Comments on: Greetings, New Readers

By: Harry Smeltzer

Harry Smeltzer — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 15:41:29 +0000

Jim,

Thanks for the links. My intitial response to the many Union reports of Rebel atrocities – and vice-versa – was to take them with a grain of salt, but I’m more open-minded now. Consider this fella:

http://bullrunnings.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/private-lewis-francis-14th-brooklyn/

Which is all the more concerning when you read this account:

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1861/august/bull-run-rebel-atrocities.htm

As for corpse mutilation, consider this private letter:

http://bullrunnings.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/john-clay-brown-14th-brooklyn-on-his-return-to-the-battlefield/

By: Chris Evans

Chris Evans — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 22:12:30 +0000

The mutilation tale is also discussed in a very good chapter in the truly excellent book by Virgil Carrington Jones- ‘Gray Ghost and Rebel Raiders’:

Gray Ghosts and Rebel Raiders: The Daring Exploits of the Confederate Guerillas

By: Dick Stanley

Dick Stanley — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 06:57:38 +0000

Interesting links, Jim, all of which seem to be piggybacking on the Ballou tale, which obviously enjoyed wide circulation.

Although Harry’s history net link says it was based on the assertions of two children (re the beheading and the identification of the Georgia unit) and a Union officer who identified two shirts as belonging to Ballou. Since the corpse was burned, there was no other evidence.

By: Jim Miller

Jim Miller — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 02:02:01 +0000

Harry, I’ve been meaing to ask you about “Confederate Atrocities” on the dead at Bull Run for quite some time. In my transcriptions of newspaper articles I have come up with a handful of articles siting such instances, but up till now I had just chalked it up to Northern propoganda/ Mind you I haven’t done a lot of reading regarding Bull Run (I find that I’ve become a student of the Western Theater). Here are the links to the articles on Civil War Notebook:

http://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2011/01/northern-sympathisers-with-traitors.html

http://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2010/06/rebel-outrages-on-dead.html

http://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2010/03/from-mcdowells-division.html

http://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2009/02/correspondent-of-utica-observer.html

By: Dick Stanley

Dick Stanley — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 18:31:58 +0000

Thanks for the explanation, Harry, and the link.

Easy enough to believe, given the hatred of the enemy on both sides, that a grave and remains would be desecrated, even if the proof that it was Ballou’s is dubious—the identification of two shirts and two anonymous witnesses, one of them righteously certain that only someone from Georgia could do such a thing.

Probably made for useful wartime propaganda, though.

By: Harry Smeltzer

Harry Smeltzer — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 15:41:39 +0000

I wouldn’t say the letter’s provenance is “doubtful”. It was quoted and copied widely in the later 1860′s, and is reproduced on Ballou’s memorial. The original has not been located. But it’s fairly frimly established that the letter was placed in Ballou’s camp chest prior to McDowell’s army’s advance into Virginia, and delivered along with all his posessions to his wife after his death.

As for the “mutlilation”, perhaps that’s too strong a word. Ballou’s body was dug up, possibly by the 21st GA, beheaded, burned, and tossed in and around Bull Run. Why would a regiment that was not involved in the battle itself act in such a way? Hard to say. It’s possible they blamed the 2nd RI for the heavy casualties suffered by the 8th GA, and they mistook Ballou for his colonel, Slocum, who was buried nearby.

OK, maybe “mutliation” is not too strong a word. Go here for more: http://www.historynet.com/sullivan-ballou-the-macabre-fate-of-a-american-civil-war-major.htm

By: Dick Stanley

Dick Stanley — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 15:12:39 +0000

What, Ken Burns used a letter of doubtful provenance as the real thing? I’m not shocked but I am surprised. And what is this “mutilation” you’re talking about, Harry?

By: Harry Smeltzer

Harry Smeltzer — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 11:45:57 +0000

Bob,

Those were two things I discussed with the reporter. They didn’t make it into the article.

By: Bob Huddleston

Bob Huddleston — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 04:56:58 +0000

After listening to the Ken Burns reading of the letter all those years ago, I started running down the story. It was interesting to find that the original letter doesn’t exist — probably, IIRC, the one we use today came from GAR meetings, But there are some good parts in ti that are too close to not have been composed by Ballou: he was an orphan so the bit about his children growing up without him concerned him.

Then I discovered his body was mutilated by the Rebels. That initially struck me as Union propaganda until I found numerous other references, from Southern sources, to Confederate mutilation of dead Yankees.