On May 27th, the Boonsboro Historical Society hosted a speaker Rev. John Schildt as its monthly speaker at the Boonsboro Library on his experiences over 60 years as an Antietam Battlefield guide. John has written several books, including: September Echoes, Drums Along the Antietam, Four Days in October, Roads to Antietam, Jackson and the Preachers, Antietam Hospitals, and Antietam Through the Years.
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Chuck Schwalbe, president of the Historical Society, introduces Rev. John Schildt. See other upcoming speakers.
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Note: This transcript has been generated by AI from a recording of the presentation. Rev. Schildt has not reviewed this transcript for accuracy.
Boonsboro Historical Society Lecture Series:
Rev. John Schildt
May 27, 2025
I do thank you for turning out on a night like this and of course, it was about like this the night before the battle. Light rain falling and campfires weren’t permitted and no coffee. And of course, soldiers weren’t too happy about that because the vehicles and machinery run on oil and the military runs on coffee. So we’re glad that you’re here and appreciate you coming. It’s a really pleasant surprise, and a friend Bob O’Connor and his wife, Bob, a distinguished writer from Charles Town. We have folks from Frederick, Hagerstown, and former mayor of Boonsboro, Skip Kauffman, and thank you all for coming.
If you can’t hear, raise your hand and I’ll try to speak louder. First, though, we’re going to have a little quiz. Round Table members are excused, okay? Can you name the three presidents who have been to Antietam, who were assassinated? Take a shot. Kennedy? Yes, sir. Palm Sunday. 1963. McKinley, okay? And Lincoln, okay, you got them. That’s good.
Okay, great. Can you name the last president to speak at Antietam? That might be tough. That was FDR 1937, the 75th anniversary at Bloody Lane. Can you name the last speaker or last the president to visit Antietam? Did you say, Jimmy Carter? Yeah, Jimmy Carter, right. And there was a great story about President Carter. They went down the back road to Harper’s Ferry. It was on the 4th of July. They had been to see Mamie Eisenhower and it was their wedding anniversary. And I’ve actually had some ladies who’ve given their husbands a wedding anniversary present or a birthday present with a battlefield tour. But they started down the road to Harper’s Ferry, and lo and behold, the Hagerstown Paper said the next day, “Presidential Motorcade Delayed by Cattle Crossing” on one of the back roads.
All right, this will be the last question now. Can you name two Memorial Day speakers who nominated persons for the White House? I’ll give you a clue both were the GOP. Well, one, and we’ll get to him in a minute was General John Logan. We heard a lot about him over the weekend. And he nominated his good friend, U.S. Grant in 1868. And then in 1952, a Marylander, the Honorable Theodore McKeldon, nominated President Eisenhower. And so those are the two.
And another thing, it’s sort of off the cuff, Governor McEldon’s grandfather is buried in the Maryland section of the cemetery. He had a heat stroke on the eve of the Battle of Monocacy. So the other day we just celebrated Memorial Day, and we remember that on the 30th of June 1868, General Logan, who was a commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, issued a decree. This was the forerunner of the American Legion. “Let May the 30th be set aside for the remembrance of our fallen comrades to his widow, and his orphans, let there be appropriate exercises, and their graves strewn with flowers. So Logan was here and he ate supper in Sharpsburg and then he left to hit the campaign trail. He was the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 1884 and would probably have been nominated for president in 1888, but he died the following year. There was no visitor center at that time. They took him up in the tower of the building, right inside the cemetery gates, and they also gave him part of a tree limb that was riddled with bullets. So that was 1884 that Logan was here.
And then we come to 1954. So Low and behold, that was my first time to be present at Sharpsburg for a Memorial Day observance. So, of course, the famed Rohrersville Band was here. We’re honored to have the daughter of Richard Haynes here tonight. Richard set records for playing in the band for over 83 years, two or three times a year with the band. It’s a record, it’ll never be broken because he joined the band in 1939 and played up until 2023. And just went home to be with the Lord two months short of his 100th birthday. So the Rohrersville Band was here. The speaker got up to speak. I don’t remember who that was, but he paused. I guess he knew what was going to happen. And off in the distance, they heard a plane. I heard a plane was coming very low. And you heard “bombs away” and you’ve heard of supply drops. Well, this time, no kidding folks, out of the bottom of the plane. Never seen anything like it. Hundreds and hundreds of flowers. General Logan’s request was fully granted. The graves were strewn with flowers. The planes, at that time, came from Langley Air Force Base in the suburbs of Washington.
