fire, 32–34. 20. Ibid., 38.

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21. Lieutenant General Winfield Scott (1786–1866). Born near Petersburg, Virginia, Scott was Union commander at the first battle of Manassas. At the beginning of the War he was a “brevet lieutenant general” of nearly seventyfive years of age. “He was blamed for the errors of his subordinate, General Robert Patterson which enabled Joseph E. Johnston to effect a junction with P. G. T. Beauregard and resulted in the Union rout at the First Manassas,” writes Ezra J. Warner. He “requested retirement” on October 31, 1861, and died at West Point in 1866. See Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders, 429–30. 22. See Volkmar Wentzel, “History Awakens at Harpers Ferry: Where West Virginia Meets the Blue Ridge, a Town That Remembers John Brown Raid Becomes a New National Monument.” In a caption to a picture of the cave Wentzel states: “Legend Makes This Cave a Station on Brown’s Underground Railroad. . . . Actually the cave was not easily accessible to Brown, whose farm was on the other side of the Potomac. Its dripping interior seems well-nigh uninhabitable, even by the most desperate fugitive” (402–3). 23. This is the first report of Wragg’s headaches, which plagued him for years. At times they were incapacitating. 24. Brigadier General Joseph E. Johnston, C.S.A. (1807–91). At the First Manassas he commanded first the “Army of the Shenandoah” (June 30–July 20), then the “Army of Potomac” (July 20–Oct. 22). He commanded four brigades: Jackson, Bartow, Bee, Kirby-Smith (replaced by Gen. Arnold Elzey). He was severely wounded in June 1862 at the Battle of Seven Pines and replaced as commander of the “Army of Northern Virginia” by Robert E. Lee. 25. Wilkerson and Woodworth, Scythe of Fire, 38. 26. Probably referring to the “Zouaves,” the name taken by numerous regiments and noted for their gaudy uniforms of billowing pantaloons and short jackets. Those from Louisiana with the Confederate Army were called “Tiger Rifles.” See Zettler, School Day Incidents, 78. 27. Private Addison R. Tinsley, Company B, Eighth Georgia volunteers. Tinsley was wounded at Manassas and surrendered at Appomattox April 9, 1865. 28. William C. Davis, Battle at Bull Run: A History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War, 83. 29. Wilkinson and Woodworth, Scythe of Fire, 46. 30. Bvt. Major General George Cadwaleder (1806–79). Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Cadwaleder was a Union general prior to the First Manassas, in command of Pennsylvania troops. On July 11, 1861, he was superseded by Major General N. P. Banks, U.S. Army, who then “relieved” Major General Patterson in command of the Department of the Shenandoah on July 21, 1861. See ORA, Series 1, Vol. 2, Serial 2:5. Robert Patterson, “Major Gen” (never officially appointed to this rank), with the Union Army. Born in Pennsylvania, at the beginning of the Civil War he was in command near Harpers Ferry. He was opposed by Confederate General J.E. Johnston. He only briefly appeared in the Civil War. He had been “distinguished in the Mexican

238 Notes war” but was faulted for allowing J.E. Johnston to “slip away from him and reinforce P. G. T. Beauregard” at the First Manassas. See Warner, Generals in Blue, 362, 649 n. 461. 31. This is the first of ten letters whose originals are at the Library of Congress, hereafter identified with a double asterisk and the date (Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection, Container 257). Copies of these originals are also available at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond. 32. Abner Doubleday (1819–93) graduated from West Point in 1842. Union battery commander at the first battle at Manassas, he was senior captain of the First Regiment, U.S. Artillery, stationed at Fort Moultrie for two years. Under Anderson’s orders, he moved his troops to Fort Sumter in April 1861 and “aimed first gun on our side in reply to the attack on Ft. Sumter.” Abner Doubleday: “I aimed the first gun: from Moultrie to Sumter.” See Ned Bradford, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, 3–9. 33. Hardtack: flour and water biscuit approximately three inches square and half an inch thick. 34. Brigadier General Robert S. Garnett, C.S.A. Garnett is mentioned in the letter from Dr. William Wragg to his brother Dr. John Ashby Wragg written the day after the First Manassas. 35. Brigadier General Irvin McDowell (1818–85). Commander of the U.S. Army in the first battle at Bull Run, McDowell was a West Point graduate in 1838. With the outbreak of war he was promoted from major to brigadier general. After defeat at Bull Run, he was given command of a division in the Army of the Potomac. See Albert Nofi, A Civil War Treasury: Being a miscellany of arms and artillery, facts and figures, legends and lore, muses and minstrels, personalities and people, 77. 36. Wilkinson and Woodworth, Scythe of Fire, 52–53. 37. The date and place on the letter were changed. “Winchester” was crossed out and “Manassas Junction” added. The date was written over and appears to be July 18, with “21” written over. From the context of the letter, it appears to have actually been written partially on the seventeenth and finished (beginning with “We heard today that we were going to march”) on the eighteenth, just as the troops were ordered to march out of Winchester and before they knew where they were going—i.e., to Manassas to support Beauregard. 38. Possibly fathers of privates F. G. Goodwin and George M. Butler, Company B. Butler was killed at Bull Run, July 21, 1861, and Goodwin was killed in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 2, 1863. Capt. George Washington Dickerson was made second lieutenant, Company F, in February 1862. See Lillian Henderson, Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia, 1861–1865. 39. Wilkinson and Woodworth, Scythe of Fire, 52–58. See “Hamilton Branch to Charlotte Branch,” July 20, in Joslyn, Charlotte’s Boys, 42–43, for Branch’s account of the forced march from Winchester to Manassas Junction. 40. Thomas J. Jackson (1824–63). Made brigadier general on June 17, 1861, Jackson was commander of the Confederate First Brigade (Second Virginia, Third Virginia, Fifth Virginia, Twenty-seventh Virginia, and Pendleton

Notes

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Artillery), Second Corps, Army of the Potomac. Known as “Stonewall Jackson” after the battle of the First Manassas, as General Bee was thought to have said (by some) that Jackson and his brigade stood against the enemy “like a stone wall.” Brigadier General Barnard Bee, C.S.A. (1824–61). Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Bee graduated from West Point in 1845. He was killed (died July 22, 1861) at the First Manassas. Commander of the Third Brigade: Fourth Alabama, Second Mississippi, Eleventh Mississippi, First Tennessee, and Imbodens Artillery. Buried at Pendleton, South Carolina. Brigadier General Edmund Kirby-Smith (1824–93). Kirby-Smith graduated from West Point in 1845. His Fourth Brigade was under the command of Gen. J. E. Johnston during the First Manassas. He taught mathematics at Sewanee University when Thomas Wragg’s son Samuel was a student there (1890–96). 41. Davis, Battle at Bull Run, 202, 198–99; James Ewell Brown Stuart. 42. Time-Life Books, Voices of the Civil War: First Manassas, 118. 43. Jule A. Ferrill (father, John); Lewis Lippman; First Lieutenant John Branch, adjutant; Thomas Purse, George M. Butler—all in Company B and joined with Thomas Wragg in Savannah, Ga. 44. General W. T. Sherman (1820–91) began the war as a Union colonel and was promoted within a month to brigadier general. He commanded the Third Brigade, First Division, Army of N-E Virginia, June–August 17, 1861. According to Warner, Generals in Blue, when Sherman died, former Confederate General J. E. Johnston “marched . . . in his funeral procession” (444). 45. Wragg scrapbook, obituary. He was also head of the drainage committee in Charleston and developed a tidal drainage system for the city which he described in detail to his brother, John A. Wragg, in a letter dated, March 8, 1868, Author’s papers. 46. Benjamin J. Johnson, second in command of Hampton’s Legion, ran for governor in 1860 and served on the South Carolina legislature. See Time-Life, Voices, 114. Wade Hampton (1818–1902), from South Carolina, organized his own regiment, called the Hampton Legion. He was wounded at the first battle at Bull Run. He contributed to the Confederate effort throughout the war and, afterwards, made a major contribution to the recovery, serving among other positions as twice governor of the state and as U.S. senator. See Nofi, Civil War Treasury, 281–82. 47. Major General George Brinton McClellan (1826–85). Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On April 23, 1861, he became major general commanding the Ohio Volunteers. After the First Manassas, he was placed in charge of the Army of the Potomac (August) and later (November) placed in charge of the “office of General-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States . . . upon the retirement of General Scott.” See Warner, Generals in Blue, 290–91. Known as the “little Napoleon,” he was a cautious General. See Nofi, Civil War Treasury, 78–79. 48. Wilkinson and Woodworth, Scythe of Fire, 94.

