gen. joe’s dispatch...around 1:30, which was a shock to eve-ryone. we did have a guest speaker at...
TRANSCRIPT
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Camp Officers:
Camp Cmdr: John Mark Camp
1st Lt. Cmdr: James C. Chappell
2nd. Lt. Cmdr: Roy Thomas Cook
2nd_Lt. [email protected]
Camp Adjutant: Steve Camp
Editor: J. H. Underwood
Volume 15, Issue 3
Gen. Joe’s Dispatch Maj . Gen . Joseph Wheeler Camp #863, Conyers , Ga.
“Our Commanders Comments” By: Commander Mark Camp
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“156th Anniversary of Brandy Station” From: American Battlefields Trust webmail (Continued from page 1.)
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“Great Escape, Confederate Style” Article from the Richmond Dispatch August 28, 1863
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“Soldier from Conyers Survived Camp Chase” By: Dennis Ranney and J. H. Underwood
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“Great Escape, Confederate Style” Article from the Richmond Dispatch August 28, 1863 (Continued from page 3)
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Inside this issue:
One hundred fifty-six years ago, on June 9, 1863, Brandy Station became the site of the first engagement of the storied Gettysburg Campaign – and the location of the largest cavalry battle ever fought in any war waged on this conti-nent. More than 20,000 Americans in blue and in gray clashed in Culpeper County, Va., that day, including atop Fleet-wood Hill, the battle's epicenter, which has since been preserved, restored and interpret-ed by the American Battlefield Trust.
On Friday, June 7, the American Battlefield Trust and the Brandy
July 2019
Station and Cedar Mountain State Park Alliance partnered with the Liberty Rifles to place 500 luminaries along the full length of the Fleetwood Hill in-terpretive trail, with the event and many moving images from it featured in the Culpeper Star-Exponent on Sunday to coincide with the exact date of the battle anni-versary.
Images from Friday's event are courtesy of award-winning photog-rapher Buddy Secor. We are grateful to the Fredericksburg Nation-al Cemetery Luminaria Committee for its gen-erous contribution of sand for use with the luminaries to help make
Coming Events
July 10 - 13, 2019 - 2019 Na-tional SCV Reunion - Mobile
Convention Center - Mobile, Alabama.
July 9, 2019 - 2019 Regular Meeting of Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler Camp 863 - Masonic
Lodge, Conyers, Georgia
August 13, 2019 - 2019 Regu-lar Meeting of Maj. Gen.
Joseph Wheeler Camp 863 - Masonic Lodge, Conyers, Ga.
Continued on page 2.
this event possible.
Each luminary repre-sented 10 of the esti-mated 5,000 combined casualties suffered at the Culpeper-based battles of Brandy Sta-tion and Cedar Moun-tain. The August 1862 Battle of Cedar Moun-tain marked the first major, and bloodiest, Civil War battle in the county.
These hundreds of lu-minaries were lit to honor the thousands of citizen soldiers who fought and fell at Bran-dy Station and Cedar Mountain alike. Addi-tionally, we hope that this illumination of Culpeper's battlefields and battlefield re-sources – like the Trust's publicly accessi-ble interpretive trails, at Fleetwood Hill and beyond, stretching a total of more than three miles – inspires Virginians and Ameri-cans of all ages and backgrounds to visit these hallowed grounds
“156th Anniversary of Brandy Station” From: American Battlefields Trust webmail
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1,000 acres of land have been purchased and permanently pro-tected by the preservation com-munity across the pair of battlefields to date. Since 2015, the Brandy Station and Cedar
Mountain State Park Alliance has been – and continues to be – committed to transforming this land into Virginia's next state park. To-gether with its
at a time when they, too, can pause to remember and reflect upon what happened there so many years ago.
Even among Virginia's many significant Civil War sites, Brandy Station and Cedar Mountain stand out. More than
our meeting, Mr. Robert C. Jones, who did a great program on, Christianity and the Civil War. I want to Thank Mr. Jones for coming back to our camp and providing us with another good evening. If you weren’t there, You missed a good one.