So anyhow, we are going to take a tour tonight, not, especially the battlefield, but in a way, yes. Now, like it or not, I’m a fan of Bill O’Reilly, and old Bill will often say, in the programs. “Now, these are some facts you might not know”. The Dunker Church, built in 1852 on land given by Samuel Mumma. The full name was the German Baptist Brethren part of the group, as I was telling Bob’s wife, have become members of the church of the brethren. But back then, it was the German Baptist Brethren, much like the Mennonites or the Amish people. And General Hooker, for those of you who are interested in tactics and strategy, said that our objective was the white brick schoolhouse, one mile away on the ground immediately adjacent. Well, that’s where the visitor center is, the New York Monument, and all of that. Now, he said that white brick schoolhouse, well, what’s in New England on the Village green? The church with the spires, but the church spire would have been frivolous for the dunkers because you don’t need a steeple if you really want to pray. And Those people were called Dunkers. Some say it was a word of acclamation, others say it was a word of derision. And the word Dunker comes from the German word “tunker”, which means to dip your doughnut completely. Some of you still may dip your toast and coffee if you read your paper instead of doing a computer. So that was built in 1852. On the morning of the battle, it was at the heart of the action and very quickly, folks, it became a hospital for both sides. Doctors worked side by side and on the north window, on the back side, they threw the amputated arms and legs out into a pit. To this day, there are still two thoughts about the bones. One is that they’re still there, which I doubt. Secondly, is that they were taken away and burned, and that’s what I believe. Well, the church blew down in the 20s, and I don’t see too many here over 39, but many years ago, there was a Mr. Boyer who had a general store in Sharpsburg right near the post office. There’s still a shell in the end of the house, and one of the shells came through the house, hit the banister, and they never repaired that. That’s still there as a memento. So I don’t know what his wife thought, that she must have been a real kind soul, he bought the ground after it blew down, brought the rubble home, and it stayed there in the backyard near a stable for 40 years when the church was rebuilt.
I’m here tonight partly because of four ladies. One, my mother, two and my wife, who supports me, even though she’s musically inclined. Thirdly, a great grandmother, who, before I went to school, would assail, we great-grandchildren, with the stories at every family gathering. Those of you who have heard me before, just tune me out. But anyhow, great-grandma used to always say, have I told you about Gettysburg? And we were not to make any comment, but just to listen. She was 10 years old, and on a rainy Monday, and this has been thoroughly checked out, she and her siblings were out in the yard, giving buckets of milk, unpasteurized, of course, and loaves of homemade bread. Well, that’s just grabbed me. I can still see her in a long dress and a bonnet and and it was General Hancock’s troops. He saved the day at Gettysburg. And that just made a tremendous impression on me. And then in first grade, I don’t know how educators would treat her now, but Miss Edith brought in a miniature log cabin, pictures of Lincoln reading the Bible by the fireplace and a fence rail and an ax. She made us feel like we were there. And at the end of the class, she said, “Now boys and girls, I still have something for you.” And lo and behold, she gave each one of us, their going out of circulation now, a penny, and folks, I don’t have much of the world’s good, my mortgage is not even paid off yet. But anyhow, I still have the penny that Miss Edith gave me in first grade. I kept in touch with her up until the day she died, and to show you the kind of woman she was, she used to give us little religious readings. And for 60 years, I have begun our evening church services, Christmas Eve services with “everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight. Christmas in the land of the fir tree and pine, wherever meek souls of the dear Christ enters in. No cottage too small, no palace too great.” So, my being here tonight is due to these people and what they have given to me. And I still have the penny. If you don’t believe me, we live on Robert E. Lee Drive, drop by, and I’ll show you that penny.