240 Notes 2. All Quiet on the Eastern Front: Summer of 1861–Spring of 1862 1. Samuel Jones (1819–87) attended West Point. His first assignment with the Confederacy was as a colonel in the artillery. See Stewart Sifakis, Who Was Who in the Confederacy, 155, 261 2. Henderson, The OLI, 38. 3. General Joseph E. Johnston, C.S.A., “Responsibilities of the First Bull Run,” in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: From Sumter to Shiloh, 252–55. 4. There was a private C. W. Furgerson in Thomas Wragg’s company. Perhaps Samuel was the father. 5. Ferrill and Purse are fathers or relatives of the dead soldiers who came to the battleground to bring home the bodies; Dr. Bulloch was the medical officer at General Hospital #1 in Savannah. See H. H. Cunningham, Doctors in Gray: The Confederate Medical Service, 288. 6. Private J. B. Hine, Company B, Eighth Georgia Regiment. See Joslyn, Charlotte’s Boys. The Hines were friends of the Branch family. 7. George W. Lamar, married to Thomas Wragg’s sister Pamela (“Penie”). 8. Andrew McDowall’s daughter Jesse (i.e., Wragg’s great aunt) married J. Charles Choisy, and their children were Alexander McDowell Choisy, George Lovid Choisy, and triplets—Oliver, Sepe, and Verret Choisy. Page from McDowall bible, Author’s papers. 9. Probably Captain S. P. Hamilton, “Georgia Hamilton Artillery Battery Regulars, formerly Company A, First Infantry Regiment Regulars which became an artillery service on July 24, 1861” (Stewart Sifakis, South Carolina and Georgia: Compendium of the Confederate Armies, 135). 10. There was a Private G. P. Snider in Company B. 11. U.S. Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon (1818–61). A Connecticut native, Lyon graduated from West Point in 1841. Although he lost the battle at Wilson’s Creek near Springfield, Missouri, in the engagement with McCulloch, his military efforts secured Missouri for the Union. He was killed on August 10, 1861. See Nofi, Civil War Treasury, 73. Brigadier General Ben McCulloch, C.S.A. (1811–62). Born in Tennessee, in 1861 he was placed in command of troops in Arkansas. His troops overcame General Lyon’s in Missouri. He died on March 7, 1862: “Invariably refusing to wear a uniform, he was attired in a suit of black velvet at the time of his death; he was then second ranking brigadier in the Confederate service” (Warner, Generals in Gray, 200–201). 12. There were two Bennetts in Wragg’s brigade, Corporal W. A. and Private William H. Presumably he is referring to the latter, who also served in the quartermaster. 13. Confederate President Jefferson Davis (1808–89). 14. A quire is 24–25 sheets of paper. 15. Lieutenant Colonel William M. Gardner was a veteran of the Mexican War. Gardner was very well liked by his troops, but he was wounded at the First Manassas and replaced by Major Cooper. 16. Gustavus Woodson Smith (1821–96), commissioned major general on September 19, 1861. Born in Kentucky, Smith was an engineer by education

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and an 1842 graduate of West Point. He is buried in New London, Connecticut. See Warner, Generals in Gray, 280–81. 17. Edward Clifford Anderson, former mayor of Savannah, and James Bulloch accompanied the Fingal from Scotland to Savannah, past the Union blockade, in November 1861. They brought a great many supplies for the troops. The Fingal later was converted into the ironclad Atlanta (see Chapter 4). 18. Johnston, “Responsibilities of the First Bull Run,” 254. 19. Wilkinson and Woodworth, Scythe of Fire, 112. 20. Cunningham, Doctors in Gray, 205–6. 21. One gill of whiskey is a fourth of a pint. 22. Dranesville. 23. Captain A. F. Butler, company commander, signed Wragg’s permission to take a furlough. See the end of Chapter 2. He was later wounded at Gettysburg, captured, and sent to prison, according to Thomas Wragg’s letters, to “Johnson’s Island.” When Wragg was in prison in Fort Warren in Boston, they corresponded. 24. Cunningham, Doctors in Gray, 165, 163; Samuel J. T. Moore, Jr., Moore’s Complete Guide to Civil War Richmond, 58. The hospital was reportedly used beginning with the Seven Days Battle on June 26, 1862, and continued in use for two years. Wragg’s letters indicate that it was in use three months before the battle. See Cunningham, Doctors in Gray, 184–86. 25. Cunningham, Doctors in Gray, 186–87. 26. “Collection of Confederate Records,” Record Group 109, M474: Letters received by the Confederate Adjutant and Inspector General, roll 53, Thos. L. Wragg 534–W-1862. National Archives, Washington, D.C. 27. Report from Commissioner of Pensions, State of Georgia, Atlanta, signed H. P. McCain, Adjutant General, Georgia Department of Archives and History, Atlanta. 28. Henderson, The OLI, 29. 29. There are a number of parallels in Wragg’s essay to Thomas Gray’s “Elegy”: the sense of solitude (line 4, “And leaves the world to darkness and to me”); the sense of decay and neglect (line 45, “Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid . . .”) and in the imagery—“below me runs a little brook . . .” (line 104, “And pore upon the brook that babbles by . . .”). 3. Naval Notebook, on Board the CSS Georgia, Savannah Squadron: 1863 1. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861–1865, 217. 2. William N. Still, Jr., Savannah Squadron, 2–3. 3. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in cooperation with Cultural Resources Laboratory, Texas A&M University, “CSS Georgia,” 1, 2. 4. See the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Georgia Ports Authority Web site: www.sas.usace.army.mil/CSS. See also The Coastal Heritage Society

242 Notes pamphlet, “25 Years of Preservation and Programs.” NASOH Conference, May 19, 2005, presentation by Gordon P. Watts, Jr., Tidewater Atlantic Research, Inc., “The CSS Georgia: Its Reconstruction Based on Historical, Photographic and Archaeological Evidence.” Archaeological evaluations were also presented by Stephen James, Panamerican Consultants, Inc. 5. Register of Officers, 102. 6. Author’s papers. 7. Thomas J. Scharf, History of the Confederate States Navy, 819 (hereafter: CS Navy). Charles A. McEvoy, master not in line for promotion. He was paroled May 20, 1865, in Richmond, Virginia. See Register of Officers, 123. See also, Ironclads and Big Guns of the Confederacy: The Journal and Letters of John M. Brooke, ed. George M. Brooke, Jr. (University of South Carolina Press, 2002) for additional information about Charles McEvoy’s intervention. 8. Spencer Tucker, Arming the Fleet: U.S. Navy Ordnance in the MuzzleLoading Era, xvi, 208–9, 160–61, 163. 9. Lewis H. Bolander, “James Harmon Ward,” Biography Resource Center, 1–2. 10. Scharf, CS Navy, 773–74; U.S. War Department. War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies, 1894–1922, I, 14:715 (hereafter: ORN) (William M. Hunter to Mallory, July 9, 1863), 699; William N. Still, Jr., Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Ironclads, 138. 11. ORN, II, 1:286–87. 4. The Capture of the CSS Atlanta, Wassaw Sound, Savannah: June 17, 1863 1. Still, Savannah Squadron, 12. 2. Scharf, CS Navy, 639. 3. Ibid., 639, 641. 4. Still, Savannah Squadron, 7–8; Scharf, CS Navy, 642; J. R. Soley, The Blockade and the Cruisers, vol. 2 of The Navy in the Civil War, 116. 5. Register of Officers, 207 6. Still, Savannah Squadron, 13. 7. ORN, I, 14:699; ORN, II, 1:286–87 (the muster roll of the CSS Georgia, November 1862 and September, October, and November 1863 includes thirty crewmen who were captured on board the CSS Atlanta); ORN, I, 14:699; Webb to Mallory, May 31, 1863, 704. 8. ORN, I, 14:290–92. 9. Ibid., I, 14:291. The report of Wragg’s injury is according to his son Samuel Alston Wragg, in his “autobiography,” Author’s papers. 10. Terry Foenander, “List of Prisoners of the CSS Atlanta, Captured on June 17, 1863,” 1–11. Foenander obtained information on the state or country of birth of these men from “Journal of Medical and Surgical Practice on Board of C.S.S. Steamer Atlanta: Confederate States of America,” Medical Records,

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McCain Library and Archives, University Libraries, The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and Register of Officers. 11. Still, Iron Afloat, 138 n. 22. 12. C.S.N. officer quoted in Lawrence, A Present for Mr. Lincoln, 117. 13. ORN, I, 14:723, 718; ORN, II, 1:286–87. 14. Savannah Republican, probably July 9, 1863, Wragg scrapbook, Author’s papers; Scharf, CS Navy, 644 n. 1: According to Scharf, Hardcastle told a different story in another interview with a Savannah paper made at a later date. In this account, he reportedly focused on the grounding, which he said took place when the ship was moving full steam ahead. When it struck bottom, it “careened over rendering her guns useless.” However, if the ship was lying on its side, eyewitnesses would have commented on this fact, and none did. Also, in Hardcastle’s report in Wragg’s scrapbook, he makes no mention of careening over or of any difficulties firing the guns until the very end of the encounter. 15. The last two sentences, cut off in Wragg’s scrapbook clipping, were provided by T. Foenander (via e-mail to the author) from a partial reprint of Wragg’s article in the Richmond, Virginia, Daily Dispatch for July 16, 1863, titled “The Crew of the Atlanta Arrived in Savannah—Their Narrative.” 16. Savannah Newspaper Digest, June 18, 1863, 8. 17. ORN, I, 14:288. 18. Savannah Republican, n.d., probably June 19, 1863; ORN, I, 14:265. In Commander Rodgers’ report to Rear Admiral S. F. Du Pont on June 17, 1863, he wrote: “At 5:45 Lieutenant Alexander came on board to surrender the Confederate ironclad Atlanta. He reported the vessel aground on the sand spit that makes to the southeast from Cabbage Island.” Salt Pond Shoal is southeast of, not “from,” Cabbage Island. This appears to be what Alexander reported to Rodgers, and it is not based on Commander Rodgers’s observations. Years later, in 1883, Alexander’s reporting ability on this issue was again put into question as he stated incorrectly that the Atlanta ran aground as it was “attempting to cross the bar” at the “entrance to Ossabar Sound.” This sound is south of Wassaw Sound and the Atlanta never reached the “bar.” See Alexander, “An Escape from Fort Warren,” 734. 19. Of the twenty-three (out of a total of thirty-six) crewmen mentioned in the newspaper article as having “stayed with the Yankees” (see Foenander’s sources for the place of birth of each, n. 10), ten were from Ireland, one from Germany, three from northern states, three or four were blacks, probably from Georgia, and eight (including four of those just listed from Ireland and two of those from northern states) later turned up on the muster roll of the CSS Charleson dated October 31, 1863. See ORN, II, 1:282. These men are: Bagnell, Callahan, Clancey, T. F. Eagan, Grogan, Pettijohn, Tarbox, and Thompson. Therefore, they did not “defect” to the Federals, but abandoned Savannah for service in Charleston. In addition, Atlanta crewmen Martin Fanning, Thomas Holmes, and William Norber (or Noburry) also served on the CSS Charleston in October 1863. See ORN, II, 1:282.

