Chatham Manor Living History, June 13-14, 2009
AAR by M. A. Schaffner
Pvt., Co’y ‘B’ 8th Connecticut Volunteers

In the summer of 1862, after faithful and successful service under Burnside in various operations in the Carolinas, the 8th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry found themselves encamped on the grounds of Chatham Manor, just across the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg.  They would leave for the Antietam campaign and return for winter operations, including the battle of Fredericksburg, in which they fortunately missed the attempt on Marye’s Heights.  Last weekend reenactors from the Third Regiment of the United States Volunteers assembled at Chatham to commemorate the regiment and support living history at the battlefield national park of which the Manor forms a part.

The visits of the 8th Connecticut to Chatham involved ocean voyages and hard marching in all kinds of weather.  But they didn’t have to drive down 95.  In consideration of that critical difference, I drove down early Saturday morning from Arlington and enjoyed a speedy and uneventful trip.  I found ample parking in the field behind the house and grounds, copious firewood in the camp site, and an actual bathroom with running water in lieu of the standard issue sentry box.

While some reenactors arrived Friday to spend a humid and buggy night, many had yet to show.  Morning formation, originally scheduled for eight a.m., eventually came off around nine.   For this we formed in two companies, one comprising the 28th Massachusetts and the other the 56th New York and other elements of the 3rd USV, including the 8th Connecticut.  The last also provided our commanding officer for the weekend, Kim Perlotto, a fine gentleman, long time comrade, and one of the original cast of the Scrivener’s Mess.  Scott Buffington, the 3rd USV’s commander, stepped down to play adjutant for the weekend.  A few other senior personnel stepped even further:  Kevin Air, who commanded the federal forces at such events as September Storm and At High Tide, fell in with a musket as a private, as did Marz Herzog, the 3rd’s major.

At formation, Kim went over the schedule for the day, which would include guard mount at the Manor, two firing demos, and an evening parade.  I had put a little research into first person for the weekend, discovering for example that Connecticut privates could earn up to $25.50 a month:  $13 federal pay, $2.50 state bounty ($30 a year prorated for actual service), and further state pay of $6 a month to the soldier’s wife and $2 for each child up to two.  This actually brought the average soldier’s pay to something well above a farm worker’s and comparable to that of a skilled worker.  Not bad if you survive the experience (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/other/ABL/etext/9reg/chp1.html )

I also decided to make some Connecticut money and revived my War on the James persona as a soldier who lost his job at Aetna when the market in slave policies collapsed (see: http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0100-consumers/0300-public-programs/0200-slavery-era-insur/slavery-era-report.cfm and http://www.stern.nyu.edu/ciio/draft04DISTRIBUTION.doc)

But none of that much mattered because I got called out for guard duty.  First Sergeant Lynes had asked for volunteers and seemed to get more than enough, but after a few other details and an unsuccessful attempt on my part to make myself really, really small, I ended up on post two in front of the rear door to the manor, one hour on and two off.  Normally I wouldn’t mind because this gave me the opportunity to inflict my recitation of my general orders on the corporal, but for some reason we had orders to stand post in heavy marching order, with fixed bayonets.  Having anticipated a sedentary living history I had taken the opportunity of over packing my knapsack with everything I could conceivably need, including an extra gum blanket and skillet, so I managed to work up a good sweat just standing in the shade.  

Some of us talked about this later.  I opined that guards – even forward pickets, which was the explanation I heard – wouldn’t wear knapsacks and wouldn’t fix bayonets until evening when they began to challenge.  In fact not long after I got home on Sunday I pulled various references to document this opinion.  After looking at the Revised Regulations, both of Kautz’s “Customs of Service” volumes, as well as Craighill and Butterfield, I can now definitively say that the army doesn’t say anything one way or the other about either issue, which leaves us with the default position – “right” is whatever your sergeant says.  Glancing at period photographs I’ve yet to find guards posted with knapsacks, but I see plenty of bayonets.  Second lesson – don’t listen to me.

