The Colors of Dignity: The Memoirs of Civil War Brigadier General Giles Waldo Shurtleff

By Catherine Durant Voorhees

Leaving his home on the Illinois prairie, Giles Shurtleff attended Oberlin College just prior to the Civil War. President Lincolns call for troops after the firing on Fort Sumter in 1861 led to a great fervor of patriotism in Oberlin. Giles was elected Captain of Company C of the 7thOhio Volunteer Infantry. He wrote this about army life: No other experience could equal it as a school for the study of human nature both at its worst and at its best.
Most of his soldiers realized they were liable to be sick, wounded or killed, but never thought about being captured. In August of 1861 Capt. Shurtleff and 35 others were taken prisoner at the Battle of Cross Lanes, VA. Giles was kept prisoner in the South, in places such as Libby Prison, under deplorable conditions over a period of a year. During that time, he personally experienced what it does to the human soul to be robbed of dignity.
After a year, Giles was released in a prisoner exchange and was then recruited to raise a regiment of colored troops. His goal for them was to disprove the rampant rumor that former slaves and free African Americans would make poor soldiers. At the Battle of New Market Heights, in which Giles was wounded, his regiment proved worthy. Four of the men from his regiment were amongst the twenty colored soldiers who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for gallantry during the Civil War. At the end of the war, Giles was breveted out of the military as a Brigadier General.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781477296295

Book preview

The Colors of

Dignity

The Memoirs of

Civil War Brigadier General

Giles Waldo Shurtleff

Scan%20of%20Flag%20for%20cover%20001.jpg

Edited by

Catherine Durant Voorhees

US%26UKLogoB%26Wnew.ai

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2013 Catherine Durant Voorhees. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/25/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9628-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9629-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012923267

Cover Art: Regimental Colors of 5th U.S. Colored Troops, Ohio Historical Society

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Glossary of Military Terms

Part One: Call to Arms, Battle, Capture, Imprisonment; the Battle of Fredericksburg

Introduction to Part One

Chapter One: The Call to Arms, April 1861

Chapter Two: The Battle at Cross Lanes as described in local newspaper, August 1861

Chapter Three:The Battle at Cross Lanes as described by the participants

Chapter Four: Captain Shurtleff’s Experience of the March to Richmond, August, 1861

Chapter Five: Prison in Richmond, Virginia, September, 1861

Chapter Six: Prison in Charleston, South Carolina, September-December, 1861

Chapter Seven:Prison in Columbia, South Carolina, January March, 1862

Chapter Eight: Libby Prison, Richmond, Virginia, March-May, 1862

Chapter Nine: Salisbury Prison, North Carolina, May-August, 1862

Chapter Ten: Prisoner Exchange, August, 1862; the Battle of Fredericksburg, Dec., 1862

Part Two: Brief Return to Theological Seminary; Recruitment of a Regiment of Colored Troops

Introduction: The Emancipation Proclamation

Chapter Eleven: Giles asked to raise Regiment of Colored Troops, June 1863

Chapter Twelve: Raising the Regiment, August, 1863

Chapter Thirteen: Camp Delaware, Organizing the Regiment, Sept.-November, 1863

Chapter Fourteen: Christmas, 1863, letter from Norfolk, Virginia; Capture of a Guerilla

Chapter Fifteen: Attempted capture of Jefferson Davis, February, 1864

Chapter Sixteen: Still in Entrenched Camp in Virginia, May, 1864

Chapter Seventeen:Life in the Trenches at Petersburg, July-August, 1864

Chapter Eighteen: The Battle of the Crater, July, 1864

Chapter Nineteen: Reorganization of the Brigades, August, 1864

Chapter Twenty: Battle of New Market Heights, September, 1864

Chapter Twenty-One: A Proposal of Marriage, of sorts, October, 1864

Chapter Twenty Two: Marriage for Giles and Thanksgiving for the troops, November, 1864

Chapter Twenty Three: The Battle for Fort Fisher, Cape Fear, North Carolina, December, 1864

Chapter Twenty-Four: Personal Notes written by the Quartermaster, February, 1865

Chapter Twenty-Five: The Taking of Wilmington, North Carolina, by Union Forces, March, 1865

Chapter Twenty Six: Following in the Wake of General Sherman, March, 1865

Chapter Twenty Seven: Options for the Future, May, 1865

Epilogue

Final Editor’s Note

Appendix A: Causes of Sickness and Death in U. S. Colored Troops

Appendix B: Medal of Honor Winners from 5th U.S. Colored Troops

Works Cited

Giles_Shurtleff.tif

Giles Waldo Shurtleff (1831-1904)

Believing in the ability of the Negro to aid in the fight for his freedom, he organized the first regiment of colored troops raised in Ohio. Inspired by his leadership they offered their lives for the freedom of their race.