244 Notes 20. Hanleiter quoted in Lawrence, Present for Mr. Lincoln, 129. 21. ORN, I, 15:105–8. 22. Ibid., I, 14:265; Alvah Folsom Hunter, Year on a Monitor and the Destruction of Fort Sumter, 84–85; ORN, I, 14:269. 23. ORN, II, 2:123. Bullock to Mallory, January 3, 1862. 24. ORN, I, 12:385–86. 25. Hunter, Year on a Monitor, 73. 26. Ibid., 84. 27. ORN, I, 14:704. 28. Samuel Alston Wragg’s “autobiography,” Author’s papers. 29. 1850 Census, Chatham County, Savannah, Georgia, October 21; 1860 Census, 4th District Chatham County, August 30. The children were Isabella, age seventeen; Randolph, thirteen; Jasper, eleven; Laura, six; William F., seven months. A woman, Margaret Cazier, thirty-two, lived with them. See Henderson, Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia 1861–1865, VI, 395, and “Muster Roll of Company B, 63rd Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Infantry, C.S.A., Chatham County, Ga, Phoenix Riflemen.” 30. Still, Savannah Squadron, 15. 31. Hunter, Year on a Monitor, 82. 32. ORN, I, 14:269. 33. Ibid., I, 14:267–68; List of the crew of the CSS Atlanta transferred by Cmdr. T. H. Patterson, U.S. Steamer James Adger to Major Gen. Dix, Commander of Fortress Monroe, Va., June 23, 1863, National Archives, Record Group 45, M1091, roll 43, 301a. 34. In a letter from Thomas Wragg, October 29, 1863, from Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, Wragg stated that E. J. Johnston had died about two weeks ago and was buried on the island. Johnston has since been reinterred next to his wife, in Florida. See John Ellis, “Confederate States navy prisoners who died at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor” (www.csnavy.org/ftwarren). 35. F. T. Miller, ed., The Photographic History of the Civil War, vol. 7, Prisons and Hospitals, 123, 139. 36. This is the “Beville” Wragg referred to in his prison letter, December 11, 1863 (see Chapter 5). Beville served in the Eighth Georgia prior to joining the C.S. Navy. He was in Company H at the Battle of First Manassas, wounded, and discharged with disability. He reenlisted as a private in Company B, but was discharged again at Richmond, Virginia, January 1862. See Henderson, Roster, vol. 1, 925, 973; List of Atlanta officers and seamen, prisoners at Fort Warren, Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy to Hon. E. M. Stanton, National Archives, Subject File of the Confederate States Navy 1861–1865, Record Group 45, M1091, roll 43, v. 705:18. 37. ORN, I, 14:277; Naval Historical Center Web site (history.navy.mil/ photos/sh-us-cs/CSA-sh/csash-ag/atlanta.htm).

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5. Fort Warren Prison, Boston Harbor: June 1863–October 28, 1864 1. ORA (1971), Ser. II, 6:77. 2. Harry G. Boyd, “Civil War Prisoners of War: A Study of the Changes in Disposition of Federal and Confederate Prisoners of War, between the Shelling of Fort Sumter and the Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse,” 40. 3. Lonnie R. Speer, Portals to Hell: Military Prisons of the Civil War, 87, 196; Boyd, “Civil War Prisoners of War,” 40. 4. Joseph W. Alexander, “An Escape from Fort Warren,” 735; Speer, Portals to Hell, 196. 5. ORA (1971), Ser. II, 6:947, 1073. 6. Speer, Portals to Hell, 196–97. 7. Glassell was “exchanged at Cox’s Wharf, Virginia on October 18, 1864, and served thereafter on the ironclad Fredericksburg of the James River Squadron. He joined the Semmes Naval Brigade upon the evacuation of Richmond in April of 1865, and surrendered with that unit at Greensboro on April 26.” He was only 48 when he died of TB. See R. Thomas Campbell, Hunters of the Night: Confederate Torpedo Boats, 139. 8. ORA (1971), Ser. II, 6:1024. A casemate is a bomb-proof shelter in a fortification, or an armored compartment on a warship for a gun and its crew. 9. Speer, Portals to Hell, 59, 196–97, 193; Alexander, “An Escape from Fort Warren,” 742–43. 10. Speer, Portals to Hell, 63. 11. For an identification of the prisoners in the group photograph, see Miller, ed., Photographic History of the Civil War, vol. 7 Prisons and Hospitals, 123, 139; Charles I. Dufour, Nine Men in Gray, 140–43. 12. Ralph W. Donnelly, The Rebel Leathernecks: The Confederate States Marine Corps, 190–91. 13. Alexander, “An Escape from Fort Warren,” 735–42; National Archives, M1091, roll 43, Jewett to Chase, August 21, 1863. 14. Donnelly, Rebel Leathernecks, 192. 15. This was according to Pamela McDowall Wragg, in a 1942 letter to her brother Sam, Author’s papers. 16. Wragg’s sister Mary married Joe Bond. Perhaps this is Joe Bond’s mother. 17. Frank Bartow Beville served first with the Eighth Georgia, Company H, then Company B, and later joined the Savannah Squadron. He was captured with the crew of the Atlanta and sent to Fort Warren. 18. Anna Domini was Thomas Wragg’s love interest since his army days. 19. Capt. A. F. Butler was with Thomas Wragg at the First Manassas, in the Eighth Georgia, Company B, and he signed approval of Wragg’s furlough for health reasons in April 1862. He was later (July 2, 1863) captured at Gettysburg and sent to Johnson’s Island prison in Sandusky Bay, Lake Erie, Ohio. He was paroled on Johnson’s Island and transferred to City Point, Virginia, for exchange February 24, 1865. See Henderson, Roster, 923.

246 Notes 20. See Joslyn, Charlotte’s Boys. Hollie Cole, son of Benjamin L. Cole, was a close friend of the Branch family. 21. William H. Chase, born in Georgia, was assistant paymaster, February 26, 1863, assistant paymaster Provisional Navy, June 2, 1864, Special Services Richmond Station from 1863–64, and paroled at Greensboro, North Carolina, April 28, 1865. See Register of Officers, 33. 22. Hamilton M. Branch in the Eighth Georgia, Company B, and brother of Lieutenant Sanford Branch and the adjutant, John Branch. The author has only a typed copy of this letter—no original. 23. All three prison photos of Thomas Wragg were taken by J. W. Black, 123 Washington Street, Boston. The number “3906” is stamped on the back—possibly a prison number or photo number. 24. Thomas Wragg’s sister Jesse married John W. Anderson, Jr. 25. Introduction, “Muster Rolls and Lists of Confederate Troops Paroled in North Carolina,” compiled by Claire Prechtel-Klusken and Karen Martinson, U.S. Archives and Records Administration, 2–3. 26. Mauriel Phillips Joslyn, Captives Immortal: The Story of Six Hundred Confederate Officers and the United States Prisoner of War Policy, 15, 16. 27. Alexander, “An Escape From Fort Warren,” 743. President Jefferson Davis refused to treat with the Union as long as Major General Benjamin F. Butler was in charge, because of his tyrannical rule over New Orleans and the execution of William Mumford for taking down a United States flag. See Joslyn, Captives Immortal, 15.

6. James River Squadron to Semmes’s Brigade: 1864–65 1. Henderson, Roster, 933; Register of Officers, 207; John M. Coski, Capital Navy: The Men, Ships and Operations of the James River Squadron, 215. 2. Coski, Capital Navy, 171, 179. 3. Ibid., 169, 170, 171, 254. 4. ORN, I, 12:189, E. T. Eggleston, CSS Fredericksburg, February 27, 1865. 5. Coski, Capital Navy, 208. 6. Campbell, Hunters of the Night, 121; Samuel Alston Wragg’s “autobiography,” written in the early 1940s, Author’s papers; Coski, CN, 254, 215–16. 7. Register of Officers, 102; Scharf, CS Navy, 774; Coski, Capital Navy, 254; Mallory to Davis, November 5, 1864, John E. Ellis, Confederate States Navy Research Center, Mobile, Alabama (www.csnavy.org); Leah Townsend, “The Confederate Gunboat ‘Pedee,’” South Carolina Historical Magazine 60 (April 1959): 69, 70; Admiral Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat during the War between the States, 803, 819. 8. Warren F. Spencer, Raphael Semmes: The Philosophical Mariner, 183. 9. Semmes, Memoirs, 812. 10. ORN, I, 12:101; David D. Porter, Rear-Admiral, to Hon. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, April 5, 1865.