Another question arose concerning whether the blanket goes in or atop the knapsack.  This argument comes up all the time; at Chatham each company did it differently.  After considerable research, I feel qualified to say that this question has the same answer as the first.  I will add that the proper way to pack the great coat, and evidence that confusion on the matter must have existed at the time, comes in the advice column of The United States Army and Navy Journal for December 24, 1864, by the Commandant of West Point, who states simply "The overcoat is now carried inside the knapsack," which would leave the blanket on the outside, but if everyone knew that, the question would not have come up so late in the war.  Further evidence that the Army wanted the blanket atop rather than within comes in “An Experiment in Knapsack Weight” from the Official Records, Series I, Volume 25, Part II, pp. 486-489, which reserves the inside of the bag for the eight to ten days of hardtack soldiers sometimes had to carry (and you thought it all went into the haversack); this says nothing however about what to do when the soldier has a lot less hardtack on him.

I mention all this because nothing of note happened on guard mount.  After the first tour the officers relented and allowed us to take our packs off at the post.  On Sunday we mounted a reduced guard for shorter periods and didn’t take packs at all.  

My tour ended just as the battalion fell in for the first demo.  Since our two companies probably totaled no more than 30-40 men, they really needed every private.  On the other hand, after dropping my pack in camp I decided I needed to visit the sinks and, when on returning I saw the battalion still in camp, decided I needed to go back.  When I returned the second time I found that I had missed the chance to do infantry evolutions and sully my Springfield in the warm afternoon sun.  

Later, after my afternoon tour, Sergeant Kirk of the 28th, serving as sergeant of the guard, communicated the option not to participate in the demo, which I took.

Not everyone played the old soldier though:  fellow Brady Sharp Shooter “Andy Scandal” (Audrey Scanlan) did both tours and both demos, once again proving herself the hardest core of our little company.  Another Brady, John Teller, also served, and I believe he may have sounded the few bugle calls I heard.

In addition to the infantry demos we had two artillery pieces served by old friends from Pennsylvania and new ones from Richmond.  The shots fired over the swale leading down to the Rappahannock never failed to get attention.

The Manor had some other living history going on, but I only saw the interpreter who played Walt Whitman.  He offered me an apple while I served my second tour on guard but I politely declined.  Walt’s a great good man, but I’m not sure I’d want the son I don’t have to marry him.

That reminds me of something civil war veteran Ambrose Bierce wrote in The Devil’s Dictionary under the definition of “Incompossible”:  “Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both -- as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man.”

In all fairness to Whitman, Bierce’s own poetry may be charitably described as inferior to his lexicography.

After the second infantry demo we pretty much relaxed for the day.  When the spectators left a number of troops went into town for dinner or other accommodations.  Some of these returned later that evening and some the next day, but others didn’t, so we conducted the infantry demos on Sunday with a single company.

Saturday evening I walked to the front of the manor and enjoyed the grounds and conversation with our Richmond artillerists.  The grounds slope down to the Rappahannock and offer a fine view of the old town, the beauty tempered only by the awareness of what happened just on the other side of that town, as well as within that town from the artillery around Chatham.  It seems entirely too intimate a distance for the bombardment of an American city, but not so bad as it must have seemed at the time.  Fortunately Chatham itself seems not to have suffered; not only does the 18th century house survive, but a pair of ancient catalpas in front of it.  I don’t believe I’ve ever seen more twisted and weathered trees still capable of producing leaves, but from their appearance I had no difficulty believing the sign that dates them to the war.

Night fell but that did nothing to relieve the general mugginess.  My attempts to sleep fell afoul of both the humidity and the constant attentions of an active array of terrestrial and airborne insects.  I only know I slept at all because I woke several times.  Around midnight though the sky presented some dramatic lightning over Stafford County.  This and the ensuing breeze gave us ample warning of wet weather.  After the wind dropped my hastily raised dog tent a couple of times I put my trousers and shoes back on and got out to reset the stakes and a couple of guy lines.  We’d been told to put our ammo in our cars for the night and I’d taken the opportunity to lock my ordnance up, too, so all I had to worry about was myself.  

With the dog secured I sat on an oil cloth with a gum blanket wrapped around me and watched the storm come in.  The tent kept the vertical rain out, more or less, but the wind made sure I got my full ration from the open end.  When it got heavy I curled on the oil cloth with my gum over me and kept entirely dry.  Though thunder sounded overhead, the wind spared my tent further falls and the rain left in less than half an hour.  The cool breeze that followed felt wonderful after the heat of the day; when I strolled around camp at dawn it appeared that everyone who had a blanket had wrapped it around them.  This left none with the knapsacks, atop or within.