(Inscribed on Statue of Giles Waldo Shurtleff in Oberlin, Ohio)

Photo, courtesy of Oberlin College Archives

Dedication

On the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, this book is dedicated to those who are willing to stand up for the dignity of human beings, regardless of race or creed.

USCTfinal.jpg

Courtesy of the Chester County Historical Society.

The world has all the tough guys it can use. It needs people desperately who can feel the wrench of injustice and indecency, and who have the visceral fortitude to cry out.

Alexander Horsfield Hay, (1912-1997)

Acknowledgements

I owe a special debt of gratitude to the following individuals without whom this book would not have happened:

—First and Foremost-to my ancestor, Giles Shurtleff, and his wife, Mary Burton Shurtleff, for donating their correspondence and his other papers to the Oberlin College Archives. I am especially grateful that Giles wrote his letters and articles neatly enough that they were able to be read and transcribed.

—Secondly, to Ken Grossi, Director of the Oberlin College Archives, for providing me with all of the letters and newspaper articles I requested.

—To my writing critique group who have patiently edited and made format suggestions throughout this process: Jane Resides, Jan Tucker Mulligan and Lynne Hay.

—To Tom Hay and Alexander Herd, PhD., both experts on military history, for proofreading the manuscript and making valuable suggestions.

—And lastly, to my family, for their patience with me when I would disappear into my office for hours at a time and for helping me with the technological aspects of pulling this project together: my husband, Dave, and my daughters, Cynthia Wirth and Carolyn Scherer.

Glossary of Military Terms

Abatis: a defensive obstacle, usually formed by felled trees… with the often sharpened branches directed outwards against the enemy.

Breastwork: an improvised or temporary fortification.

Brevet: an official document from a government granting a privilege, title or dignity; a commission giving a military officer higher nominal rank than that for which he receives pay.

Contraband of War: a Negro slave who during the Civil War escaped to or was brought within the Union lines.

Muster: to enlist or enroll.

Muster out: to discharge from military service.

Redoubt: a small, usually temporarily enclosed defensive work used especially in fortifying a hilltop or pass (a defended position or protective barrier).

Revet: to face (as an embankment).

Revetment: barricade built up to provide shelter against strafing.

Rod: a distance of 5 ½ yards, or 16 ½ feet.

Windrow: a bank, ridge, heap of stones, etc.

(Information from Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language)

Part One

Call to War;

Battle, Capture and Imprisonment;

The Battle of Fredericksburg

Introduction to Part One

What should move us to action is human dignity: the inalienable dignity of the oppressed, but also the dignity of each of us. We lose dignity if we tolerate the intolerable.

Dominique de Menil (1908-1997)

Brigadier General Giles Waldo Shurtleff would have approved of the above statement about human dignity. In fact, one could use it to sum up his philosophy of life. Giles initially went to war in 1861 to defend the Union. While serving as captain of his regiment, he displayed devotion to his men and to the cause.

But two months into the war, he was captured and imprisoned under deplorable conditions in the south over a period of a year. During that time, he personally experienced what it does to the human soul to be robbed of dignity. He was released from prison just in time to witness the colossal waste of human life at the Battle of Fredericksburg. His experiences during the first two years of the war, as well as his family background and religious beliefs, made him the ideal candidate to recruit and train a regiment of colored troops after President Lincoln freed the slaves in 1863.

Giles Shurtleff was born in 1831. He was a man who, from a very early age, learned the importance of self-respect, a significant component of dignity. His parents, David and Ruth Shurtleff, taught him by example the value of struggling to rise above whatever circumstances life delivered. In the early 1800s they were farming a fruitful area of land on the border of Vermont and British North America. In 1834, that particular area was ceded to Great Britain in settlement of a boundary dispute. The British government required all residents to show official ownership of their land or repurchase it from the British Crown. Giles’ family could do neither. They had to walk away from the only home they had ever known.