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11. David P. Werlich, Admiral of the Amazon: John Randolph Tucker, His Confederate Colleagues, and Peru, 174, 68–69. 12. ORN, I, 22:142–70; Spencer, Raphael Semmes, 183. 13. Semmes, Memoirs, 813, 819–20; Tucker, Raphael Semmes, 184, 185. 14. Semmes, Memoirs, 819, 820. 15. Ibid., 821–22. 16. “Muster Rolls and Lists of Confederate Troops Paroled in North Carolina,” National Archives Record Group 109, M1781, rolls 704, 705, and 725. 17. Register of Officers, (Arledge) 5, (King) 108, (Carey) 30, (E. Johnston) 101, (Morrill) 138; Index to Georgia Civil War Confederate Pension Files, 459; Savannah Morning News, March 8, 1903, obituary, 16; Register of Officers, 102. 18. Coski, Capital Navy, 216; ORN, I, 22:141–70; Register of Officers, 161. 19. Scharf, CS Navy, 749. 7. Confederate Veteran Returns to Reconstruction Georgia: 1865 1. According to Judith Wragg Chase, in the year before Annie died in the early 1900s, she lived with Thomas Wragg’s son Samuel and Emma Louise Wragg in Columbus, Georgia; Author’s papers. 2. Dr. John Ashby Wragg to Thomas Wragg, June 12, 1866, Author’s papers; Edmund L. Drago, Black Politicians and Reconstruction in Georgia: A Splendid Failure, 120–26; Dr. J. A. Wragg to Thomas Wragg, June 12, 1866. 3. J. A. Wragg to Thomas Wragg, June 12, 1866. 4. The original artwork in Thomas Wragg’s scrapbook consists of small “miniature” sketches of: 1. Major John Floyd by C. Floyd, 1882, “Killed by Powell” [in Darien, see Sullivan]; 2. Mrs. Gen’l Floyd by C. Floyd, July 1828; 3. Mrs. Robert Alston; 4. Samuel Floyd by C. Floyd, May 1, 1832; 5. Col. Richard Floyd by C. Floyd, September 11, 1829; 6. Miss M. Floyd by C. Floyd, December 17, 1828; 7. Mr. D. Gaillard “Killed while out hunting”; 8. Col. Augustus Alston “from memory” by R.F.F. 1844 “killed in a duel by Gen. Lee Reid”; 9. Miss Puddie Floyd by R.F.F. July 1842. Wragg scrapbook, Author’s papers. 5. In “Blighted Hopes” he spelled “Blighted” as “Blighed.” “I’m Going Manie, Going” was signed “Ego, January 1864, Jacksonville, Alabama.” On this date he was in prison at Fort Warren. He may have sent the poem to Jacksonville to have it published. 6. Joseph A. Groves, M.D., The Alstons and Allstons of North and South Carolina, 7–13. 7. Andrew Jackson to Robert West Alston, November 12, 18(14). The text of the letter follows: Mr. Robert W. Alston: Sir I expected to have had the pleasure of seeing you at Franklin last Tuesday, but I was arrested on my way by an

248 Notes order from Governor Blount to march my Volunteers to New Orleans for the defence of the lower country. This has engaged me here until now. I shall set out home in about an hour, and send on your horse on tomorrow. I expected to have had the pleasure of sending herewith the paper that contains the Jockey Club fall running here but owing to the press of publick matter the prints . . . he cannot have it out before Tuesday next. I will send it by mail to you at Sparta Georgia. I wish you to write me when you reach home informing how you got on, and the health of your family. I shall be off in about three weeks, in that time I expect to be able to sail—let the storms of war waft me whereso ever they may, rest assured you will occupy the most lively recollection and esteem in my brest as I am pressed for time I have only to add, my best wishes for your happiness and welfare and that of your family through life to whom present me respectfully, Andrew Jackson Wragg scrapbook, Author’s papers. 8. Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877, 68–69. 9. Author’s papers. 10. Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South, 366, 14. 11. Judge David S. Walker (1815–91). When Wragg was killed (Chapter 11), Walker was judge of the Florida Circuit Court, second district. His son D. S. Walker, Jr., became Josie’s lawyer. 12. Groves, The Alstons and Allstons, 96. Walker’s account is a chapter in an out-of-print book by David Walker providing brief chapters on various events in Florida’s history. The title of the book is believed to be “You Can’t Take All of Me.” Author’s papers. 8. Courtship by Correspondence: 1866–68 1. John F. Kasson, Rudeness and Civility: Manners in Nineteenth-Century Urban America, 265 n. 28, 43, 35, 115–16. 2. Ibid., 60–61. 3. Ibid., 128–29, 133. 4. Eric T. Dean, Jr., Shook Over Hell: Post-Traumatic Stress, Vietnam and the Civil War, 4. 5. U.S. Government, National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Department of Veterans Affairs, “What is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder?” 1, 3. 6. See poem titled “Blighted Hopes” in Introduction. 7. Josie’s sister, Roberta Henrietta Cooper Bobo. 8. Her son, Lieutenant Samuel Wragg, was buried there. He was a West Point graduate in his twenties, serving as a surveyor in North Carolina when he died.

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9. Roberta Henrietta Cooper (“Etta”) married Dr. Burwell A. Bobo, a surgeon from South Carolina. They had four children: Annie, Cora, Clarence, and Edward Simpson. 10. Josie had no brothers and only one brother-in-law, Dr. Bobo. Perhaps this refers to her Alston cousins.

9. Railroad Agent, Bookkeeper, Farmer, Store Owner, Conductor, Doctor: 1868-78 1. Scrapbook, Author’s papers; Judith Wragg Chase, orally to the author; letters from Pamela and Thomas Wragg, Jr., to their brother Samuel Alston Wragg, 1942–48, Author’s papers. 2. Thomas Wragg to Josie, December 30, 1868, Author’s papers. 3. Unidentified woman to Josie Wragg, August 1869, Author’s papers. 4. Dr. J. A. Wragg to Josie Wragg, March 11, 1869, Author’s papers. 5. Dr. J. A. Wragg to Josie Wragg, June 15, 1867, Author’s papers. 6. Dr. J. A. Wragg to Thomas Wragg, June 12, 1866, Author’s papers. 7. Thomas Wragg to Josie Wragg, May 7, 1870, Author’s papers. 8. Thomas Wragg to Josie Wragg, July 31, 1870, Author’s papers. 9. Pamela McDowall Wragg to Samuel Alston Wragg, 1942, Author’s papers. Wragg real estate transactions. 10. Thomas L. Wragg, Jr., to Samuel Alston Wragg, 1942, Author’s papers. 11. Thomas Wragg to Josie Wragg, ca. 1875. 12. Pamela McDowall Wragg to Samuel Alston Wragg, 1942, Author’s papers. 13. “Georgia Laws,” 1825 (www.sos.state.ga.us/archives/rs/hpr.htm), 125–28. 14. “License to Practice Medicine,” Author’s papers. 15. Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry, 80–82. 16. Ibid., 64, 84.

10. “Coonbottom” to Quincy: 1878-89 1. Chapter quotation from “John Reynolds of Roanoke” in J. Randall Stanley’s The History of Gadsden County, 15; Pamela Wragg to Samuel Wragg and Thomas Wragg, Jr., to Samuel Wragg, 1942, Author’s papers. 2. Dr. Wragg’s granddaughter Judith Chase orally to the author, Author’s papers; Helen Reynolds, “Rev. Samuel Alston Wragg Had Varied Clerical Career,” Riviera Times (Coral Gables, Florida), January 26, 1951, 2. 3. Stanley, History of Gadsden County, 11–14, 32.

250 Notes 4. Author’s papers, Thomas Wragg’s scrapbook; Andrew Jackson to Robert West Alston, November 12, 18[14]. See Chapter 7, n. 7, above for text of Jackson’s letter. 5. In Gadsden County Historical Society, Chamber of Commerce, etc., On the Trail in Historic Quincy, “A Walking Tour Guide to the Town of Quincy,” House Number 31, 220 Jackson Street, is listed as the S. B. Stevens’ House, built in 1842. The house is located across the street from the house that belonged to Judge E. C. Love. 6. John S. Haller, Jr., American Medicine in Transition: 1840–1910, 90–93, 98–99. 7. Dr. Wragg’s medical appointment book, Author’s papers; Jeanette Wragg, Thomas Wragg’s granddaughter, orally to the author; Starr, Social Transformation, 84–85, 68. 8. Samuel Alston Wragg, “An Old-Timer Recalls Early Days in Quincy,” 4. 9. Pamela McDowall Wragg to Samuel Alston Wragg, July 2, 1948; Stanley, History of Gadsden County, 156, 103. 10. Pamela McDowall Wragg to Samuel Alston Wragg, July 2, 1948.

11. Power, Kinship, and Murder: 1889–91 1. Rebecca was the daughter of Emily Gibson White, who, with the Ladies Aid Society, ran a hospital in Quincy during the Civil War. Rebecca’s father was Major P. W. White, chief commissary of the state of Florida during the Civil War. 2. William B. Foreman (b. 1840) was Chief Physician for the State Hospital for the Indigent Insane in Chattahoochee from 1882–92. He was the brother of Annie Elizabeth Foreman Dismukes (1844–1905) and Ellen Foreman DuPont (m. C. W. DuPont). 3. Handwritten copy of letter, Author’s papers. 4. Miles Kenan Womack, Jr., A Florida County in Words and Pictures, 69–70, 303. 5. Stanley, History of Gadsden County, 108, 111, 120. 6. Ibid., 131, 138. 7. Ibid., 141, 144. 8. Ibid., 144–45. 9. Ibid., 146. 10. Ibid., 150. J. Randall Stanley had devoted many pages to Elisha Dismukes, and then abruptly, without any explanation as to why, he reported Dismukes resigned from the bank and withdrew from business life in the town. See Bernice Dismukes, The Dismukes and their Kin, 13. E. P. Dismukes and his wife are buried in Columbus, Georgia. All of their eight children who died before their parents are buried in the Quincy Munroe family graveyard. Ironically, Samuel Alston Wragg later became rector of the Episcopal church in

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Columbus, serving for twenty years; his daughter Judith remembers frequently seeing Dismukes ride by her house in a carriage, knowing him to be the one responsible for her grandfather’s death. 11. Ron Hayes, “Insanity Is Chattahoochee’s Main Industry,” Daytona Beach Sunday News Journal, November 30, 1986; George Thurston, “Hospital Replaced River as Job Source,” Tallahassee Democrat, November 16, 1981. 12. Almena Rogers, “A History of the Towns of River Junction and Chattahoochee,” 1. 13. Womack, A Florida County in Words and Pictures, 235. Womack says of Chattahoochee in the 1870s and in the 1880s that it was “merely a little hamlet.” 14. Smith, Betty James. “1900 Federal Census of Florida State Hospital Inmates, Chattahoochee, 1999,” contributed for use in the U.S.GenWeb Project, U.S. GenWeb Archives, Gadsden County, Florida; Jan Pudlow, “Thousands Are Buried in Hospital’s Swampy Graveyard,” The Tallahassee Democrat, March 14, 1999. 15. Pudlow, “Thousands Are Buried.” 16. Quincy Herald, December 14, 1889. In tracing the location of all the participants in the murder, it is unfortunate that there are no more copies of the Quincy newspaper available in the Florida Archives. Presumably, the paper ceased to exist after 1891.