The Maryland Monument Memorial Day. We’re trying to tie a lot of Memorial Day with you. I could talk strategy and I could talk tactics and we might get to some of that. But from my great grandmother and my first grade teacher, history is people and places, and these two ladies showed that concept. I’m sure they didn’t know to verbalize it that way. And I didn’t either. But the cast, we’re dwelling tonight on the cast of 1862, and we stopped at stop one on the battlefield tour right across from the Dunker Church. And then on May the 30th, 1900, the Maryland Monument was dedicated and some of you who’ve lived around Sharpsburg all your life might have known Mrs. J. Edgar Remsburg and her name is Effie Petrie, her maiden name that lived on the square. and one day she said, “John, I know you like history.” She said, “I want to tell you. I was kissed by a famous man.” I said, you were? She said, “yes.” And again, childhood memories. We adults are sowing memories in seeds that hopefully will help to develop character. She said, “yes, we lived at Fairplay.” Most of you know where that is. She said, “real early, my folks packed their lunch. We got in the buggy and we started off for Sharpsburg”. And she said, “John, I’ve never seen so many horses and buggies in all my life.” And she said, “I never saw that many after that.” And folks, there were 10,000 there, and they didn’t come four and five in a car, but in a horse and buggy. So think of, well, 10,000 people, I don’t know how many buggies. And she said, when it was over, she said the president spoke. He walked across the road from the Dunker church and politicians haven’t changed. She said, “he picked up the little children, including me.” So she said, “I was kissed by a famous man, William B. McKinley.” But we’ll talk about maybe a little later. Did you know at the Antietam Battlefield, there’s a coffee break monument? McKinley had been here before as a commissary sergeant in the 23rd Ohio Regiment, and when the Yankees got across the bridge at Burnside Bridge, the lower bridge, he drove up with a wagon load of hot coffee and food. I’m still wondering how he kept the coffee hot, but anyhow, 19 years old, and because of this action, he was promoted to a lieutenant, ended the war as a major, became governor of Ohio, and then a US senator. So the other day, I had folks from Wyoming on a tour. And when we got above the bridge, I said, look straight ahead of you. And I said, there’s the coffee break monument. And they looked at me like I wasn’t wrapped too tightly.
So who says history can’t be fun? So he was here before and dedicated the monument. Folks, as of today, there’s still only seven monuments on the battlefield to the South. But if you look at that, there are eight columns. Two represent memorials to southern troops from Baltimore, two military units, and six represent monuments to northern troops. And on the inside of the monument, there is the inscription, I’m not quoting it directly, but it says, “Maryland’s Memorial to her sons, to her sons who fought on these fields.” So when you see the Maryland Monument there, why that’s part of the story about that.
So we’ve already talked about the lady Effie being kissed by the President. But then then over the hill, I once had the chief justice for the state of Connecticut and some of his staff on a tour. And you learn something from every tour. It’s just not give, but you receive and learn something too. And he looked at this monument to Colonel Stetson from Plattsburgh, New York, and he said, oh, related to the Stetsons who developed the Stetson hat. As far as I know, that’s true. I don’t know. Some of you may own a Winchester rifle. There’s a saying that goes that the Wild West was won by the Winchester rifle, assisted by the Stetson hat. So I don’t know whether that’s true.
So, anyhow, we’re going up the road and we look to the left and there’s the West Woods. The West Woods, they have the Philadelphia Brigade Monument in there. And we hear about Tom, Dick and Harry. But here we’re going to speak about Edward and Paul and Oliver. That’s a good name. And they were part of the 20th Massachusetts, and one division, 5,000 strong under General Sedgwick goes into that woods. No scouts out front. They’re hit on three sides by the Confederate forces and lose 2,200. 2,200 out of 5,000 men, 2,200. Among them? I don’t know whether we have any physicians here or not. One, with Dr. Edward. Four doctors were killed here. Three union, one Confederate. Not deliberately, but they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Brother Paul was wounded pretty seriously. In fact, he didn’t get back to the army until almost time for Gettysburg, six months, well, nine months later. And then Gettysburg, Colonel Paul, was mortally wounded and died. And in that woods, young lieutenant colonel from Massachusetts was seriously wounded in the neck. They didn’t think he was going to make it, but he did. So who were Edward and Paul? Well, Dr. Edward and Lieutenant Colonel Paul had a very famous great grandfather, because I don’t know about now, but yesterday, many moons ago, we always learned “Listen, my children, and you shall hear the midnight ride of Paul Revere.” So, again, casualties, and because of their loss, the Revere Copper and Silversmith Company in Boston had to go out of business. Oliver lived for quite a long time. Oliver lived to the 1930s, and he went to the highest court in the land as the Supreme Court justice. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
They were in the West Woods, and some of the folks that inflicted that heavy loss on the soldiers in the West Woods had camped the night before part of them. Where? In our backyard. And I ain’t kiddin’ you. They had marched at night, left Halltown at 6 p.m., reached the Potomac at 2 a.m., waded across the Potomac, and came to Robert E. Lee Drive and sacked out until Lee called him, “Hurry up, hurry up. Go into the West Woods.”
