Civil War

Exhibition: NY Civil War Chattanooga Battle Flags

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New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Commissioner Carol Ash has announced the opening of the &#8220Chattanooga Colors&#8221 exhibition commemorating the 145th anniversary of the Civil War battles of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The flag exhibit will be on view in the New York State Capitol in Albany through September 2009.

&#8220Chattanooga Colors&#8221 is the ninth installment in the New York State Battle Flag Preservation Project Capitol exhibition series, which highlights the ongoing collaboration between the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and the Division of Military and Naval Affairs to preserve and properly store the state’s 1,900 battle flags. Many of the 850 Civil War flags in the state’s battle flag collection incurred damage in battle. At the end of the war, the flags were furled on their staffs and placed in glass cases in the Capitol. Nearly a century and a half of poor storage subjected the flags to the harmful effects of humidity, light, gravity, and temperature variance.

The exhibit showcases six battle flags carried by volunteer regiments from throughout the State of New York that served during the battles for Chattanooga, Tennessee, and includes a small Unites States flag made by a group of women in eastern Tennessee who concealed the banner in a tea pot to prevent its capture by the Confederates. Flags carried by the 60th Infantry, 136th Infantry, 137th Infantry, 143rd Infantry, 154th Infantry and Battery I, 1st Artillery are included in the exhibit. Over 3,700 citizen soldiers followed their colors to faraway battles in Tennessee.

Each flag within &#8220Chattanooga Colors&#8221 has been conserved and prepared for exhibition at State Parks’ Peebles Island Resource Center as part of the New York State Battle Flag Preservation Project. Since 2000, the Flag Project has conserved and properly stored over 500 flags carried into battle by New York State regiments. The New York State Military Museum in the Saratoga Springs Armory is the permanent home of New York’s battle flag collection.

NARA Civil War Records Now Available in NYC

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The Northeast Region’s New York City office announces the receipt of over 1,400 volumes of Civil War records previously held in Washington, DC. These volumes document arrested deserters, men enrolled for the draft, enlisted volunteers, and compiled statistics on the physical condition of recruits and military casualties for New York and New Jersey.

Record Group 110: Records of the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau (Civil War) will provide significant insight into the Civil War era for historians and for genealogists alike. The records cover New York (1861-1868) and New Jersey (1861-1868) and are arranged by draft board. The New York volumes consist of records from 31 districts, records for several state mustering points, and records of the Park and Broome Barracks of lower Manhattan. The New Jersey volumes consist of records from 5 districts, staff offices, and the Draft Rendezvous Station at Trenton.

While the detail within the records varies from district to district, they can be simply described as lists, reports, ledgers, and correspondence. Specifically, these records may include Registers of Enlistments, Substitutes, and Deserters- Descriptive Lists of Men Ordered To Report for Duty- Registers of Exemptions- Letters Regarding Medical Examinations of Draftees- and Letters Regarding Service. These series will include both those that served and those that didn’t serve in the military. Information about the individuals may include names, ages, occupations, physical and mental characteristics, birthplaces, and family relationships. Additionally, essential information concerning freedmen and the New York Draft Riots are included in several series.

The National Archives welcomes the general public, historians, genealogists, Civil War enthusiasts, and students to research these essential documents of our past. While the microfilm and online resources are available at all times, researchers are requested to make an appointment to use the original documents of Record Group 110.

The National Archives is open to the public Monday through Friday from 8:00 to 4:30 pm, and the first Saturday of each month 8:30 to 4 pm (computer and microfilm research only). The National Archives and Records Administration &#8211 New York office is located at 201 Varick Street, 12th Floor, New York, NY, 10014.


More from the National Archives:

Record Group 110: Records of the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau (Civil War) from The National Archives Guide to Federal Records

Military Resources at the National Archives: Civil War

Civil War Draft Records: Exemptions and Enrollments by Michael T. Meier, from the National Archives magazine Prologue

National Archives Reference Information Paper: Draft Records (Civil War and after)

Civil War Fort Montgomery Needs Preservation

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According to an editorial in the Plattsburgh Press Republican this week, Fort Montgomery &#8211 not the Hudson River American Revolution fort, but the Lake Champlain (mostly) American Civil War one in Rouses Point &#8211 is in ruins, the victim of nothing less then neglect.


According to the Press Republican:

In April 1980, a huge portion of the northwest bastion collapsed into the moat, and cracks in the rest of the structure have raised concerns that a similar fate awaits the rest of the fort.