Adjutant Steve Camp did mention that dues invoices should be arriving by July 1st. I’ve already received mine so hopefully everyone has gotten theirs too.
Dues are due before the end of July so that Steve can get them sent in to Na-tional before the deadline.(Aug. 1st)
At our meeting this month we will be swearing in a new member , Mr. Ray-mond Rodgers, brother-in-law of Com-patriot David (Cowboy) Meyers . I
Southern Ladies, and Fellow Compatriots,
Hot and Rainy, Rainy and Hot. Don’t you just love summer?
At last months meeting not much happened. We basically just sat and talked about what happened at the Division reunion, which wasn’t much. We actually got out of there around 1:30, which was a shock to eve-ryone.
We did have a Guest Speaker at
Our Commanders’ Comments
PAGE 2 GEN. JOE ’S DISPATCH VOLUME 15 , ISSUE 3
front-page coverage of Friday's event, the Culpeper Star-Exponent also published a cor-responding editorial titled "Preserving Culpeper's heritage must be our priority," endors-ing the Alliance's efforts in the strongest possible terms.
By: Commander Mark Camp
ask that ALL members be present for this event, and let’s welcome our newest Compatriot.
Later, as Summer draws to a close we will start talking about
the Fall Festival and other events that will be coming up.
I want to close my comments with this, GENTLEMEN !! this is YOUR camp, PLEASE make every effort to attend our monthly meetings.
YOUR voice Matters !!
Until then,
For the Southern Cause,
Mark Camp, Commander
“156th Anniversary of Brandy Station” From: American Battlefields Trust webmail
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The three who landed near Delaware City laid in a cornfield all night, and the next evening, about dark, started on their way South, after first hav-ing made known their condition to a farmer, who gave them a good supper. They traveled that night twelve miles through Kent County, Dela-ware , and the next day lay concealed in a gen-tleman’s barn. From there they went to Kent County, Maryland where the citizens gave them new clothing and money. After this their detec-tion was les problem, as they had been wearing their uniforms the two days previous. They took the cars on the Philadelphia and Baltimore Rail-road at Townsend and road to Dover, the capitol of Delaware. Sitting near them in the cars were a Yankee Colonel and Captin, and the provost guard passed through frequently. They were not discovered however, though to escape detection seemed almost impossible. They got off the
train at Delamar and went by way of Barren Creek Springs and Quantico, MD to the Nanticoke River, and got into a canal.
Here they parted company with five oth-ers who had escaped from Fort Delaware some days previous, as the canoe would not hold ten of them. In the canoe they went to Tangier’s Sound, and crossing the Chesapeake, landed in Northumberland county, below Point Lookout, a point at which the Yankees
PAGE 3 GEN. JOE ’S DISPATCH VOLUME 15 , ISSUE 3
The following is an article from the “Richmond Dispatch” dated August 28, 1863. It was sent to me from Compatriot Dennis Ranney of Camp 1535, Columbus, Ohio. His comments on it’s authenticity are as follows;
“Hi Joe, I thought I would forward this newspaper article to you that a fellow re-searcher sent me. Fort Delaware sat in the middle of the Delaware River and some historians thought to be escape proof. I don't know if the story is true or not true. I'll have to check with the soldiers Com-piled Military Service Records and Federal POW Records. If I see a Confederate going into FD and not coming out and then see him magically appear with his old unit again I would tend to think the story has some merit.”