Giles’ first memory may have been of watching his parents pack up their family. They moved to Lowell, Massachusetts where they put their three oldest daughters to work in one of the town’s many new textile factories. The girls’ income supported the family while their father went west to look for new land. Giles’ older brothers, who were ages ten and eleven at the time, were placed on a farm in Lowell where they earned their own room and board. Their mother and the younger children lived near the mills.

Giles’ father was gone for a year and his family did not receive one letter from him during that time. They didn’t know the reason and they presumed him dead. Survival was a real struggle for Giles’ mother and the children while their father was gone. Giles watched his mother, Ruth, deal with each new setback with equanimity and the belief that God would make things right in the end.

After a year, the family’s faith in God’s goodness was rewarded when their father suddenly returned safely to them. He then took most of his family, including six-year-old Giles, out west with him. Giles gained an expanding awareness of the world while traveling on the newly built Erie Canal, then by steamship across Lake Erie, and finally by train as far as the tracks extended into the state of Michigan.

Unfortunately, an economic depression hit the United States in 1837. David Shurtleff was forced to leave his family with friends in Michigan for several years while he endeavored to start his farm in Illinois.

Giles learned valuable lessons from seeing the faith his parents exhibited in their God. David Shurtleff’s ancestors had come to this country on the Mayflower and, throughout the generations, the family never let anything deflect them from their duty to God, to their fellow man and to their country. Giles’ family truly lived their Christian beliefs, including the commandments in Mark 12:28-31 to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself.

Giles’ love of neighbor applied not only to those of his own race but to all mankind. He sincerely believed in the statement in our Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. To him the evil of slavery was intolerable. Many northerners espoused the belief that slavery was wrong, but not many of them were willing to tolerate freed slaves living next door to them, or even in the same town. This could not be said of Giles. He attended Oberlin College with the intention of pursuing a theology degree. While he was studying there, the town of Oberlin was a hotbed of abolitionist activity and a center of the Underground Railroad. This environment helped to strengthen Giles’ beliefs.

Others said that the former slaves were either too lazy or too slow to be trained to fight for their country, but Giles did not agree. He was determined to disprove this prejudice. Giles had to put his seminary training on hold during the Civil War and was given the opportunity to prove his beliefs about the dignity of all human beings, regardless of race or color.

After the war Giles donated many of his speeches and letters to the Oberlin College Archives. I discovered Giles’ papers and the articles about him while researching the life of my great-great grandmother, Giles’sister, Jerusha Shurtleff Durant. Other information came from The Itinerary of the 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a book written about Giles’ first regiment from Oberlin. It gives information about his capture and his time in prison. "Eagles on their Buttons," written by Versalle Washington, gives the history of Giles’ regiment of U.S. Colored Troops. But nowhere was I able to find in one book a complete record of Giles Shurtleff’s Civil War experience.

I thought it important, during this 150th anniversary of the Civil War, to pull these records together into one volume. The majority of the information in the following chapters contains Giles’ own words from speeches he gave and letters he wrote, either to the local newspaper or in letters to his fiancée.

Following is the guide to the fonts used for the different sources:

Giles’ voice is written in italicized Adobe Garamond Pro. In his writings some stylistic changes have been made to shorten paragraphs. In cases where the handwriting was illegible, the word is indicated with a question mark or if several words are illegible, they are omitted as follows… This paragraph is an example of the way his writing is presented in the book.

Editorial comments are either marked in brackets or noted as such. The editor’s notes, as well as comments by fellow soldiers or other officers, are written in Adobe Garamond Pro Font. This paragraph is an example of Adobe Garamond Pro. The statements by others who were on the scene add validity to Giles’ comments.

Newspaper articles are written in the Courier New Font. This sentence is an example of that font.

It is my hope that we Americans can learn valuable lessons from reading this one man’s experience of the Civil War. I pray that in the future we will not be doomed to repeat the devastation wrought on so many of our fellow men that occurred during this period in our country’s history.

            Catherine Durant Voorhees, Editor

Chapter One:

Part One

The Call to Arms

Our army life was full of stirring incidents, grand and horrible, quaint and pathetic,—No other experience could equal it as a school for the study of human nature, in its brutal and its angelic aspects: in its cruelty and its womanly tenderness: in demoniac ambition for power and in divine humility and self-abnegation…

(Giles Waldo Shurtleff, in a speech entitled "Reminiscences of Army Life" given at Oberlin College, May 26, 1881 (3).

He continued his description as follows:

The spring of 1861 found