San Francisco National Cemetery at the Presidio, 4/28/2024

A couple of weeks ago we took a family trip out to California, during which we took in some Pittsburgh Pirates baseball (my son is a sportswriter and covered their games at San Francisco and Oakland, a bad week for the Buccos), visited my wife’s sister and her better half, drank some Irish coffee, ate some clam chowder out of bread bowls, and worked from 5:30 am to 2:30 pm (both of our jobs are on east coast time). But on Sunday we did my Civil War Day which is in my contract for family trips (sometimes it may only be a Civil War hour or minute, though). Not allowing myself to be limited once again to saying “Geary Boulevard is named after Civil War General (among many other things, some related to San Francisco) John White Geary,” we Ubered out to the San Francisco National Cemetery in what is now the Presidio National Park.

This park is a gem. All I can tell you is, if you’re in the City by the Bay, put it on your to do list. The best views in town are there. But the views are not what took me there. I was on a mission to find the saddest headstone related to our Civil War, that of U. S. Army Major General Irvin McDowell, who led the Union forces at the First Battle of Bull Run (among many other things, including being San Francisco’s Ron Swanson later in life). We found a few other cool things, and met a new friend as well.

First things first, the cemetery. Not too big, not too small, but just right, this place on a clear day is really spectacular.

That’s Alcatraz in the center distance. We’ll see more of it below

A bridge of some note

Next, my target – the heartbreakingly sorrowful headstone of Major General Irvin McDowell. Simple, modest, understated. And a typo in marble. Near the entrance is a kiosk where you can enter the name of the person you’re looking for. I got this:

Easy peezy lemon squeezy! First row, first grave, in the Officers’ Section! That’s the oval section at lower right.

Sure, easy if you’re looking for the first grave in the first row. But that’s not where he is. So, we screen capped some images from FindAGrave showing what surrounding headstones look like and started our trek from the bottom of the section to the top – uphill, that is. This is San Francisco, after all. My wife found him, somewhere around the middle of the section.

After retiring from the Army in 1883, McDowell was San
Francisco’s Parks Commissioner.

“Irwin’s” view for eternity – or until further notice.

The General and Me.

While there I also sought out the final resting place of Union spy Pauline Cushman and learned that in order to search a name at the kiosk, you must enter the name on the headstone. Again, it was my wife Ann who found it.

You can learn a whole lot more about Cushman-Fryer in this fine biography.

I saw a marker and was drawn by the eagle-globe-anchor emblem advertising the United States Marine Corps. If you attended my recent presentation on The Marine Battalion at Fist Bull Run, you know that this emblem was approved in 1868 by USMC Commandant Brig. Gen. Jacob Zeilin, who was with the battalion on July 21, 1861.

Later that day I looked more closely at the image, I read the bottom of the inscription. A footnote, if you will.

“The remains of Private Harry Fisher are buried at McKeesport, Pennsylvania.”

Here’s what I found and posted to my Facebook and Instagram:

I took a photo of this marker, because of the cool emblem and the fact these Marines were killed in the Boxer Rebellion (commanded by Charlton Heston, I think). But I didn’t notice the “footnote” until bedtime. For those who don’t know, I was born and raised in McKeesport, PA. So I had to know more…

Turns out Harry Fisher is buried about a mile from our house there, and even closer to my parish and grade school. He’s buried under his real name, Franklin J. Phillips. Turns out Phillips was in the army in the Span-Am war, and “deserted” when denied leave to recover from malaria contracted there. He was discharged “without honor.” So he joined the USMC under a nom de guerre, Harry Fisher.

Fisher/Phillips was awarded the MOH for his actions at the Tartar Wall in defense of the Legations. Another Marine was awarded the MOH for his actions at the Tartar Wall. One of two he would receive. Fella named Dan Daly.

My jarhead brother informed me that the MOH in question is in the McKeesport Regional History and Heritage Center. Here’s a podcast clip about Phillips (sorry about the gun thing):

And here’s a photo from FindAGrave of his grave in the McKeesport and Versailles Cemetery, which I used to walk past on my way to and from school back in the 8th grade:

Just for giggles, here’s the trailer for the film to which I alluded above (that’s their version of the Tartar Wall):

Lastly, as we were leaving the park, we decided to stop by the Walt Disney Museum there. As my wife was tooling around the museum store (we didn’t have much time as we had to head to Oracle Park for the game where my son was working (probably the best situated press box in the MLB), I struck up a conversation with the store manager, John Ferris. Or should I say, BROTHER John Ferris, who is also a member of Gen. Alfred Pleasonton Camp #24 the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (I’m a member of the Davis * Camp here in Pittsburgh). Brother John is also a reenactor and is active in organizations such as The Friends of Civil War Alcatraz.

It was great talking to you, Brother John. As my late father-in-law used to say, you never know what you can learn from just talking to someone!