Epilogue 1. The Munroes were related to the Dismukes and the DuPonts. Elisha Dismukes’s mother was Ann Monroe, and his brother, George, was married to Alice Munroe, his first cousin (who was the sister of Dr. Hentz’s wife, also a first cousin). All of Elisha’s children, who died in Quincy, are buried at the Munroe family cemetery, as are some DuPonts. See Stanley, History of Gadsden County, 150. 2. Dr. Charles H. Hentz, “Diary of Dr. Charles H. Hentz: 1816–1893,” 302. Dr. Hentz’s diary can be found in the Quincy Public Libary, Quincy, Florida.

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Index

Adams, John Quincy: town of Quincy named after, 196 Alexander, J. W.: officer of CSS Atlanta, 104; and Fort Warren treatment of POWs, 107; dog Fanny and, 110; escape attempt of, 112–13; describes exchange, 122; on grounding of CSS Atlanta, 243n18 Alston family, 144, 249n10 Alston, Ann (wife of Major Floyd and General King). See King, Ann Alston, Augustus H., 141–42 Alston, Robert A., 141 Alston, Robert West (1781–1859), 136–37, 141, 145, 196, 247–48n7 Alston, Willis, 141–42 Amory, C. W.: Federal POW, 120 Amory, W.: father of C. W. Amory, 120 Anderson, Edward C.: expected in Savannah, 50, 241n17; Fingal and, 88 Anderson, John W.: trustee of Chatham Academy, 16; plans to attend wedding, 181 Anderson, John W. Jr. See Wragg, Jesse Choisy Anna. See Domini, Anna Archer. See Read, Charles Army of the Potomac, 50 Army of the Shenandoah, 34 Arnold, R. I.: as Fort Warren visitor, 115, 117, 120 Atlanta CSS: Thomas Wragg assigned to, 62, 88–105 passim; described, 89;

officers and, 91, 92, 95–96, 104–5, 106, 113, 116, 123, 125–26, 129–30, 245n17; Webb’s report on, 91–92; crew of, 91–105 passim; origins of crew, 92–93, 243n19; grounding of, 92, 95, 97–98, 100–102, 243n18; crew’s threat, 97, 98; deserters and mutiny, 98, 99, 243n19; size of crew, 105; renamed Triumph, 105 Aunt Philo. See Walker, Philoclea Edgeworth Alston “Aunt Philo” Barrett: only person killed on CSS Atlanta, 95 Bartow, Francis S.: and Chatham Academy, 16; as captain of Oglethorpe Light Infantry, 16, 18; as secessionist, 16, 17–18; education of, 17; honor and, 18, 141; troops and, 19; made colonel, commander Eighth Georgia, 20, 22; written passes and, 28; Second Brigade and, 30, 34, 41; sends some troops home, 31; ordered to road from Charles Town, 33; dies with flag in hand, 36; Laurel Grove and, 58; mentioned, 35, 36, 38, 39, 54. See also Eighth Georgia Infantry; Oglethorpe Light Infantry Battery Brooke, 125 Battery Semmes: Thomas Wragg assigned to, 122, 123; location of, 125 Battle at Bull Run. See Manassas, First Battle of

263

264 Index Battle of Sayler’s Creek: men of James River Squadron and, 127 Battle of Trent’s Reach, 125 Beach Creek, mouth of: location of Federal ships near, 98 Beauregard, Pierre Gustave Toutant: and Army of the Potomac, 24, 34, 236n18; urges Johnston to support him, 33, 34; Blackburn’s Ford and, 34; meets with President Davis, 41, 51; liked by men, 45; Dranesville and, 52, 53; Greensboro and, 129; brief biography of, 236n18; mentioned, 35, 36, 46, 237n21, 238n30 Bee, Barnard: his brigade under Johnston, 34; forces giving way, 35; mortally wounded, 36; brief biography of, 239n40 Bennett, William H., 48, 240n12 Beville, Francis Bartow, 104–5, 116, 244n26, 245n17 Black, J. W.: photographer, 246n23 Blackbeard: pirate, on Samuel Wragg and son, 3 Bobo, Roberta Henrietta Cooper, 170, 178, 248n7, 249n9 Bolivar Heights: Eighth Georgia camps at, 24, 28. See also Harpers Ferry Bond, Emily Screven, 8, 53, 114, 245n16 Bond, Joseph Bryan, 8, 21, 42, 46, 189 Bond, Mary I’On Wragg. See Wragg, Mary I’On “Sissy” Bonnet, Stede: pirate, 3 Branch, Hamilton, 11, 16, 118, 120, 246n22 Branch, John, 11, 15–16, 36, 39, 58, 239n43 Branch, Sanford, 11, 16, 246n22 Brant, H. M.: bank president, Winchester, 31 Broughton Street: Wragg residence at 401, 8, 15, 133, 187, 235n15 Brown, John. See John Brown’s cave Bulloch, James D.: accompanied Fingal to Savannah, 88, 241n17 Bullock, Dr., 42, 240n5

Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrology, Richmond. See McEvoy, Charles Bureau of Ordnance, U.S. Government, 63–64 Butler, A. F., captain, 41, 54, 57, 85, 117, 118, 241n23, 245n19 Butler, B. F.: Federal agent of exchange, 122, 246n27 Butler, George M., 34, 36, 39, 238n38, 239n43 Cabot, Stephen, 107, 109 Cadwaleder, George, 30, 31–32, 237n30 Camp Bartow. See Eighth Georgia Infantry Campbell, Mrs. Alex: secretary of Ladies Society, 7 Camp Defiance: camp at Bolivar Heights, Harpers Ferry, 24–25, 27 Camp Lee, 94 Camp Sam Jones, Centerville, 54 Camp Starvation, Winchester, 30–31, 32 Charles Town, W.Va., 28, 33 Charles Town: early name of Charleston, S.C., 1, 2, 3 Charleston CSS: crew from Atlanta who defected, 243n19 Chase, Judith Wragg: and Anne Sheftall, 247n1; E. P. Dismukes and, 251n10 Chase, S. P.: secretary of the treasury, letter to, 112–13 Chase, William, 117–18, 119, 246n21 Chatham Academy, 11, 16 Chatham Artillery, 18 Choisy, Richard, 45, 240n8 Cimarron USS, 91, 95, 96, 100, 103 City Point, 96, 119 Cole, Holly, 117, 118, 120, 246n20 Cole, R. H.: returns to Fredericksburg, Va., 58. See also Cole, Holly Collvet, Mr.: visited Fort Warren, 118 Company B, Eighth Georgia: former Oglethorpe Light Infantry, 15, 20, 24; casualties at First Manassas, 34; men killed, wounded, died, or dis-

Index charged, 58. See also Bartow, Francis S.; Butler, A. F.; Couper, Hamilton; Eighth Georgia Infantry; West, Joseph J. Concord, Fla. See Coonbottom Confederate Constitution: ratified, 22 Confederate Naval Academy. See Georgia CSS; Patrick Henry CSS Conner: wounded at First Manassas, 36 Coonbottom (Concord, Fla.): as lawless territory, 192; location of, 193 Cooper, Angelica Alston: mother of Josie Wragg, 136; education and marriage of, 137; learns to love Thomas Wragg, 173; predictions attended with misery, 185; writes to S. A. Wragg, 225; mentioned, 170, 209, 226 Cooper, Anne Guillard. See Sheftall, Anne Cooper Cooper, Joseph Lewis: husband of Angelica Cooper and father of Josie Wragg, 137 Cooper, Joseph Lewis. See Wragg, Josie Cooper Cooper, Roberta Henrietta. See Bobo, Roberta Henrietta Cooper Cooper, Thomas L.: replaces Gardner, 41; in command of Eighth Georgia, 41, 49; killed, 53; obituary of, 54 Corry, William Murray, 207, 209–10 Couper and Gillilands: B. J. Strickland and, 31 Couper, Hamilton: replaces J. J. West, Company B, 41, 49 Cox, Edward: kills Robert A. Alston, 141 Cox’s Landing: command and armaments of, 125 Cox’s Wharf: exchange at, 113, 122 Crane, William: killed at Manassas, 39 Cutts, Allen S., 52, 53 Dallas, Moses: best inland pilot on the coast, 91 Darien, Ga.: rice plantations of, 5, 6; Quovit Club and, 6

265

Davis, Jefferson: troop strength and, 41; army raised, 44; sickness of, 48; meets with generals, 51; letter to Mallory, 126; Danville and, 128; B. F. Butler and, 246n27; mentioned, 240n13 Dickerson, George Washington, 34, 42, 238n38, 240n5 Dimick, Colonel: commandant of Fort Warren, 107 Dismukes, Annie Foreman, 217, 219 Dismukes, Elisha Paul: takes family to Dr. Wragg, 199; married to Anne Foreman, 208; father of illegitimate child, 208; hosts governor, 209–10; Love family and, 214; brief biography of, 215; complicity in murder, 216; resigns from bank and departs Quincy, 221; connection to Monroe family, 224, 251n1; in Columbus, Ga., 250n10; mentioned, 205–6 Dix, Major General: commanding Fortress Monroe, Virginia, 104 Docton: plantation of Samuel Wragg (b. 1721), 2 Domini, Anna, 52, 113, 116, 117, 120, 245n18 Doubleday, Abner, 31, 32, 33, 238n32 Dranesville: battle at, 52, 53 DuBose, Anne: wife of Job Rathmahler, 235n1 DuBose, Judith: wife of Joseph Wragg, 235n1 DuBose, Marie: wife of Samuel Wragg (d. 1750), 235n1 DuPont, Anne Foreman, 208 DuPont, Charles H.: Florida State Supreme Court justice, 208; connections with Judge Love, 212; mentioned, 219 DuPont, Charles I.: born, 208; sister and parents of, 208, 211; murders Thomas Wragg, 208–9; honor and, 208, 217, 222; attorney’s letter and, 211; murder cover-up and, 211, 212–13, 219; and complicity of others, 212; E. P. Dismukes and, 216;