Some of you also had the fortune of knowing Earl Roulette. We used to call him the Earl of Sharpsburg. Wonderful gentleman. One day, he and his wife invited me to come over for coffee and doughnuts, and he had all kind of artifacts in many boxes. And he kept the label away from you. And he opened them up, and he said, “John, you know what these are?” I said, “Well these are some Georgia buttons and items.” He said, “That’s correct. He said, “You know where I finally found them? I said, no. He said, “in your backyard when I used to plow the back 40 with my horse a mule.”
So anyhow, that was the West Woods. And we move on then. The Union forces moved from the Joseph Poffenberger farm down toward the Dunker Church. And opposite the cornfield on the west side, the night before, and I guess most of us have had some moments of precognition. And there was this German captain from Milwaukee, Werner Von Bachelle and so he had the premonition that he was gonna be killed. So the next morning, the famous Iron Brigade from Wisconsin and Indiana pushed on toward the church. Then they were driven back by the Stonewall Brigade and there by fence, there by the fence, was the captain, and he was dead. Well, that summer, a german excuse me, a newfoundland sheepdog, stray wandered into camp, and captain and they became real good buddy buddies. I suppose the captain must have fed him, you know, leftovers from the mess sergeant. And there was the dog lying across the captain’s chest. It had also been killed. The captain and his dog were buried down over the hill, and as most of you know, the top soil here is very good soil, but it’s shallow. And about 15 inches down is shale. And so all of the graves were very shallow. And the Confederates were appalled. On the way to Gettysburg, when they went through here and seeing body parts and clothing sticking up out of the ground. And when the Yankees chased them back afterward, they too were appalled. But anyhow, in 1865, the captain and his dog were buried. And if you go into the cemetery and walked up to the Soldiers’ Monument, the row off to the left, seven rows over. There is the grave of the captain and his dog. Somebody usually has a flag on it.
This is off the subject in a way, but there’s a story that has circulated that years ago, a lady from Washington bought a property here, and she had a big lab, and I can’t verify the story, but I’ve heard it numerous times. And that that dog would run off, break a chain, jump a higher fence, park service would call her. I don’t know, remember the lady’s name, but hey said, ”Your dog’s out again. You know where to find it.” She’d get in her car. Supposedly. Came down to the National Cemetery and there lying on the grave of the captain and the dog was this dog. Again, it’s out there, whether it’s true, I don’t know.
And then, of course, across the road, is the Miller Cornfield, 30 to 40 acres. And after the battle, covered with about 6,000 bodies, they said you couldn’t walk across the field without stepping on a dead body. Now, they were dunkers. They went to the dunker church, and what happened to the local people? Some went to the caves along the river. Some went farther away and stayed with relatives. And the Miller family, they went to the Manor Church of the Brethran and stayed there and they came back. And when they came back, they went into their house and we had a bite to eat at the Redbird tonight. We didn’t have chicken, but their kitchen table in the frying pans was fried chicken and fried eggs. Union soldiers, and they had helped themselves. And again, if you had a small farm, hogs, cattle, sheep, chickens, hundreds, hundreds were lost. So that was part of what they suffered. Dennis Fry, who many of you know, said that the battle was Sharpsburg’s 9/11. And Steve Cowie, who’s written a 500-page book, it’s called When Hell Came to Sharpsburg. And again, I had the privilege and honor of taking Steve over the battlefield for the first time before he started his book, and then when he was finished, he came back and we went over it again to double check. He lives in Nashville and we are good friends. So just beyond the Miller house, there’s a ravine, and often you will see sheep and sometimes cattle there, near that ravine. And one time, well, first of all, if you have an elementary school class, and you see some groundhogs or woodchucks, you might as well forget it. They’re going jabber, jabber, jabber. And one time I had an inner-city bus, fourth graders from D.C., and the teacher interrupted me. She said, pardon me. She said, “look, boys and girls, there are some cows. That’s where we get our milk.” And this little girl said, “no, no, no, Miss Jones, we get it from Walmart”. So you learn something every time.
