“The First of Our Hundred Battle Monuments”: Civil War Battlefield Monuments Built by Active-Duty Soldiers During the Civil War

Abstract

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] New York Times was wrong in more than one respect when it heralded dedication of two monuments to Union fatalities at First and Second Manassas with its June 13, 1865 headline, The First of Our Hundred Battle Monuments. Those two memorials (see pp. 37-39) were predated by at least four, and possibly five or six, memorials that were erected on Civil War battlefields by active-duty soldiers during war to mark where their comrades fought and where some were buried. These wartime memorials represent earliest efforts to commemorate Civil War combat and combatants and earliest attempts to mark Civil War battlefields for posterity. Their history illuminates sentiments of soldiers who memorialized their very recently fallen comrades and heroic events of war on very ground where historic actions occurred. However, these monuments have received little attention from historians of war and collective memory it has spawned. soldiers' sentiments, and manner in which they expressed them, reveal much about veterans, about Civil War-era American culture, and about why Civil War battlefields have become sacred ground deserving preservation and interpretation. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Colonel Francis Bartow (1816-1861) was shot through chest while leading Seventh Georgia Volunteer Infantry regiment in first major battle of Civil War at Manassas, Virginia, on 21 July 1861. He died moments later and is generally recognized as first brigade commander to die in war. His wife was in Richmond and learned news from Mrs. Jefferson Davis. Bartow had been an avid secessionist, a member of Confederate Congress, Georgia House of Representatives and state Senate. fatherly Bartow was popular with his predominantly youthful troops, some of whom called themselves Beardless Boys. (1) Bartow's body lay in state in capitol at Richmond and later was buried in Savannah's Laurel Grove Cemetery. Soon his comrades initiated efforts to mark spot where he fell--activities that were covered by southern press, but not by New York Times. Southern newspapers reported that Eighth Georgia's officers ordered a plain, round marble column to mark spot where Bartow fell. (2) Melvin Dwinell, a second lieutenant in Rome Light Guards, Co. A, Eighth Georgia, and editor and proprietor of Rome Tri-Weekly Courier, said the Shaft is plain white marble, six feet long, four feet above ground and about eight inches in diameter at top. (3) [See Sidebar.] This print pictures monument as somewhat taller and broader than post Dwinell recorded, and about twice diameter of stone's base (p. 27), which remains on battlefield today near twentieth-century monuments to Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson, who earned his nickname at this spot. But roll of drum reminds us of our wandering ... According to Melvin Dwinell, a second lieutenant in Rome Light Guards, Co. A, Eighth Georgia, and editor and proprietor of Rom Tri-Weekly Courier, at about eight in morning of 4 September, Eighth Georgia left Camp Bartow at Manassas Junction and marched seven miles to battlefield, arriving before 11 AM. Dwinell says that on arrival, they stacked arms and were dismissed until necessary arrangements could be completed for raising shaft, or, perhaps, it would more properly be called a post. Dwinell was an excellent writer, and his ruminations as he ambled around battlefield while waiting for ceremonies to commence are a telling commentary of what must have been on minds of many soldiers who had first seen elephant, as Civil War soldiers referred to their first battle experience, just six weeks earlier. Consequently, they are worth quoting at length to illuminate soldiers' sentiments and to set stage for dedication ceremony for first Civil War monument: Only 7th and 8th Regiments of this Brigade were in battle . …