And there are other obstacles. Liability is an acute concern, as the unstable structure has long been used as a party spot for teens. Also, the location is surrounded by environmentally sensitive wetlands.


But the potential as a historic landmark and tourist destination &#8212- accessible by car, bus or boat &#8212- is undeniable. In fact, it can be seen by the preservation of a similar landmark, Fort Lennox, just a 20-minute drive upriver in Isle aux Noir, Quebec.

It took hundreds of stonemasons thirty years to build (1844 and 1871), according to the great Wiki:

Named for Revolutionary War hero General Richard Montgomery who was killed at Quebec City during the 1775 invasion of Canada, construction began on Fort Montgomery two years later in 1844. Fort Montgomery was one of a very few &#8220Permanent&#8221 or &#8220Third System&#8221 forts built along the Northern Frontier, most being constructed along the Atlantic Coast. Work on the fort remained almost continuous through 1870, with the peak of construction taking a frenzied pace during the American Civil War, amidst rumors of possible British intervention against the Union from Canada. These fears were actually proven to be not that far fetched when the Confederate led St. Albans Raid, the northernmost action of the Civil War, took place in nearby Vermont in 1864 involving an incursion by the enemy from Canada.

In 1926 the United States Government sold Fort Montgomery along with its adjacent Military Reservation at public auction. During the period of disuse which followed, as had also happened with the abandoned 1816 fortification, many locals visited the fort, carting off untold amounts of lumber, bricks, windows, and doors for use in their homes and other buildings. Ultimately the majority of the fort, aside from the gutted westward facing officer’s quarters, a small portion of the southern wall and 3 bastions, (2 of which remain today) was demolished in 1936-1937. Its massive stones were crushed and dumped into the lake for fill to construct a nearby bridge between Rouses Point, New York and Alburg, Vermont. After a number of private owners, the property was sold to Victor Podd, Sr. who constructed the headquarters of the Powertex Corporation on the adjacent &#8220Commons&#8221 to the west of the fort. Island Point, the actual fort site, was left untouched. During the mid-1980s Podd worked with local historical societies to have the State of New York purchase the property with a view toward possible restoration of the site. Despite being offered the fort at no cost, negotiations were unsuccessful and the State declined to accept the property. Since May 2006 Podds’ heirs have attempted to sell the fort on eBay. The first auction ended on June 5, 2006, with a winning bid of $5,000,310. However, the sale was not completed, and the fort and lands surrounding it remain for sale.

There are current concerns among local preservationists that what remains of the fort today is in danger of a catastrophic structural collapse. This is in part due to the removal of iron reinforcing rods, emplaced around 1886, which were likely cut out for their scrap value during the wartime scrap metal drives of World War 2. These rods were originally devised to brace up and support the massive weight of the fort’s detached outer wall face, a defensive element of the fort’s construction which later proved over time to be a structural flaw. Previously a third remaining bastion on the northern side of the fort suffered a similar collapse and was completely destroyed in 1980, mostly falling into the moat.

Thanks in part to a National Register of Historic Places listing in 1977, the fort is often confused with &#8220Fort Blunder,&#8221 for which construction began in 1816. Thanks to a surveyor error, it was discovered that this first fort had been accidentally built on the Canadian side of the border and the site was abandoned. Materials from the fort were taken by locals for local building projects. It was never officially named.

A New York Veteran and Civil War Medicine

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There is an outstanding post over at the blog behind AotW [Behind Antietam on the Web]. The solider at left with the head wound is Private Patrick Hughes, Fourth Regiment, New York State Volunteers, whose story is detailed by Brian Downey.

Here’s a sample:

So Patrick and his mates [mostly from New York City] were still combat rookies [at the Battle of Antietam] when they crested the rise overlooking the sunken road at the far side of the Roulette Farm at about 9 in the morning of 17 September. The 4th New York were at the left front of the Division in line of battle, and were among the first to run into the concentrated fire of the North Carolina regiments of Anderson’s Brigade, hunkered down in the natural trench of that road. It was probably there that Patrick Hughes was shot.

Although dazed and in shock, bleeding heavily from the scalp, he dragged himself to the rear and received first aid from the regiment’s surgeon, Dr. George W Lovejoy, who reported his “patient was conscious and answered questions rationally.” He was then carried to a barn in Keedysville. He lay there until 20 September, when he was moved to a hospital in Hagerstown.

Brian Downey describes his blog as &#8220a companion to Antietam on the Web, to catch some of the spin-off that comes from researching, writing, and coding for that site.&#8221

Both sites are outstanding and can be found, along with a pile of other new Civil War blogs, on our blogroll at right.