So, but they’re this ravine. And of course, we asked the boys and girls, you know, if they ever watch the Little House on the Prairie. That’s one of my favorites. I said, now, those houses didn’t have indoor plumbing, and here’s a spring right alongside the road. And Mrs. Ingalls needed water for cooking or a Saturday night bath or whatever, one of the children was sent down for water. But one of the greatest things that George McClellan did was to name Jonathan Letterman as a medical director of the Army of the Potomac. I don’t know how many are here tonight, but let’s say every one of us was a doctor. And up until Letterman took charge in the summer of ’62. Each one of us had our own setup. Nothing organized or uniform, and when he took over, he said, every camp must be above any source of water, so it will not be polluted. He said, troops need vegetables, and hopefully fruit. They need sanitation and personal hygiene and all of that. So every ambulance was equipped uniformly with medicine, bandages and all of that. And they’re in that little ravine, according to some medical scholars, Dr. Letterman, set up the triage and the fast removal, and that remains the principal of the. US. Army Medical Corps today. Again, I’m stressing. People and places and contributions.
And again, in the mix, midst of tragedy, there was always some love. So on Dr. Letterman’s staff, there was a Dr. Charles Lee. Where was he from? I’m not sure we have anybody here from Burkittsville tonight, but Needwood Forest, a descendant of one of the first colonial governors of Maryland, and Dr. Lee said, “well, Dr. Letterman, how about coming along home and you’ve having slept on a regular bed or anything? You need a break.” So Dr. Letterman went alone home with Dr. Lee for the weekend, and lo and behold, Dr. Lee had a sister, Mary, and you can guess where I’m going? Dr. Letterman and Mary D. Lee, fell in love and got married, but they both died early about 1870. So love and marriage in the midst of warfare and so that’s love and marriage.
Okay, I might need some help here, but anyhow, in the early 1900s, a stone cutter by the name of Alex Steel, came here from Vermont, and roomed with a couple down near Locust Grove. And the couple he roomed with had a daughter and Mr. Steel married her. Well, they had a daughter, and if I’m wrong, correct me, Kathy, I believe Richard Haynes’s brother married the daughter. Is that correct? Okay. And think about waiting, in prayer or anything. Mr. Steel, cut that stone in 1906 I don’t know whether someone had voted or whatever, but anyhow, there it laid. We come along to 1962. And they’re looking for a monument. And all of you who are interested in the Maryland campaign have seen the big slab of marble dedicated to Clara Barton. And they kept looking and looking for marble. Not good, not good. So somebody remembered there off to the side where some marble that was cut years ago. So they went down, scraped the vine off of it, and today, you take Mansfield Avenue at the Poffenberger Farm. There’s the monument to Miss Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, and the slab of marble was cut by Mr. Steele and of course, connected with the Haynes family, and lo and behold, when that monument was dedicated in 1962, Mr. Steele was there for the dedication, correct? Okay. So that’s the monument to Miss Clara Barton. Clara was here. She was holding a wounded soldier in her arms when a bullet went through the sleeve of her blouse. He coughed up blood and died in her arms.
So things got pretty hot. They went to the other Poffenberger farm, Sam, and it was only about 10:30 in the morning and Dr. Dunn, if you’re interested in research, the materials are at the University of Virginia and the Alderson Library. And he was wringing his hands. He had met Claire Barton after the battle of Cedar Mountain and she walks in and he said, oh, I’m so glad to see you. I don’t know what I’m going to do. He said, I’ve ripped up all of the sheets, pillowcases, tablecloths and I have no more bandages. And she said, “Cheer up, doctor. She said, I have two wagon loads of bandages and lamps “ and also, the thing about this for provisions. In the Civil War, the bottles of whiskey to alleviate pain was often packed in loosely, like sawdust or something to prevent breakage. But when they open the case, the whiskey for the wounded, here, it was cornmeal. And Clara Barton, that night, took that corn meal, which I believe was providentially prepared and made she called it gruel, but I assume it was something like oatmeal or porridge. So daughter, Clara, tremendous lady.
