Double Duty in the Civil War: The Letters of
In recent years there has been a flood of published diaries and letters written by Civil War participants. It is certainly unusual to find one in which the writer was involved in combat in both the navy and army. Edward Woolsey Bacon, a native of Connecticut, was a prolific letter writer to his family and friends. He was obviously very intelligent and provided literate and interesting observations about his service. At age 18 in 1861, Bacon became a captain’s clerk to Commander (later captain) James S. Palmer of the USS Iroquois. The position was an anomalous one, neither officer or enlisted man, with duties defined by the captain. Palmer made Bacon the signal and boat officer and the young man participated in a number of actions on the Mississippi, admitting “I have probably passed six or eight orders in all four actions in which I have been.” Bacon followed Palmer to the USS Hartford when the latter was appointed captain of Admiral Farragut’s flagship. Bacon complained “…her discipline is very wretched and she is noted as the dirtiest ship in the fleet.” Whether this had any bearing on his abrupt departure shortly thereafter is unknown as his letters do not disclose any reason. After a brief period as a hospital and commissary clerk at the New Haven Army Hospital, Bacon obtained a commission as a captain in the 19th Connecticut Regiment of Infantry (Colored). He later transferred to the 127th U.S. Colored Troops, serving in the trenches before Richmond in later 1864 and early 1865. He went with that unit to Texas (“heated Siberia”) at the close of the war, hoping to retain his rank of major in the postwar army. His chances of this could be judged by the career of Bvt. Brig. Gen. Thomas F. Wright, who had spent a year or so at West Point and had been colonel of a volunteer regiment. He accepted a commission as a first lieutenant in 1865 and was still at that rank when killed in a fight with the Modac Indians in 1873. Giving up any thought of an army career, Bacon resigned on Nov.1, 1865, and entered Yale as a divinity student. He became the pastor of a number of Congregational churches before his death in California in 1887 at the age of 44. George Burkhardt has done a superb job in editing the letters and identifying the numerous individuals and events mentioned in Bacon’s writings. The book provides engrossing details of both naval service and the routine of a white officer in a black regiment. Reviewer: Patrick E. Purcell, a graduate of Northeastern University, is a retired railroad manager. He is a former president of the Old Baldy Civil War Round Table in Philadelphia and was on the Board of Governors of the Civil War Library and Museum in Philadelphia.
|
Illustrated, bibliography, index, 258 pp, 2009. Southern Illinois University Press, 1915 University Press Dr., Carbondale, IL 62901, $27.95 plus shipping.