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MARCH 4th The official newsletter of Multi Lakes Association for Civil War Studies October 2008 President – David Difatta Vice-President – Andy Efird Treasurer – Rick Radulski Secretary – Becky Efird Newsletter Editors – Judie and Richard Gondek Domke Update: Good News - Steve has reported that he is doing so much better and is back to work. We will see him and Nancy at Wolcott. Wolcott Mill is quickly approaching, please see messages further on in the newsletter from Jane Radulski and Dave Prince concerning the event. Just a reminder; there will be a work day at the mill, I believe on Saturday the 4 th. Please contact Dave Prince for more info. I’m sorry but I don’t a phone number but his e-mail address is [email protected] Executive Board Reports President’s Report: None Vice President’s Report: None Treasurer’s Report: None Secretary’s Minutes: No Minutes, however here is the published list of meeting dates for the upcoming year: 1) OCTOBER 10th - This meeting has been moved to the second Friday of the month due to the Gettysburg clean up. If you are not planning on going to Gettysburg please consider making a trip out to Wolcott Mill to help get the grounds ready for the event. TOPIC OF DISCUSSION: WOLCOTT MILL!! 2) NOVEMBER 7th - meeting at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Warren at 7:30 P.M. 3) DECEMBER - Annual Christmas Party - Date, Place, and Time to be decided. 4) JANUARY 2nd - Election Meeting at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Warren at 7:30 P.M. 5) FEBRUARY 6th - meeting at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Warren at 7:30 P.M. We will vote on events at this meeting. 6) MARCH 6th - meeting at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Warren at 7:30 P.M. 7) APRIL ?? - Date and time for this meeting is to be decided due to the Easter holiday and events at Holy Cross Lutheran Church. Holy Cross Lutheran Church 30003 Ryan Rd, Warren, MI 4th Texas, Co E Staff Reports Captain’s Report: None 1st Sgt. Report: None CFI Reports President: The Wolcott Mill event is only a few weeks away!! Just a couple of things for you to keep in mind: 1. REGISTRATION HELP. I know, I know, you've heard it before, but it is one of the most important things you can do to help. There will be sign-up sheets at the October meeting. (You ARE going to be at the meeting, aren't you!!!) We need EVERYONE to take their turn, military as well as civilian. It is SO important that our guests are greeted properly, informed as to where they are to set up camp, etc. WE NEED YOU!!! 2. LANTERN TOUR. I have heard from everyone that last year's Tour was the best ever. Jackie Schubert has graciously agreed to run the Tour again this year, but we need sites for the tours to visit. Start planning now (if you haven't already done so!) what you will be doing. 3. Think about what you will be doing during the day as well. Just sitting around under your fly talking to your friends is fun, true, but doesn't present a very authentic or interesting picture for the spectators. Try to think of ways to interact with them during the day - include them in whatever you're doing. Remember, they are fascinated with anything you do, even peeling potatoes! Just smile and talk to them, it's something they will take away with them. 4. The Bake Sale is at 4:00pm Saturday afternoon. Please bake your goodies at home and bring them wrapped and ready to sell. We cannot sell things baked at the event due to Health Department regulations. This doesn't mean we can't bake things there - we just can't sell them. (We can eat them ourselves for dinner - I for one am always happy to be a taste-taster!!) 5. We will again be having Children's Activites Saturday. Our capable staff will be running school, games, and drill for the kiddies - if you would like to help, just step up and let them know! Rick and I went to the Jackson event for a little while as spectators, and it was an eye-opener for me. As we wandered through civilian camp, so many of the reenactors there totally ignored us!!! They were so busy talking to each other that they couldn't be bothered even looking at us, smiling at us, saying good morning.....let alone talking to us!! This does NOT give you a good feeling about being at the event, let me tell you!! Let's not have this kind of feeling at OUR event!!!!! If we set the tone, the others will hopefully follow our example. Jane “Skirmish at the Mill” – Wolcott Mill 2008 The Skirmish at the Mill event will be the weekend of Oct. 17 th through the 19th, 2008. We are asking for volunteers to help with registration and final set up. The Rose needs volunteers! Doc is also in need of