What would these old stone houses and other buildings say to us if they could speak to us in the evening dews and dams? So we’re moving along and both in death, over along the Smoketown Road, there’s a big monument to General Mansfield from Connecticut. And after Second Manassas, Jackson sent scouts into D.C to see if it was possible to attack Washington. They came back,” no way, General, no way.” Why? “It’s strongly fortified”. Who had done that? 56 year old, General Mansfield, he was an engineer officer. But be careful what you ask for, because he wanted a combat job. Well, he got it on the 15th of September.
Two days later, he was up on the hillside and shots rang out from the East Woods. He was hit in the stomach, taken to a house, back to the road, they made a bed in the parlor, for a General Mansfield, one of six generals who were either killed or died of wounds, made a bed for him in the parlor, and while he was dying upstairs, downstairs, the lady in the house was in labor, upstairs. And about the time, early the next morning that he breathed his last, the lady brought forth a little girl. A strong Union advocate, and they named the little girl Clellie, after General McClellan, and she lived to 1945. I think I’m not sure that she is buried in Boonsboro. And then we come to the roulette form. The early newspaper said that the battle was being fought around the German forming village of Sharpsburg. And that’s because the the Lord Calvert family had given special assistance to German immigrants.
So anyhow, they needed an operating room to help take care of 18,000 wounded that day, and guess where the OR was, at the Roulette farm. In the barnyard, in the barnyard, you can still see the house and the barn and after each surgery, they tried to keep water hot, but they couldn’t after each surgery, a bucket of water over the operating table. You know, they didn’t know much about disease and cleanliness and all of that. And among those working on the farm together was Dr. Child of the fifth New Hampshire, and three years later, he was at Ford’s Theater and was one that saw it to help President Lincoln. Assisting him was Father William Corby, Father Corby was one of the founders of Notre Dame University. And there’s a statue at Gettysburg as He gave absolution to the troops going into battle. It is said that the Catholic soldiers here had not had mass for a while, so he rode up and down among the ranks, blessing the troops, but he said, “Now, if you run and act as a coward, this won’t do you any good.” But there’s Corby Hall and he was one of the presidents.
And then sadness at Rohrbach House. Okay, living at the Rohrbach was Henry and Martha. The grandparents of little Ada. Ada’s mother, Mary Jane, and her father, Henry Clay Mumma, and Uncle Jacob, for whom the Rohrbach Inn is named. And mother and children went away for the day and then came back in the evening, and their farm was a mess. And someone came and said, “Now, you only have the use of the kitchen and one room. They’re wounded officers in your parlor. And again, no sleep on the Rohrbach farm. Mrs. Rohrbach and one of the servants stayed up all night baking and whatever.
So, we’re at the end of segment one, we’re trying to get you out of here in time to get home to do the milking, but anyhow, how did it all start? This business of being a guide, Steve Recker is doing a tremendous job at the Boston Museum of History. He’s inherited Doug [Bast] had all kind of Civil War memorabilia, and he loaned me some of that for Drums Along the Antietam. But the first guide at Antietam was O.T. Raleigh, another Oliver. And at 5 o’clock in the morning of the 14th of September 1862, five year old O.T. was awakened by a tremendous noise, and it was the wagons and the caisson of the Confederate army retreating, followed by the Union army.
Well, anyhow, Steve has done a lot of research, and it depends, Raleigh was born in 1857, and we can’t pinpoint whether he started guide work in 1874 or 1877, but if he started guide work in 1887, I’ve caught him this year, 67 years. But if he started in 74, I got three more to go, so I don’t know.
But anyhow, in 1957 and 58, I was a student at Shepherd, majoring in secondary education, and I took my student teaching right here in Boonsboro. One of the finest teachers to ever walked the face of this earth was Joe Arnold, eighth grade social studies. I’ll never forget one day, when the eighth grade sections, they were he was preparing a group for a test, and he asked who the first president was. And I said, “you learned something every day. Well, the first president was Davie Crockett. No, it was Daniel Boone.” And he had his glasses down over his nose. He said, “Mr. Shildt, one of these days I’m going to stop teaching and go and do something worthwhile.” So anyhow, he was my critic for student teaching. And just a wonderful man. And I had been working on a book. I had my first newspaper article, a full page in the Frederick News Post way back in 1951.