266 Index State Hospital for Insane and, 217–19; trial consequences and, 219; Chattahoochee and, 220; disappearance of, 221; Hentz diary and, 224; mentioned, 220 DuPont, Charles Wesley: father of C. I. DuPont, 208; in Civil War, 213–14 DuPont, Ellen Foreman. See DuPont, Charles I. DuPont, Evie, 218, 220 DuPont, Mamie: illegitimate child of, 208; Charles I. DuPont and, 208; William Ellis and, 211; affair with E. P. Dismukes, 216, 217–18; and baby’s whereabouts, 221; Hentz diary and, 224 Du Pont, S. F., USN: commander Rodgers reports to, 100, 243n18 Edmands, Gardner and Company, Savannah, 182 Ego: pseudonym of Thomas Wragg, 136, 224 Eighth Georgia Infantry: Bartow in command of, 16, 20; Richmond camp, 20, 22; Harpers Ferry and, 20, 24–30; troop movements of, 22–24, 27–28, 35, 41, 42–43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 51, 52, 57; casualties at First Manassas, 22, 35, 39; Camp Defiance and, 24–25, 27; camp life, 27, 29, 32, 48, 52; Camp Starvation and, 30–31, 32; new uniforms for, 34; battles and skirmishes of, 34–36, 48, 58; Thomas Cooper as commander of, 41; camp near Junction, 41, 42; Camp Bartow and, 42–43, 44–49; under S. Jones’s Brigade, 44; Beauregard and Johnston and, 45; Fairfax Station, 49, 50, 51; picket duty, 49; sickness, 50; camp at Centerville, 52; winter quarters of, 52, 54; Camp Sam Jones and, 54. See also Bartow, Francis S.; Cooper, Thomas L.; Wragg, Thomas Lowndes Elliot, Stephen, bishop, 16, 17, 38 Ellis, William H.: prosecuting attorney and, 211

Exchange of prisoners, 113–22. See also Hitchcock, Ethan A.; Ould, Robert Ferguson, Sam: and furlough, 53; telegraphs and, 240n4 Ferrill, John, 42, 43, 240n5 Ferrill, Jules A., 36, 39, 43, 239n43 Fingal, 88, 241n17. See also Atlanta CSS First Kentucky Regiment, 52–53 Flag “Don’t Tread on Me,” 18. See also Gadsden, Christopher Fleetwood, James M.: CSS Atlanta pilot, 91 Fleming, Francis Philip: visit of to Quincy as governor, 209–10 Floyd, Major: husband of Ann Alston, draws in Thomas Wragg’s scrapbook, 136, 247n4 Ford, L. D., Dr., 57 Foreman, Arthur, 219 Foreman, W. B., Dr., 209, 217, 218, 250n2 Fort Jackson: headquarters of Savannah River Squadron, 60, 62 Fort Lafayette Prison, 106 Fortress Monroe, 96, 104 Fort Sumter, 18, 19, 22 Fort Warren Prison: life in, 107–13 passim, 115, 119 Franklin, A. J.: returns to Fredericksburg, Va., 58 Fredericksburg CSS: Thomas Wragg assigned to, 123; suffers damage, 125 Freedmen’s Bureau, 138–40 Fullerton, Mr., British consul, 117 Gadsden, Christopher: patriot and husband of Ann Wragg, 2; flag “Don’t Tread on Me,” 18, 236n8 Gadsden County, 196 Gadsden County Historical Commission, 196 Gardner, William M.: as second in command of Eighth Georgia, 20, 22; as commander of Eighth Georgia, 30, Doubleday’s battery and, 33; wounded, 41; Wragg wishes he were

Index well, 50; goes to Richmond, 51; as veteran of Mexican War, 240n15 Garnet, Robert S., 32, 38, 238n34 Georges Island. See Fort Warren Prison Georgia CSS: Wragg assigned to, 62–63; well-trained crew of, 86; crew transferred to Atlanta, 91, 242n7; Atlanta crew who returned to, 95; O. F. Johnston and, 114, 115, 116; mentioned, 125. See also Johnston, Oscar F. Georgia Regulars, 48, 49 Georgia State Convention, 17–18, 22 Gibson, Augustus A., 108 Glassell, William T.: Fort Warren and, 109, 245n7 Goodwin, F. G., 34, 238n38 Goodwyn, Mathew P., lieutenant: as commander of garrison at Cox’s Landing, 125 Grandmama. See McDowall, Pamela Cleary “Grandmama” Grandmama W. See Wragg, Mary Ashby I’On “Grandmama W” Grant, Charles, reverend, 159–60, 167, 173, 181, 183, 184 Grant, Mrs. Charles, 161, 163, 174 Grant, Jimmy B.: made corporal, 52 Grant, Ulysses S., 122, 125, 126 Gray, Thomas (1716–1771): essay “Laurel Grove” and, 58, 241n29 Gwathmey, Washington: CSS Georgia and, 62 Hamilton, captain (Georgia Regulars), 45, 46, 48, 53, 54, 240n9 Hampton, Wade, 129, 239n46 Hampton Roads. See Webb, William Hampton’s Legion. See Johnson, Benjamin J. Hanleiter, captain: supposes Atlanta’s crew mutinied, 99 Hardcastle, George W., 95–96, 100, 243n14 Harmony, captain, 103 Harpers Ferry: Eighth Georgia ordered to Bolivar Heights, 24, 27, 28; town a hog pen, bridge blown up, and

267

property burned, 27, 28, 29; Eighth Georgia moved out of, 28, 29; mentioned, 21, 33, 43 Harriet Lane: officers of paroled, 116 Hartsuff, Brevet, brigadier general: Greensboro and, 129 Hentz, Charles H., 224 Hernandez, Thomas L., 93, 95, 102–3, 129, 244n29 Hill, Daniel Harvey, 129 Hill, lieutenant: Atlanta crew and, 94, 95 Hines, J. B., 43, 240n6 Hitchcock, Ethan A.: exchange of prisoners and, 109, 121 Honor, 11, 140–42, 222. See also Bartow, Francis S.; DuPont, Charles I. Howard’s Grove, 22 Hunter, W. W., 95, 99 Ingleside plantation. See Alston, Augustus H. I’On, Mary Ashby. See Wragg, Mary Ashby I’On “Grandmama W” Island City USS, 103 Isondiga CSS, 96, 98 Jackson, Andrew: letter of Robert West Alston to, 137, 196, 247n7; Arsenal and, 217 Jackson, Thomas J., 30, 33, 238n40 James Adger USS, 96, 103, 104 James River Squadron: Atlanta officers and, 122; ships of destroyed, 127, end of war and, 127–30. See also Semmes, Raphael Jewett, Jedediah: letter on Fort Warren escape, 112–13 John Brown’s cave, 24, 27, 28, 29, 237n22 Johnson, Benjamin J.: killed leaving wife and six children, 36, 239n46 Johnson’s Island prison, 245n19 Johnston, Edward J., 114, 244n34 Johnson Younger and Otey: mail and, 30; keep letters, 31; lost letters, 34 Johnston, Joseph E: Harpers Ferry and, 27, 28, 29, 237n24; ammunition and,

268 Index 28; army totals, 30; prisoners and, 31; Beauregard and, 33, 34, 45; Army of the Shenandoah, 34; concerning attacking in summer, 1861, 41; Army of the Potomac, 50; President Davis and, 51; and sickness in army, 55; army in Gordonsville, 57; Sherman and, 128; mentioned, 22, 237–38n30, 239nn40,44 Johnston, Oscar F.: as commander of CSS Georgia, 63, 86; Thomas Wragg’s greetings to, 114, 115, 116; as commander pro tem of Virginia II, 125, 126; Patrick Henry and, 126; career and, 126; Semmes Brigade and, 127, 128, 129; mentioned, 125 Jones, C. Lucian: Secretary to William Webb, 96 Jones, R. F.: witnesses murder, 212 Jones, Samuel: replaces Francis Bartow, 40; brief biography of, 240n1; mentioned, 44 Kennard, Joel: mutiny of Atlanta crew and, 96, 97; eyewitness to Atlanta capture, 96, 98 Kentucky Regiment at Harpers Ferry, 27 King, Ann Hunt Macon Alston, 136, 138–40, 165, 180, 184, 185. See also Floyd, Major Kirby-Smith, Edmund, 34, 239n40 Ladies Gunboat Association, 62 Lamar, George, Dr.: son of Pamela Wragg, takes over practice, 209, 224–25; Josie Wragg’s death and, 226 Lamar, George W.: husband of Pamela Wragg, Thomas’s sister, 11, 21, 240n7; Thomas Wragg letter to, 44–45; will raise a company, 47, 49 Lanneau, Mr., 145, 170 Laurel Grove Cemetery, 58 Law, William, 16 Lee, George Washington Custis, 127 Lee, Robert E., 126, 127, 237n24 Lincoln, Abraham, 19, 62, 127