volunteers for the Field Hospital. We are raising $$$ for the preservation of the Shepherdstown Battlefield in memorandum of Colonel Medich’s mother. Several individuals will be arriving at the mill on Thursday the 16thso we can finalize the set up for our event. If you can come Thursday please join us. Projected reenactor attendance will be approximately 300. We are asking for a max effort for this event. Time to show what we’re made of! The Medich Battalion, Michigan Battalion, and the Army of Ohio, are participating in our event. We also have members of the 14th South Carolina & 12th South Carolina, as well as individual from across our Canadian border attending. The Army of Ohio is bringing two 50-gallon water drums to help with our water supply needs. Highlights: Registration – Friday & Saturday (Saturday morning) Officers Social 8:30pm to 9:30pm - Friday Full day tactical on Saturday 9:00am until 3:00pm C.F.I. Bake sale Saturday “Candle Light” tour Saturday evening from 7:00pm until approximately 9:30pm Battle of Shepherdstown Preservation Association - through out both days (talks) Period Quilt Display – Mill Period music display – Mill 4th Michigan Infantry – display (Saturday) Period Church service in the Mill on Sunday Reenactment of the 4th Michigan Infantry’s actions at the Battle of Shepherdstown – 1:00 pm Sunday Dave Prince Event Coordinator Wildwood Event Review – Richard Gondek WILDWOOD OR WATERLOG Wildwood was an interesting event. Arrived with Judie at noon on Friday to set up camp. We were the second group from the Battalion to arrive. The captain of the 5th Texas had his civilian camp set up across from Judie’s. Only problem with setting up was that we had to carry the equipment in, as the organizers did not want any cars to be driving over the grass. Set up was without any other difficulties. It only took three or four hours. No rain, but it was threatening. Also restrooms were within easy walking distance. Located the Battalion on the other side of the field. Dave Prince was there setting up the location of the headquarters with respect to the other companies that were expected to arrive. Took about 10 minutes to set up my camp. Light rain started at this point. Enough wood and straw was provided. Numbers were down, only about forty soldiers were present from the Battalion. Eight members from the 4th were present from the military. Alan, Andy, Dave, Chris, Frank, Rick, Brian and myself. Civilians were in mass, too many to list. Also, not sure who they were by name. At least 9 civilian tents were noted from Bould Springs, a good showing as they outnumbered the other civilian groups. Not much to say about the night, other then it rained and rained. Morning arrived with the rain continuing, Battalion stood down from any morning activities. Everyone tried to stay dry. First activity occurred around noon with the Battalion forming up in the rain. Marched over to the garage (meeting room) to perform drilling in the limited area. This continued until the Wildwood organizers announced that the rain was forecasted to continue for the weekend. That if any one wanted to leave they could. Battalion stayed with most of the members but the civilians and their military counter parts, decided to leave. I was for leaving because I saw no point in setting around in the rain doing nothing for the weekend. Rain stopped as soon as we decided to leave. Camp was dismantled and we headed home. Was this too be another Wilson Creek event, rained until the group decided to leave? Then it cleared up? Happy, I guess to report that they did have a light rain that night. Nice the next morning, until about 2 that afternoon, when the skies let loose with heavy rains. This would have been unbearable for tearing down the civilian tents. Yours Respectively Pvt A. B. Morgan HISTORY OF THE 4TH TEXAS FOR THE NEWER MEMBERS OF THE GROUP. FOURTH TEXAS INFANTRY. The Fourth Texas Infantry was one of the three Texas Civil Warqv regiments in the Texas Brigade of Gen. Robert E. Lee'sqv Army of Northern Virginia. In 1861 Governor Edward Clarkqv established a camp of instruction on the San Marcos River in Hays County. The first units that later formed the Fourth Texas Infantry enlisted there in April 1861. Originally the Texans planned to enlist for a period of one year, but after the outbreak of war at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, the Confederate government announced that it would accept only regiments enlisted for the duration of the war. In July 1861 twenty companies of Texas infantry were transferred to a camp near Harrisburg and promptly shipped to Virginia. Soon after their arrival in Richmond the Texas units were officially organized into