Richmond, VA, 1/19-20/2023

While in town for the Powhatan Civil War Roundtable last week, I had time to take in some sites, including things like the Tredegar Iron Works, Confederate White House, Robert E. Lee’s residence, Chimborazo Hospital, Glendale battlefield, Malvern Hill, White Oak Swamp, and the Oakwood, Glendale, and Hollywood Cemeteries. At the latter, I chased down the final resting places of a few Bull Runners (I realize there are more, but I had limited time):

Hollywood Cemetery

Hollywood Cemetery

Hollywood Cemetery

John Imboden, Staunton Artillery

James Ewell Brown Stuart, 1st Va. Cavalry

William Smith, 49th Va. Infantry Battalion

Raleigh Colston, Co. E, 2nd Va. Infantry

Hunter Holmes McGuire, Jackson’s Brigade

Eppa Hunton, 8th Va. Infantry

Philip St. George Cocke

Chatham Roberdeau Wheat, 1st Special Louisiana Battalion

While A. P. Hill was at Manassas Junction during the battle, I have to mention that I ran into these fellas on Malvern Hill. The next day, they were in Culpeper, Va. for the reinterment of the General’s remains.

Myself, Patrick “A. P. Hill” Falci, and collateral descendant of the General, John Hill, on Malvern Hill

71st New York Infantry Returns to the Field 27 Years Later

SOLDIER’S BONES
——————–
A Grave at Bull Run Desecrated by Veterans.
——————–
THEY WANTED SOUVENIRS
——————–
Members of the Seventy-first Regiment Unearth a Skeleton on a Relic Hunting Expedition – It May Have Been a Comrade.
——————–

New York, July 26 – The Evening World Says: Apparently there’s trouble ahead for the Seventy-first regiment. The bones of a soldier have been removed from their resting place in the battle ground at Bull Run by members of this regiment, and what the consequences will be no one knows just now.

The regiment went to Bull Run last Friday night to celebrate the twenty-seventh anniversary of that famous battle. The members reached Fredericksburg on Saturday and Bull Run on Sunday. They were handsomely entertained by their hosts and enjoyed themselves immensely.

They roamed over the battlefield and discussed the positions and engagements of their regiment on that memorable occasion, and compared notes with their Confederate hosts until Sunday night, when they started home, stopping at Washington on the way. They arrived in New York Tuesday morning. The boys searched over the battlefield for souvenirs, and finding a skeleton of a soldier, sever thought a few of its bones would be more desirable as reminders of that occasion than battered bullets and rusty sabers, so they brought them home.

Surgeon E. T. T. Marsh told a reported about it as follows: About eighteen or twenty members of Company B were walking over the battlefield in search of souvenirs. They came to a little gully about six feet deep which had been washed out by water. On the side of this gully was a little mound which attracted the attention of one of the company. It looked like a grave, and when one of the boys stirred up its surface a skeleton was revealed. The men and knives they opened the grave as best they could.

“The soil is clay and pretty hard, so the men soon gave up trying to take the skeleton out whole. They discovered a piece of blue cloth and a button which proved that the dead man was a Union soldier.

“The men told about their discovery when they joined the rest of the regiment and it was talked over freely. Some thought the poor soldier was one of those of our regiment who was never accounted for.

“Private M. C. O’Brien, a physician, was one of the party that unearthed the skeleton, but I do not know any others. I am certain that the whole skeleton was not taken, but I should not wonder if some of the long bones – those of the arm and the thigh – were carried away. I suppose if I had been there I would have taken a bone, too. I did not see any of the bones, but I heard the boys talk about them.”

Sergt. Bonestiel, of Company K, who is at present on duty at the armory, professed to know nothing about the matter.

When he was told about it he laughed and thought it was a grand joke if the boys secured the bones for trophies.

It was rumored that Governor Lee, of Virginia, had communicated with Governor Hill on the subject, but reporters were unable to see either Governor Hill or his secretary at Albany.

Wilkes-Barre (PA) News, 7/27/1888

Clipping Image

Contributed by John Banks

That Big Puddle on Henry Hill

This past Saturday I visited Manassas National Battlefield Park for a quick tour with my nephew. I snapped this photo of the typically wet area just east of the Visitor’s Center parking lot, the one you usually have to walk around on your trek to Stonewall on Steroids. Why take a picture of a puddle, especially a dry one? Well, in 1862, some theorize – I tend to concur – this feature was photographed at least three times, twice by the team of Whitney & Woodbury, and once by Barnard and Gibson. At the time, the marshy area was surrounded by shallow and supposedly Confederate graves. Think about that next time you’re busy keeping your feet dry.

Whitney & Woodbury

Whitney & Woodbury

Barnard & Gibson

WTF?

If I needed more proof that these grave related activities (more commonly involving changes to how the graves of Civil War veterans and pseudo-veterans are marked) are more about the honorers than the honorees, I’ve found it in this article. This is just weird and defies rational explanation, in my book: “saving” un-lost, un-threatened gravesites by destroying them? What exactly is the difference between the actions of these folks and those of an apparently disturbed man in Petersburg, who has been sentenced to jail time for digging up buttons, among other things?  I don’t get it. But I think the reporter stumbled across the reason in one sentence [with my commentary]:

To the diggers in these woods, the Hollemans [well, their buttons, cufflinks, and suspender hardware, anyway] belong in Oakwood Cemetery, led there by honor guard, laid alongside men who fell at Gettysburg.

Let me guess: the ceremony will be held on a Saturday (or holiday), when lots of people can come out and watch you guys, right?

Read more at Civil War Memory.