A Quaker Officer in the Civil War: Henry Gawthrop of the 4th Delaware

By Justin Carisio

His opposition to slavery outweighed his religion’s views of war: “One of the most unique and extensive views of a Delaware war veteran’s experience” (Main Line Times).
 
When the call went out in 1862 for volunteers for Delaware’s 4th Infantry Regiment, a number of men from prominent Quaker families came forward to fight for the Union. Deeply patriotic and strongly opposed to slavery, they served with distinction in some of the later campaigns of the Civil War, from Cold Harbor through Appomattox. Among them was Henry Gawthrop. Commissioned a first lieutenant in Company F, he saw action during the Siege of Petersburg and at the Battle of Five Forks. Fifty years after the war, he drew on his diary and letters from the war years to create a unique memoir that is among the most comprehensive and detailed of any Delaware Civil War veteran. This is his story.
 
Includes photos!
 
“Excellent.” —Delmarva Now

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781625840080

Justin Carisio

Justin Carisio, of Wilmington, Delaware, is the company historian at DuPont, where he has worked as an executive speech writer for more than 30 years. He is a volunteer at Antietam National Battlefield and holds degrees from La Salle University and The Johns Hopkins University.

Book preview

Chapter 1

I Will Like This Rough Soldiering

The 4th Delaware Regiment Volunteer Infantry was organized and mustered into the service of the United States early in 1862 by Arthur H. Grimshaw its Colonel."¹ His second in command was Lieutenant Colonel C. Carroll Tevis, who had been educated at the United States Military Academy and had seen service in the Turkish army during the Crimean War.² Charles E. La Motte, a university graduate who had recently become a lawyer, would be commissioned major in the regiment and end the war as a brevet brigadier general. This was La Motte’s second enlistment since the Civil War began. He served as a captain in the 1st Delaware Regiment (3 Months) the prior year.³

That summer, Henry Gawthrop⁴ and a friend, Daniel H. Kent, joined efforts to form a company for the new regiment. Kent was commissioned captain and Gawthrop first lieutenant. William Statham was second lieutenant. Their company was designated Company F. Gawthrop’s commission was dated September 1, but he did not report to the training camp on Kennett Pike near the Du Pont powder works until October 24.⁵ In addition to the three commissioned officers, Company F had sixteen noncommissioned officers, two musicians, a wagoner and eighty-one privates—a total that put the company just above the maximum regulation strength of one hundred and one officers and men.

Gawthrop was born in West Grove, Chester County, Pennsylvania, on April 7, 1841, to Allen Gawthrop and Mary Ann Newlin Gawthrop. The family had Quaker roots. In the 1850 census, they were still living in Chester County, but by 1857, they had moved to Delaware and lived in Wilmington. The Gawthrops had five children—Joseph Newlin, Emma, Alfred, Henry and Allen.

Henry Gawthrop in October 1862. Daniel H. Kent Collection.

The family prospered under the industry of the elder Allen Gawthrop, proprietor of A. Gawthrop & Son, plumber and gasfitter. By 1862, his business was prominently located at 415 Market Street in Wilmington. He also ran a photography studio at the same location with his sister-in-law, Sarah Newlin.⁶ He apparently did well in both ventures. In 1864, they photographed Governor William Cannon for a carte de visite. That year, Allen also wrote a personal letter to Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont inviting him to likewise sit for a Card photograph. Cartes de visite of important people were very popular items. Allen’s intent was to sell copies at an upcoming Sanitary Fair with proceeds going to the fair.⁷

According to a passport issued to Henry in 1901 at age sixty, he was six feet tall with a high forehead, brown eyes and dark gray hair. So at the time of his enlistment, he would have been above average height for a Civil War soldier and, from his pictures, thinly built, with brown or black hair. Like his older brother Alfred and their younger brother Allen, he had attended Friends School, which was located at Fourth and West Streets in Wilmington. Founded in 1748, Friends School was already an old and established institution by the time the Gawthrop brothers matriculated there. They would have emerged well formed morally and intellectually according to the principles of Quaker education.