regiments, on September 30, 1861. The ten companies that made up the Fourth Texas were Company A, the Hardeman Rifles, recruited in Gonzales County; Company B, the Tom Green Rifles, Travis County; Company C, the Robertson Five Shooters, Robertson County; Company D, the Guadalupe Rangers, Guadalupe County; Company E, the Lone Star Guards, McLennan County; Company F, the Mustang Grays, Bexar County; Company G, the Grimes County Grays; Company H, the Porter Guards, Walker County; Company I, the Navarro Rifles, Navarro County; and Company K, the Sandy Point Mounted Rifles, Henderson County. Contrary to the prevailing custom, the Texans were not allowed to elect their own field officers but had them appointed by the Confederate War Department. The first commander of the regiment was Robert T. P. Allen,qv former superintendent of the Bastrop Military Academy (see TEXAS MILITARY INSTITUTE, AUSTIN), who because of his harsh discipline was extremely unpopular and was forced to resign his position in October. Allen was replaced by Texan John Bell Hood,qv who was assigned to command the Fourth with the rank of colonel. John F. Marshall, qv editor of the Austin based Texas State Gazette and one of the principle organizers of the regiment, was appointed to the post of lieutenant colonel, and Virginian Bradfute Warwick was given the rank of major. The Fourth was formally assigned to Brig. Gen. Louis T. Wigfall's qv Texas Brigade shortly after Hood assumed command and was subsequently stationed at Dumfries, Virginia, in November 1861. As the regiment drilled and prepared for active duty it was plagued with a great deal of sickness, a rather typical ordeal for Civil War units. In October 1861 the chaplain of the Fourth, Nicholas A. Davis, qv reported that more than 400 of the regiment's original 1,187 men were sick. This served to weed out many who were unfit for service and reduce the unit to a fighting trim. In March 1862 Hood was promoted to command of the Texas Brigade, Marshall became a colonel, and Capt. J. C. G. Key of Company A advanced to the post of major. The regiment first saw combat on the Virginia peninsula on May 7, 1862, at Eltham's Landing, but its introduction to real battle came on June 27, 1862, at the battle of Gaines' Mill. Here both the Texas Brigade and the Fourth Texas established their reputation for hard fighting by successfully breaking the Union line on Turkey Hill, which had resisted all previous Confederate attempts to do so. Taking only 500 men into the battle, the Fourth lost eighty-five men: twenty-one killed, sixty-three wounded, and one captured. Marshal and Warwick were both killed, and Key was wounded. The Fourth Texas was not engaged again until the battle of Second Manassas on August 30, 1862. Under the command of Lt. Col. B. F. Carter it participated in the Confederate attack on the second day of the fighting, taking a federal battery of artillery in the process. Losses in this engagement totaled thirty-one (eleven killed, twenty wounded). On September 14, 1862, the regiment was engaged in combat at the battle of South Mountain, where it had six men killed and two wounded in the delaying action before the battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam), fought on September 17, 1862. At Antietam the Fourth Texas was involved in some of the stiffest fighting on the Confederate left flank and suffered its greatest number of losses for any single battle of the war, losing 210 men (57 killed, 130 wounded, and 23 captured). The regiment was only marginally engaged at the battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862 and was not present with Lee's army during the battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. After that, however, it took part in every major action of the Army of Northern Virginia during the rest of the war as well as in the battle of Chickamauga, during the temporary transfer of Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's First Corps to the Confederate Army of Tennessee in September 1863. At Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, the Fourth Texas participated in the attack against the Union left flank and in the fighting for Little Round Top, losing 140 men (twenty-five killed, fifty-seven wounded, and fifty-eight captured), including Lieutenant Colonel Carter, who was mortally wounded. At Chickamauga, Georgia, on September 19 and 20, 1863, the regiment, now under the command of Lt. Col. John P. Bane,qv was part of the rebel force that broke the federal line on the second day of fighting and helped to rout the Union Army of the Cumberland. The Fourth's losses at Chickamauga totaled seventy-seven (thirty-four killed, forty wounded, and three captured). At