Lippman, Lewis, 11, 36, 39, 43, 239n43 Lousta plantation, 137, 141–42. See also Alston, Robert West Love, Edward C.: his family as Thomas Wragg’s patients, 199; Charles H. DuPont and, 212; judge in trial of, 212–13; prestige, influence of, 213, 214; Charles I. DuPont and, 214; residence of, 250n5; mentioned, 196, 205–6, 219 Lowndes, Thomas: member of Congress and husband of Sarah I’On, 2 Loyal, B. P.: Oscar Johnston, Virginia II, and, 126 Lyon, Nathaniel, 46, 47, 240n11 McAvoy, Charles. See McEvoy, Charles McClellan, George Brinton, 22, 38, 44, 239n47 McCulloch, Ben, 46, 47, 240n11 McDowall, Andrew (1790–1866), 5, 8, 21, 240n8. See also McDowall, Pamela Cleary “Grandmama” McDowall, Caroline (1816–1858): wife of John Ashby Wragg, 3, 5 McDowall, Pamela (1821–1890), 206 McDowall, Pamela Cleary “Grandmama” (1797–1875), 5, 21, 27, 30, 32. See also McDowall, Andrew McDowall and Company, 11, 24, 28 McDowell, Irvin, 33, 34, 238n35 McEvoy, Charles: friction fuse and, 63, 68, 69, 242n7 McIntosh: Thomasville doctor, 209 McIntosh County deed records, 4 Mallory, Stephen R.: Confederate Naval Academy and, 86; Webb and, 89, 91, 93, 108, 109; President Davis, Pedee, and, 126 Manassas, First Battle of: casualties in Eighth Georgia, 22; letter to J. A. Wragg about, 34–36; described, map of, 36, 37, 38; called fight at “Stone Bridge,” 42; the battle, 43; mentioned, 21

Index Manigault, Henrietta: wife of Nathaniel Heyward and daughter of Elizabeth Wragg Manigault, 2 Manigault, Peter, Hon.: husband of Elizabeth Wragg, 2 Martinsburg, 30, 31–32, 33 Massey School, Savannah, 193 Medical College, Charleston, S.C., 4 Medicine, nineteenth century: rheumatism and, 51; sickness in the field; dysentery, 55, 56; license to practice, 190–91; doctors’ status and 191; arsenic, overtreating, and mortality, 197; and relation of earnings to number of patients, 199. See also Wragg, Thomas Memminger School, 206 Mercer, George A., 17, 18 Milledgeville CSS, 88 Miss Etta. See Bobo, Roberta Henrietta Cooper Miss Philo. See Walker, Philoclea Edgeworth Alston “Aunt Philo” Miss Pinkie. See White, Rebecca Mitchell, John Kirkwood, 95, 99, 125 Morel, Ryan, 39 Moseley, W. D.: State Hospital for Insane and, 217; and C. I. DuPont, 217, 218 Munroe, Mark W.: coroner’s inquest and, 209 Nahant USS, 91, 96, 97, 99, 100, 103 New Ironsides. See Glassell, William T. Nickolson, Augus: coroner’s inquest and, 209 Oestreicher, Mac: witnesses murder, 212 Oglethorpe Light Infantry (OLI), 15, 18–19, 20, 22, 36–37 O’Keefe, D. C.: assistant surgeon, 57 Oleander USS, 103 OLI. See Oglethorpe Light Infantry Ould, Robert: prisoner exchange and, 119, 121 Page, Richard: replaced by William Webb, 89, 93

269

Parker, Richard, 125 Patrick Henry CSS: as school ship for Confederate Naval Academy, 86; Oscar Johnston and, 126; destroyed, 127; crew accompanying treasury, 127 Patterson, Robert, 30, 31–32, 34, 237nn21,30 Pedee CSS: history of, 126; and Oscar Johnston, 126 Penie. See McDowall, Pamela; Wragg, Pamela “Penie”; Wragg, Pamela McDowall “Penie” Peters, DeWitt C.: Fort Warren doctor, 110 Pittman, Owen W.: coroner and taker of bond, 212 Porter, David, 12 Port Royal: Atlanta officers and crew taken to, 96 Provisional Confederate Congress, 18 Pryde, N. B. (or J. N.): escape from Fort Warren and, 112 Pulaski, Fort: first overt act of war and, 18 Purse, Jan, 42, 240n5 Purse, Thomas, 36, 39, 239n43 Purse family, 11 Quincy, Fla.: frontier living in, 192–93; Wragg family moves to, 193, history of, 196 Read, Charles W.: Fort Warren prison and, 108; escape attempt of, 110, 112–13; assigned Battery Wood, 123; torpedo boats, overland expedition, and, 125–26; W. H. Webb and, 127; and end of war, 129–30 Read, Leigh: adjutant general of Florida, kills Augustus Alston, 141–42 Resolute CSS, 96 Richmond, Va.: as capital of Confederacy, 19 Richmond CSS: Thomas Wragg assigned to, 123–24, 125; command-

270 Index ed by William Webb, 123; commanded by O. Johnston, 126 Robert, Hiram: hospital in house of, 7–8. See also Wragg, John Ashby Rodgers, John: as commander of Weehawken, 91, 93, 96; and grounding of Atlanta, 99, 243n18; and depths of Wassaw Sound, 100 Rodman, captain, 73 Romney: Federals advancing from, 33 Salt Pond Shoal: Atlanta takes ground on, 97–98, 243n18; described, 100 Sanders, Reid: Fort Warren and, 108–9; escape attempt of, 112; death of, 113 Savannah CSS, 88, 91, 93, 99 Savannah Medical Society, 7 Savannah River Squadron, 60, 86, 89, 91, 99 Savannah Volunteer Guards, 18 Scales, midshipman: training of crew and, 93 Scott, Dr.: witnesses murder, 212 Scott, Winfield, 24, 237n21, 239n47 Scrapbook by Thomas Wragg or “Ego,” 136, 137, 138–40. See also Wragg, Thomas Lowndes Screven, Emily. See Bond, Emily Screven Second Brigade. See Bartow, Francis S. Second Georgia Hospital: General Hospital Number Fourteen, 55, 56, 57, 241n24 Selkirk, Mr.: Thomas Wragg sees, 57 Semmes Brigade. See Semmes, Raphael Semmes, Raphael: introductory quote from, 123; James River Squadron and, 126; at Greensboro, 129; and destruction of ships of Squadron, 126–27; Semmes Brigade and, 127–29 Sheftall, Anne Cooper: wife of Edward Tatnall Sheftall, 134, 247n1; Freedmen’s Bureau and, 138–40; escorts and, 145; and books, 146; as match maker, 146; Thomas Wragg letters to, 152–53, 153–54, 157, 164, 170–71, 178–79; as forwarder of let-

ters, 155; “kindness of the kind,” 161; wedding cloth and, 182; takes Pam to Massey School, 193; mentioned, 206, 207, 220, 226 Sheftall, Cooper: son of Anne Sheftall, 207 Sheftall, Edward Tatnall: solicitorgeneral, 134. See also Sheftall, Anne Cooper Sheftall, Edward Tatnall “Tatt”: son of Anne Sheftall, 171 Sherman, Thomas: a Federal seaman, Fort Warren escape and, 112 Sherman, William Tecumseh, 36, 38, 126, 129, 239n44 Sixth South Carolina Regiment, 52 Skelton, R. Dan: sent to Fort Warren, 105 Smith, Benjamin: husband of Mary Wragg, 2 Smith, G. W.: as commander of Second Corp, 40, 41; meets with President Davis, 41, 51; to command General Johnston’s division, 50, 240–41n16 Snider, G. P., 45, 46, 240n10 South Carolina, Fourth Cavalry, Company K. See Wragg, Andrew McDowall Sparks, Emma Louise. See Wragg, Emma Louise Sparks Sparks, James William, 225 Stanton, E. M., 107 State Hospital for Indigent Insane, 217, 218–19. See also DuPont, Charles I.; Foreman, W. B. Steward, Dr.: killed by Willis Alston and avenged by mob, 141–42 Strickland, B. J.: of Couper and Gillilands, 31 Stuart, James Ewell Brown: at First Manassas, 35, 36 Stuart, John A.: witnesses murder, 212 Sumter Flying Artillery, 52, 53 Tacony. See Read, Charles W. Tattnall, Josiah: to command Savannah Squadron, 62; replaced by Richard

Index Page, 89; more experienced, 93; Atlanta crew reports to, 94 Taylor, colonel: First Kentucky Regiment, 52 Teaser CSS. See Webb, William A. Thomas, Mr.: carries bulbs to Savannah, 43 Thurston, James: escape attempt of, 112–13 Tinsley, Addison, 30, 48, 49, 50, 237n27 Triumph. See Atlanta CSS Tucker, John, 127 University of Pennsylvania Medical School, 4 Vermont USS: Atlanta crew and, 94, 96, 103 Virginia II CSS: Oscar Johnston commander pro tem of, 125, 126 W. H. Webb. See Read, Charles W. Walker, David Shelby (1815–1891): Florida governor (1865–1868), 136, 145; marries Philoclea Alston, 141; nephew of Gen. R. K. Call, 141–42; on son’s death, 220; out-of-print book, 248nn11,12; mentioned, 211, 221, 224, 225 Walker, David Shelby Jr.: signs bond for Josie Wragg, 210; as lawyer for Josie and son of Judge D. S. Walker, 211–13; letter to E. C. Love, 212–13; biography of, 219–20; mentioned, 221 Walker, Philoclea Edgeworth Alston “Aunt Philo”: supervises courtship, 144–45, 155 Ward, James Harmon, 60, 63, 65, 77–85 Warsaw Beach Point: near fight, 97 Wassaw Sound, 91, 93, 95, 100, 102 Webb, William A.: as commander of Teaser at Hampton Roads, 89; as Savannah Squadron commander, 89, 91; report of to court of inquiry, 91–92; crew called “Georgia moun-