The 4th Delaware’s first encampment was at a place called Brandywine Springs,⁸ in New Castle County’s Mill Creek Hundred. It was formerly the site of a grand hotel and health spa that had opened in 1827. Historian C.A. Weslager wrote that Delaware militia units used this location for bivouacs and parades as early as 1828.⁹ Fire destroyed the hotel in 1853. Subsequent owners rebuilt, though on a more modest scale, and continued to use the site as a country boardinghouse and resort. By the Civil War, Brandywine Springs had lost its commercial viability and had fallen into disuse.¹⁰ Newspaper datelines in the 1862 editions of the Delaware Republican read Camp DuPont, Brandywine Springs. The 4th Delaware named its camp in honor of Delaware’s own naval hero, Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont.¹¹

There was, however, another prominent member of the du Pont family with military training and experience who would have more direct involvement with the regiment. Henry du Pont graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1833 and was appointed to its Board of Visitors in 1850. He served as the Delaware governor’s military aide-de-camp from 1841 to 1846 and as adjutant general from 1846 until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he was made major general of the Delaware militia.¹² Boss Henry, as he was known to many, was also head of the Du Pont Company, then the country’s largest manufacturer of gunpowder. The Du Pont powder mills would prove an invaluable strategic asset for the United States during the war. Du Pont would eventually supply 40 percent of the total powder used by the U.S. Army and Navy in the conflict.¹³

In a letter dated July 7, 1862, General du Pont reported to the War Department in Washington on the strength and disposition of the four Delaware volunteer regiments then in service. He detailed the numbers of officers and men for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Delaware Regiments, which were already in the field and had participated in some of the war’s fiercest fighting up to that point, including the great battles at Antietam and Fredericksburg. Of the 4th Delaware, which was still forming, he wrote that Colonel A.H. Grimshaw at Camp Du Pont, Brandywine Springs has over 200 men.¹⁴

A representation of the 4th Delaware Regiment’s encampment at Camp Du Pont. Courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library.

As late as September 15, another officer in the regiment, Richard Henry Webb, wrote to a friend in town that I am not mustered in yet but have 83 men.¹⁵ At the end of September, the regiment moved to a location between the Du Pont black powder mills and Kennett Pike (today, state highway Delaware Route 52). These same fields had been used to train militia during the War of 1812.¹⁶ A Delaware State Historical Commission marker positioned along the highway commemorates Camp Brandywine, its name when occupied by the 3rd Pennsylvania Reserve Brigade. The Pennsylvanians had been on their way to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, but were diverted to Wilmington in the immediate aftermath of the capture of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, by Lee’s army on September 15, 1862.¹⁷ Rumors spread that the Confederates planned to send a force through Maryland to destroy the Du Pont mills. After Major General George B. McClellan defeated General Robert E. Lee at Antietam on September 17, however, the immediate crisis seemed averted, and it was determined that the 3rd Pennsylvania Reserves could move on. Nevertheless, the threat to the mills had been established, and thus the decision was made to relocate the 4th Delaware to that location to maintain a guard over the Du Pont works.

In early October, Lindley Kent, a private in Gawthrop’s company and brother to its captain, wrote to his sister that we are now encamped at Camp Brandywine, about a mile from Duponts Powder works and every night we throw out Picketts to guard the mills.¹⁸ Indeed, Gawthrop claimed guarding the mills as his first picket duty.¹⁹ Contemporary prints of the camp published while the 4th Delaware was located there identify the post as Camp Du Pont, indicating that the 4th Delaware brought along its own camp’s name from its prior location at Brandywine Springs. At that point, the 4th Delaware had 36 officers and 899 men,²⁰ more than the minimum regulation strength of 845 but short of a volunteer regiment’s maximum regulation strength of 1,025 officers and men.²¹

Life at Camp Du Pont consisted mostly of military drill and discipline with occasional homefront pleasantries. A soldier’s letter to the editor late in September reported—after commenting on the camp’s beautiful setting and abundance of good drinking water—that their officers are the best men the State can afford; they are gentlemen in every respect. Our Colonel cannot be surpassed for his gentlemanly deportment and attention and respect to his men; also our Lieut. Col. is one of the first men of the age; and when he leads the 4th Delaware into action they will do honor to him and their State.²² This and similar letters, early in the regiment’s life, painted rosy pictures of camp life and offered glowing appraisals of the regimental staff. The letters were often signed with pennames, such as Leonidas or Watcher. Their vocabulary and style—not to mention the allusion to Greek history—make it difficult to accept that they were written by ordinary soldiers, although there may have been gentleman privates in the regiment. One cannot discount the possibility that they were authored by one or more of the officers.