On Sunday we paraded in front of the manor, where Adjutant Buffington read some interestingly authentic regimental orders – I particularly liked the one scheduling the auction of the effects of a deceased soldier.  This we followed with a knapsack inspection, then with marching over to headquarters and piling the knapsacks for transportation to Washington.  

Lieutenant Tuohy of the 28th led us through the two infantry demos, which involved a few basic maneuvers and demonstration of firing by company, by rank, and by file.  We had several fresh fish in the ranks, all of whom made it through without damage to themselves or others.  To his infinite credit, Lieutenant Tuohy waited patiently for soldiers of whatever level of experience to reload, and I did not once hear an officer or file-closer tell someone to hurry up.  

At the conclusion of each demo the rangers encouraged the spectators to step up and ask any questions they wanted of the reenactors.  We actually had some quite good ones from a crowd that numbered around a hundred.  

When the officers dismissed us at around three I felt that, altogether, we had packed a fair amount into the two days.  I had not visited Chatham before, and once again feel grateful to the hobby for taking me somewhere new, and to my fellow reenactors for making the experience one that I’ll remember with pleasure.

IMHO, "pickets" were usually posted far from the main body of the army would have their packs. If not on their backs, at the least  at the reserve. Especially if the Army was on the move and had just stopped for the evening. If you were part of a "Grand Guard" I'd think you might want your blanket when your time came to be part of the reserve.

Camp Guard is something else all together. The Camp Guard was assembled daily, in a static camp, during the Guard Mounting ceremony.

Anyway, have you looked through Dal Bello's "Instructions ffor Guards and Pickets?" There might be some better information there. Or, Mann's "Instructions for Officers and Non-commissioned Officers on Outpost and Patrol Duty and Troops in Campaign,"The 1862 Army Officers Pocket Companion," by Craighill or, Dan Butterfields book "Camp and Outpost Duty-1862?" All are must reads for those portraying Federal Officers. If I do recall, on of those describes men dawining their knapsacks to go on Picket duty(Grand Guard).

Here's something from Butterfield. Page 36, Number 18.
"On the March"
"It is preferrrable always to have  the canteen be filled with coffee, but, either coffee, tea or water being used..."

Have fun with it!

Yup, I have Butterfield, Craighill, the Regs, Scott's, and all three volumes of Kautz at home, and went through all of them, but I'm sure I missed the answer somewhere.  The packs with the reserve strikes a bell, but I probably remember that from someone's journal.

But I'm not sure about anything, except I suspect that there is no definitive answer.  Even on picket, it could depend how long the unit went out and at what point during the war.  I seem to recall reading that on several occasions -- e.g., when the Fifth Corps supported a cavalry probe at Aldie in June '63, or when the Federals jumped off from the lines around Petersburg to strike the Weldon railroad -- the troops were instructed to go in light marching order -- canteens, haversacks, and maybe a gum blanket.  In the first example, they were expected back in a few days.  In the second, the packs could be brought up later if the attack was successful.

I left out of the AAR my alternative explanation for being there, the one I gave to the spectators.  I told them we were a safeguard put there to defend the Manor from depredations by stray yankees.  It just seemed friendlier somehow

The blankets with the pack thing is another favorite conundrum of mine, for which the answer is, whatever or house rules of the unit you're with.

The proper way of "parade rest" is yet another.  A fellow once saw me doing it a la Casey's and said "No -- it's like this" and demonstrated the method in the Regs.  I said, "It depends whether you have a rife or a musket."  He thought I was joking. In a way I was because I'm sure old army officers debated the matter regarding the rifle-musket.  The Army and Navy Journal has a FAQ on that one, too.  They say, go with the stance in the Tactics.  On the other hand, there's a nice photo of VRC in Washington -- who really ought to know -- doing parade rest as in the Regs.  Of course, they're armed with the '42.

Sorry to prattle on...

You weren't going on...

You make a perfect point; We weren't there so we'll never know for sure. those boys had a whole bunch of common sense. I'd bet what ever caused the least amount of effort is what happened in the given situation. Common sense today, well, it's dead.


There's a guy over on the AC who needs your help. Something about, "What do you write orders on?"