the battle of Wauhatchie, during the siege of Chattanooga, Tennessee, on October 28, 1863, the Fourth was routed by the enemy for the only time during the war. Upon the unit's return to Virginia in April 1864 with the rest of Longstreet's corps, the Texans once again acquitted themselves admirably, by plugging a gap torn in the Confederate line at the battle of the Wilderness, May 7, 1864. Here the regiment took part in the famous "Lee to the rear" episode and suffered 124 casualties (twenty-six killed, ninety-five wounded, and three captured) out of only 207 men engaged. Subsequently, the Fourth was marginally involved in the fighting at Spotsylvania and helped to repel the Union attack at Cold Harbor on June 3, 1864. During the fall and winter of 1864-65 the regiment fought around Petersburg and Richmond before taking part in the Southern retreat that ended in the surrender of Lee's army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Throughout its existence 1,343 men were assigned to the Fourth Texas Infantry. Of that number 256 (19 percent) were killed or mortally wounded in battle. Another 486 men (35.9 percent) were wounded, many more than once, for the total number of wounds suffered by the regiment in four years of fighting amounted to 606. The total number of battle casualties suffered by the Fourth Texas Infantry was 909 (67.7 percent). The number of prisoners lost by the regiment was 162 (12 percent). Of the regiment, 161 died of diseases (11.9 percent), 251 (18 percent) were discharged due to sickness, wounds, etc., and 51 deserted (3 percent). At the time of its surrender the Fourth Texas mustered only fifteen officers and 143 men. Despite such heavy losses, or perhaps because of them, the Fourth Texas Infantry and its parent Texas Brigade won a reputation as one of the hardest fighting and most reliable units in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nicholas A. Davis, Chaplain Davis and Hood's Texas Brigade, ed. Donald E. Everett (San Antonio: Principia Press of Trinity University, 1962). Mary Lasswell, comp. and ed., Rags and Hope: The Memoirs of Val C. Giles (New York: Coward-McCann, 1961). Joseph Benjamin Polley, Hood's Texas Brigade (New York: Neale, 1910; rpt., Dayton, Ohio: Morningside Bookshop, 1976). Harold B. Simpson, Hood's Texas Brigade (Waco: Texian Press, 1970). Harold B. Simpson, Hood's Texas Brigade: A Compendium (Hillsboro, Texas: Hill Junior College Press, 1977). The Confederate Home Guard (1861 - 1865) was a somewhat loosely knit though nevertheless legitimate organization that fell under the vague direction and authority of the Confederate States of America, loosely working in coordination with the Confederate Army, and was tasked with both the defense of the Confederate home front during the American Civil War, as well as to help track down and capture Confederate Army deserters. Basically, the Home Guard was a type of militia for the Confederacy in that it did have a rank structure and did fall under certain regulations, whether those were enforced or not. Home Guard units were, essentially, to be a last defense against any invading Union forces. They also were used at times to gather information on invading Union forces troop movements, as well as to identify and control any local civilians who were considered sympathetic to the Union cause. They received no military training, and although they could be drafted into the Confederate service if need be, there are only a few cases in which that happened, due to the Home Guard actually being recognized as a type of service in itself to the Confederacy. Background and Implementation Despite home guard units receiving very little attention through history, excluding the recent film Cold Mountain, the Home Guard units that were formed did actually have a purpose, although most were simply volunteer with no salary. However, at times, a bounty was offered by the Confederate government for the capture of deserters, although it was rarely paid due to the government's debt. While most able-bodied Southern men went away to war, many stayed behind, either by choice or due to something that prevented them from serving in the army. Although many states did not initially form Home Guard units, by 1863 all eleven Confederate states had done so. Initially tasked with being the defense force against any Union Army elements that might pass through the Confederate battle lines and enter into Southern territory, the Home Guard was later utilized to help round up Confederate army deserters returning to their homes. The Home Guard actually possessed a wide range of powers, whether those powers were actually legitimate and recognized by the Confederacy or not. Due