The commander, Arthur H. Grimshaw, was a Philadelphian by birth who had received an MD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1845. He practiced medicine in Wilmington beginning in 1847²³ and was a doctor for the Du Pont Company in the Brandywine community outside Wilmington.²⁴ He moved his practice to Wilmington in 1849, expanded it and added a pharmacy. In 1861, he was named Wilmington’s postmaster by President Lincoln.²⁵ Son of the Irish-born historian and writer William Grimshaw,²⁶ he also formed a militia company prior to the war. Active in politics and a staunch supporter of the Union, Grimshaw secured command of the 4th Delaware when it was organized. When Wilmington City Council passed a resolution calling for solemn funeral obsequies to honor two officers from Delaware slain at Antietam, the great funeral procession on September 27, 1862, was placed under Grimshaw’s direction. Confidence in Grimshaw and his regiment was not universal. Henry du Pont’s wife, Louisa, viewed the soldiers of the 4th Delaware as rough men, many of them intemperate in their habits.²⁷ She complained that men from the regiment were observed drunk along the roads and guards had to be posted at nearby taverns.

Colonel Arthur H. Grimshaw, first commander of the 4th Delaware Regiment. Courtesy of the Delaware Historical Society.

The regiment and its commander did, nevertheless, enjoy the support of many in the local community. In September, the ladies of Wilmington arrived with two furniture wagons filled with food baskets that resulted in a feast that extended well into the night. In mid-October, another deputation of ladies from Wilmington presented each man in the regiment with a pincushion filled with pins. The boys expressed their thanks with a hearty cheer, and the ladies on leaving camp waved their handkerchiefs until they were out of sight.²⁸ On another day, Miss Emma S. Stotsenberg presented to the regiment two guidons made of blue silk with a white fringe and embroidered with the regiment’s name.

The men had been housed in barracks (probably old buildings) at Brandywine Springs. At Camp Du Pont, they would be in clean white tents. Lindley Kent wrote to his sister that we live five together in a tent about 6 feet square.²⁹ But an early snowstorm hit the not yet properly equipped regiment in October. The men scattered in search of shelter, and many deserted, including twenty-seven from Company F.

Desertion was a serious matter. The state had a recruitment quota to meet. As of August 1862, Delaware was to provide three thousand men—nearly half its total male population between eighteen and forty-five.³⁰ In late September, a private of the 4th Delaware named William Cash had deserted and was apprehended by the provost guard in Wilmington near Ninth and Madison Streets. Ordered to halt, Cash elected to run. One of the guards decided that firing a warning shot over him (in a city neighborhood, no less) would encourage him to stop. His aim was low; the bullet went through Cash’s head, and he died on the street. The newspapers covered the shocking incident, and a full investigation and report to the secretary of war was promised.³¹ At the Court of Inquiry held on September 24, Lieutenant Colonel Tevis testified that eighty men had deserted in one month.³²

As circumstances improved, Leonidas described Camp Du Pont in idyllic terms:

A visitor to our present encampment cannot fail to be pleased with the general appearance of the grounds. The soldiers, during their leisure hours, have been assiduous in their efforts to beautify and adorn their respective quarters. Handsome cedar trees have been planted on each side of the avenues, and arches of evergreen surmounted by appropriate emblems, greet the delighted beholders on every side. Everything presents a neat and cleanly appearance great care being exercised by our Colonel, (who is a gentleman of refined taste) in this important particular.³³

All was not sweetness and light. Lindley Kent wrote that the regiment suffered its first fatality while still in training camp: a soldier was found in his tent allegedly after drinking himself to death.³⁴ Then, one night in October, a soldier broke into the sutler’s tent and