271

tain men,” 92; on Atlanta capture, 95–96; crew and, 96; letter to editor and, 98; inexperienced, 103; Atlanta list of officers and, 104; letter to Gideon Welles, 106; letter to Secretary Mallory, 108–9; Major Cabot letter and, 109; meets with General Grant, 122; as commander of Richmond, 123; at end of war, 129 Webster, John A. Jr., captain: picks up escapees from Fort Warren, 112–13 Wedgefield: plantation of Samuel Wragg (b. 1721), 2, 3, 4 Weed, Edwin, bishop: Thomas Wragg’s murder and, 225–26 Weehawken USS: blocks Wassaw Sound, John Rodgers commanding, 91; Webb’s report and, 92; capture of Atlanta by, 95; surrounds Atlanta, 97; transfer of officers and crew, 103; mentioned, 93, 96, 99, 100. See also Rodgers, John Welles, Gideon, 106, 107 West, Dr. C. W.: trustee of Chatham Academy, 16 West, Joseph J.: request for furlough, 41; Eighth Georgia and, 42, 43; wife on death bed, 44; departs Eighth Georgia, 49; mentioned, 16 Wheeler, Joseph: at Greensboro, 129 White, P. W., 214, 250n1 White, Rebecca, 209, 250n1 Wigg, Livingston. See Wragg, Livingston Wigg Wilkins, Mr.: offers Thomas Wragg employment, 188 Williams, E. P.: William Webb and, 108 Windsor Plantation, 4 Witcomb: mentioned in prison letter, 116 Wragg, Andrew McDowall (b. March 23, 1839): twin brother of Mary, 8; works for McDowall and Company, 11; joins South Carolina Fourth Cavalry, Company K, 21; Thomas Wragg writes to, 24–27, 28–30; comes to Virginia, 45, 46; his duty to

272 Index fight, 46; rejoins command, 121; marries Livingston Wigg, 135; and steam boating, 135; employment of, 157; wedding invitation and, 182, 183; news of brother’s death, 209; mentioned, 42, 206 Wragg, Ann: marries Christopher Gadsden, 2 Wragg, Caroline Ashby “Caro” (b. January 8, 1848): sister of Thomas Wragg, 15; and Wragg’s dog, 47; must not get mad, 51; wedding dress and, 182; inheritance and, 189; takes Pam to school, 193; mentioned, 31, 172, 182 Wragg, Caroline McDowall (1816–1858): mother of Thomas Wragg, 8; death and burial of, 8 Wragg, Elizabeth: marries Peter Manigault, 1, 2 Wragg, Emma Louise Sparks, 225–26, 247n1 Wragg, Jesse Choisy (January 6, 1845–1896): sister of Thomas Wragg, 15; marries John W. Anderson Jr., 16, 121, 246n24; asked for shirts, 31; not writing, 48; letter to, 51; daughter born, 157; mentioned, 42, 43, 50, 114–21 passim Wragg, John (1718–1796): son of Joseph Wragg, 2 Wragg, John: of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, 1 Wragg, John Ashby, Dr. (1805–1870): marries Caroline McDowall, 3; son of Samuel Wragg, 3; children of, 3, 5; education of, 4; Darien plantation and, 4–5; positions of, 7, 8; Savannah residences, 7, 187; letter from brother after First Manassas, 36–38; Mac, Jesse, duty, and, 120–21; on labor force and business, 134, 135; advice to avoid idleness and, 157; Josie Wragg and, 183, 186; dies of malaria, 189; medical status of, 190–91 Wragg, John Ashby Jr. “Ashby”

(b. January 26, 1850): Thomas Wragg’s brother, 15; employment and loss of mother, 157; inheritance and, 189 Wragg, Joseph (d. 1751): of His Majesty’s Council and husband of Judith DuBose, 1, 2 Wragg, Joseph: son of Samuel Wragg (b. 1721), 4 Wragg, Joseph Lewis Cooper. See Wragg, Josie Cooper Wragg, Josie Cooper (June 9, 1848–December 16, 1899): meets Thomas Wragg, 134, 136; Freedman’s Bureau and, 138–40; engaged, 143; behavior and, 144–45; and rules of polite society, 144, 145, 148–51 passim; religion and, 146; fashionable ideas of, 156; marriage of, 184; frontier living and, 193; notoriety and, 207; on death of Thomas Wragg, 209; leaves for St. Louis, 220, 224–26; goes out but little, 225; death of, 226; mentioned, 15, 21, 249n10. See also Wragg, Thomas Lowndes Wragg, Livingston Wigg: wife of Andrew McDowall Wragg, 135; cannot attend wedding, 182; staid Wraggs of Charleston and, 206 Wragg, Mary (1729–1777): wife of Benjamin Smith, 2 Wragg, Mary Ashby I’On “Grandmama W” (b. 1782): wife of Samuel Wragg, 2, 3; sends box, 45, 46; sickness in family, 46; visits Pendleton and health of, 157; mentioned, 21, 30 Wragg, Mary I’On: daughter of Samuel Wragg and wife of H. Simons, 3 Wragg, Mary I’On “Sissy” (b. March 23, 1839; twin of Andrew McDowall Wragg, sister of Thomas Wragg): wife of Joseph Bryan Bond, 8, 21; mentioned, 31, 42, 46 Wragg, Mary Roper: 15 Lagare Street, 206 Wragg, Pamela “Penie” (b. December

Index 21, 1840): wife of George W. Lamar Jr., 11, 21; letters to Thomas Wragg, 31, 44, 48; sends writing paper, 50; son, Dr. George Lamar, and, 225 Wragg, Pamela McDowall “Penie” (b. March 4, 1870; daughter of Thomas Wragg): born, 184, 187; quote from, 133; and Thomas Wragg’s medical license, 190; moves to “Coonbottom,” 192; arsenic and, 197; Massey and Memminger schools and, 206; leaves Quincy, 224; St. Louis residences of, 225 Wragg, Samuel (d. 1750): of His Majesty’s Council, husband of Marie DuBose, 1, 235n1; as trader, 2; Blackbeard and, 2–3 Wragg, Samuel (b. 1721): husband of Judith Rothmahler, son of Joseph Wragg, 2, 4 Wragg, Samuel, major (b. 1770): son of Samuel Wragg (b.1721), 3, 4, 21 Wragg, Samuel, lieutenant (1803–1828): son of Major Samuel Wragg, 248n8 Wragg, Samuel Alston (1875–1953; son of Thomas and Josie Wragg): born, 184; Atlanta pilot and, 102; torpedo boats and, 125; frontier living and, 193; assists with ether, 197; revisits Quincy, 199–205; letter from prosecuting attorney and, 210; leaves Quincy, 220, 224–25; university education of, 225; marriage of, 225; Dismukes and, 250n10; mentioned, 239n1, 247n40 Wragg, Thomas Lowndes (d. 1859): son of Major Samuel Wragg, 3; CSS Nashville and, 3 Wragg, Thomas Lowndes (1843–1889): parents of, 1, 3; residences of, 4, 7, 184, 187, 192, 197, 250n5; education of, 11; duty and, 16, 21, 46, 54, 130; military assignments of, 16, 21, 27, 29, 42, 44, 46; U.S. flag and, 18, 34, 35, 49; health, illness, injury of, 27, 42, 51–57 passim, 92, 114, 153,

273

237n23; army food, clothes, and pay, 29, 32, 34, 42, 43, 47, 50–54 passim; Federals and, 46, 54–55; army ambition and, 52, 54; naval assignments of, 58, 60–61, 91, 122, 123; disposition of, 58, 143, 160–61, 162, 167, 170, 172, 175, 178–79, 188; Josie and, 134, 143, 145–46, 158, 161–68 passim, 170–71, 176, 179, 184–89 passim; postwar employment of, 143, 184, 189–90; depression of, 143, 146, 147, 153, 154, 155, 159, 160, 172, 178, 179; and etiquette, 144, 145, 148–51 passim; God and bible, 146, 169, 172, 173–76 passim, 188–89; humor of, 147, 153, 158, 181, 183; doctor and, 187, 193, 199, 197; death of, 208–9, 210, 211–22, 225–26 —Writings of: “Blighted Hopes,” 11, 12, 136, 222, 247n5; “Ego,” 85, 136, 229; “Fort Sinai,” 15, 85–86, 136; “I’m Going Manie, Going,” 13, 136, 227–28, 247n5; “Laurel Grove,” 58–59, 85, 136, 241n29; “My Love and I,” 85, 230; “Somebody will come tonight,” 136, 233–34; “They Say,” 136, 223–24; “To Keep a Secret of the Heart,” 85, 231–32; “To________Picture,” 85, 231; “Wert thou but mine,” 85, 228–29; “What’s Trumps?” 136, 232. See also Eighth Georgia Infantry; Exchange of prisoners; Wragg, Josie Cooper Wragg, William (d. 1777): Blackbeard and, 3; as Loyalist, Westminster Abbey memorial to, 3 Wragg, William, Dr.: son of Major Samuel Wragg, 3; letter to John Ashby Wragg, 36–38; letter regarding drainage mentioned, 239n45 Wraggborough: section of Charleston, S.C., 2 Wyatt, acting master: Atlanta crew and, 94 Zouaves, 29, 237n26

Permissions

Illustration 8 of Master T. L. Wragg in the spring of 1863 is provided courtesy of Charles Hatcher and Dorothy Wragg McLaurin. The model of the CSS Atlanta in illustration 20 was built by William Hitchcock and is in the collection of the Ships of the Sea Museum, Savannah, Georgia. Map 1, the excerpt from “Bird’s Eye View of Savannah, Georgia,” Morning News Lithograph, copyrighted, drawn and published by Augustus Koch in 1891, was provided courtesy of the Georgia Historical Society. Map 6 (ships photographs from NOAA) and illustration 9 (the engraving of CSS Georgia) are courtesy of the Naval Historical Center. Maps 2, 4, and 7 are from Gustav Feiberger’s atlas published by the United States Military Academy in 1923. The prison photographs of Thomas Wragg, Illustrations 1, 23, and 24, are carte-devisites by J. W. Black, Boston, Massachusetts. Illustration 33 of Jesse Cooper is a photograph by Genelli, 928 Olive Street, St. Louis, Missouri. Illustrations 34 (E. C. Love) and 35 (Sen. Dismukes) are from J. R. Stanley’s History of Gadsden County. Illustration 21, the aerial photograph of Georges Island, Boston Harbor, is from the National Archives. Finally, the source of the poem “Gather around your country’s flag,” which came from the heading of a Civil War era writing paper, is unknown.

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