to their being very few Southern men at home, there were few to stand in the way of any Home Guard unit that wished to abuse its powers by taking advantage of or mistreating Southern civilians. In addition to this, due to the war demanding so much attention from the Confederate Congress, not to mention the other branches of the government and the military, little attention was paid to the Home Guard units. All were commanded locally, and rarely did they receive any specific direction. In essence, the Home Guard units could work as they pleased, and more often than not they made their own decisions and priorities. Depending on the area, Home Guard units would be at times nothing more than a group of men identified as being the "Home Guard", working from home as they pleased. At other times, most usually in states located in what was known as the "Eastern theater" of the war, Home Guard units actually had base camps and headquarters, and went on patrol, scouting for possible deserters or Union stragglers. Most of the time, Home Guard units were extremely poorly equipped, with there being so much demand for goods, ammunition, and weapons to supply the Confederate Army. They were rarely dressed in anything that could be called a uniform, but did make efforts to wear the same color clothing as the Confederate soldiers. By the middle of the war, many Home Guard units were made up of wounded soldiers that had returned to heal from wounds received in battle. Deserters that were encountered by Home Guard patrols were dealt with in many different fashions. At times, the deserting soldiers would be returned to the army via Confederate units that were stationed near to whatever area the deserters were captured in. However, this was not always plausible, nor practical. Whether authorized to do so or not, deserters were, at times, executed by the Home Guard. These cases were rare, but did occasionally happen. By 1864, the Union Army had occupied much of the formerly Confederate controlled areas. With Union forces now patrolling home front areas, many Home Guard units disbanded to avoid being considered or mistaken for Guerillas. As this happened, it became increasingly difficult for the Confederacy to enforce any action against deserters who returned home. Even in the Western theater states of Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana Union troops were regularly being seen, and at times the troops had taken control of many towns or cities. Some Southern citizens who lived in those states and who did not support secession had now openly come out in their support of the Union, often forming Union Army regiments or units to serve in that army. These newly formed Union units, made up of local citizens, and personally knew the members of the Home Guard, which greatly hampered if not completely disabled the Home Guard's ability to function. By the war's end, very few such units were still in existence. Bould Times WEDDING ANNOUNCEMENT The weddings of the children of Mr. And Mrs. Bible of Bould Springs were celebrated this year in grand fashion. Daughter Rebecca married 2nd Sgt. John Miller in July, while the nuptials for son Pvt. Joel Ragsdale and Miss Maria DePoorter took place in August. Sadly both grooms could only remain with their new brides for a brief time before the need for their return to their positions with the 4th Texas, Company E. Presently both brides will reside at the home of Mrs. Bible. MISSING Mrs. Bauer has reported to the local sheriff that a number of her best egg-laying hens have disappeared. The sheriff is investigating the matter, as it appears that they have not meet with fowl play by any of the wildlife or other critters in the area. The sheriff states that with the number of people drifting through the town and with times being as hard as they are, his guess is that the hens have been taken. Mrs. Bauer’s son Carter recalled seeing a stranger walking through their property a week or so ago and it was around that time that the chickens went missing. A PLEA FOR LAW AND ORDER As many citizens of our community are aware, there has been an increase in the number of incidents that have put citizens and their property in harm’s way. While the sheriff has tried to control the unsavory population that seems to be migrating through the town, there has been a cry taken up that those gentlemen who are not serving in the nation’s conflict that has taken a strangle hold on our country to come together and lend assistance in preserving their community’s welfare. There shall be a meeting October 18th at the Bould Springs Social Hall for those interested parties to come and take part in a discussion on what we can do to further this action.