“Great Escape, Confederate Style”
“Escape of Prisoners from Fort Delaware - Yesterday afternoon five Confederate pris-oners: A. L. Brooks and C. J. Fuller, com-pany G, 9th Georgia; J. Marian, company D, 9th Georgia; Wm. E. Glassey, company B, 18th Miss, and Jno. Dorsey, Company A, Stuart’s Horse Artillery, arrived here from Fort Delaware, having made their escape from fort Delaware on the night of the 12th inst. The narrative of their escape is inter-
esting. Having formed the plan to escape, they improvised life preservers by tying four canteens, well corked, around the body of each man and on the night of the 12th inst. Proceeded to leave the island. The night being dark, they got into the water and swam off the back of the island for the shore. Three of them swam four miles and landed about two miles below below Delaware City; the other two, being swept down the river, floated down sixteen miles and landed at Christine Creek. An-other soldier (a Philadelphian) started with them, but was drowned a short distance from the shore. He said he was not com-ing back to the Confederacy, but was go-ing to Philadelphia He had eight canteens around his body, but was not an expert swimmer.
Continued on page 4
“Great Escape, Confederate Style”
Article from the Richmond Dispatch, August 28, 1863
draws my heart to muse On thee, best blessing, from my God. Now are thy thoughts of me afar, Impris-oned, yet not charged with crime. Torn from thee by this cruel war, Wasting in bonds my manhood’s prime. But soon, I hope to meet again With thee, dear partner of my life; That joy will compensate all pain Of absence from my darling wife.”
Robert achieved the rank of Sergeant in Company G, 8th Regiment Georgia Infan-try (Georgia State Guards).
Compatriot Dennis Ranney, historian and Camp Chase, Ohio researcher, from SCV Camp 1535 in Columbus, Ohio shared the following information on a Soldier from Conyers who was a POW at Camp Chase.
“He was a school teacher from Conyers, Georgia prior to the war and wrote in my opinion one of the most poetic poems to his wife while at Camp Chase, Ohio that I have ever run across. His full name was Robert Augustus Guinn and is bur-ied at the Eastview Cemetery in Conyers, Georgia.
The following are just a few lines of his poem.”
’Tis twilight hour: the evening dews Are gently falling on the sod, Affection
“Soldier from Conyers Survived Camp Chase” By: Compatriots Dennis Ranney and J. H. Underwood
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are building a fort for the confinement of prisoners. They met with great kindness from citizens of Heathsville, who contributed $120 to aid them on their route. They soon met with our pickets and came to this city on the York River Railroad. These escaped prisoners express in the liveliest terms their gratitude to the people of Maryland and Delaware, who did everything they could to aid them. There was no difficulty experienced in either State in find-ing generous people of Southern sympathies, who would give them both money and clothing, and put themselves to any trouble to help them on their journey.
These gentlemen state that a large number of our prisoners at Fort Delaware have taken the oath and enlisted in the Yankee service. The Yan-kees have already, from the prisoners who have taken the oath, enlisted 270 men in the 3rd Maryland cavalry, 160 men in a
battalion of heavy artillery, and 150 in an infantry regiment. To effect these enlist-ments they circulate all sorts of lies among
the prisoners. The chief lies are to the effect that Gen. Lee has resigned - that North Caro-lina has withdrawn from the Confederacy and sent commissioners from the State on to Washington to make terms for re-entering
the Union, and that Virginia is only waiting for Lee’s army to be driven from her bor-ders, to resume her connection with the Yankee nation;
They tell the men if they will enlist they will be sent out West to fight the Indians, and will never be sent South where there would be any danger of their capture. When a prisoner agrees to enlist his name is put down in a book, and he is marched from the main body of the prisoners to another part of the island to join his companions in shame, who live in tents there. He never comes back among his old comrades, for fear, as one of our informants remarked, “we should cut his d--d throat.” They are jeered and hooted by their late companions as they pass out from them. They are termed “galvanized Yankees.”.
Our prisoners are dying in Fort Delaware at the rate of twelve a day. Their rations are six crackers a day and spoilt beef.”
499 Bell Road SE Conyers, GA. 30094
MAJ . G EN . J OS EPH W HE EL ER CAM P #863, CONY ERS, GA.
E-mail: [email protected]
We’re on the Web!
www.campjoewheeler.org
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by David Markiewicz / The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Great Escape, Confederate Style” Article from the Richmond Dispatch, August 28, 1863
Arial view of Fort Delaware State Park today