So this time I’d worked on a manuscript and I was about ready to get it to the printer, but I need a good typist. So remember this name. Mr. Arnold told me, said, well, why don’t you talk to the business and typing teacher? And so I did. Some of you folks may have had her. Mrs. Beckenbaugh. Now, Mrs. Beckenbaugh has a tie in with Henry Kyd Douglas, the youngest member of Jackson’s staff. That’s the first book I ever read on the Civil War. and I could go for an hour on that, but I’m going to do that.
Anyhow, Mrs. Beckenbaugh married the great grand nephew of Henry Kyd Douglas, again, Beckenbaugh, and good friend of many, many years, George Smith, cousin, right? Joan? All right. Joan Smith Munson was a senior and one of the best students in the typing class. So Mrs. Beckenbaugh hooked me up with Joan and Joan did the first manuscript for my first book. And I’ll never forget that, and a wonderful friend Some of her relation, probably George’s too, was called the Good Samaritan of the battlefield. During the height of the battle at the Tower at Bloody Lane, a wagon galloped up with, again, food and sandwiches, bullets and shells bursting all around. He served the troops, took some of them back to a triage and his wife thought he was crazy. He came back with the second load. So that’s the tie-in there.
So anyhow, you have to have a class project. And I thought, well, what in the world am I going to do? Well, I was interested in history. Got a brilliant idea. I’ll take my student class from college on a tour. That was the first one, back in March of 1958. So you can see do the Math 42 plus 25 and I got a good grade on it, but that was the beginning. And I never dreamed, you know, of where it would lead.
Next in line, I came Yellow Springs Elementary School, many elementary schools. Then Civil War round tables and all of that. And a fellow by the name of Reuben Darby, who disappeared mysteriously, was an entrepreneur. He bought land from the Piper family and built a log cabin museum, where the cemetery parking lot is now, and had demonstrations and everything, and that was my first time to be hired. He had big ideas, you know, people were going to come for the Centennial. Well, it was a disaster. He built another place at Harper’s Ferry and both went under. But on the day that was dedicated in April 1961, the guest speaker was a PGT Beauregard, the grandson of the Confederate General.
So along the way, I’ve met U.S. Grant III. and I tell people, I met Jefferson Davis. And again, they looked at me like my elevator was going down, but I said, no, I’ve met him I met him in 2012. Jefferson, Davis IV. And then I’ve had the privilege of meeting many descendants second and third removed along the way, and major general, Paul Sedgwick, a nephew of the general. So that’s how it all got back. It started in 1958. Seen a lot of things along the way. When I had a tour and I looked up to the side of the road and I thought I was seeing things. Here came a parade, I bet it was 50 dachshunds, and it was a meaning of the Mid Atlantic Dachshund Association. So that was it.
And then also, I’ve shared story of the horse without a tail. Lieutenant James Stewart, an Irishman with a bellicose voice had a horse called Old Tartar. And at Second Manassas, Old Tartar had its rump bruised by a shell, and most of its tail torn away. So they thought its military service was over, but when they were getting ready for the Maryland campaign, the horse jumped the fence and came over and went to Lieutenant Stewart and was ready for action.
Okay, a year later, Lincoln was reviewing the troops down near Fredericksburg, and here comes a courier riding out to Lieutenant Stewart. Oh, my, what have I done now? And Lieutenant, the president wants to see you. So he goes over and salutes, and the president loved horses, and he had heard this story, and he wanted to see old Tartar. Well, Tad was there, and he said, “Lieutenant.” He said, “I’ll trade you my pony for your horse and remember, remember, my daddy is the president.” but Lincoln smiled, and that was it.
So also, I found out how either side could win the battle. I had the honor one time of having the commander of the military District of London, including the Queen’s Guards here. And I was much younger, and he said, “Young man, I know how either side could have won this battle.” I said, well, how’s that, sir? He said, “with two cell phones.” So you remember, no walkie talkies, no field phones. Only thing they had was a courier. You couldn’t see flags in the smoke of battle. So a courier could be like a forward pass in football. Three things could go bad. The courier could get lost, they could get killed, it could get captured, and just like a quarterback could get sacked, they intercepted or incomplete. So that was a big lesson. And I have to check my crib notes here to see, oh, among other things, I’ve always loved the military. I thought if I would have had more smarts, science and math, I would have tried to go to West Point.
But one of the great moments of my life, and Marianne, I think, will concur with this twice. I got to know the chaplain at VMI (Virginia Military Institute). So twice, we invited the cadet choir to come to church and sing. And boy, the first time in they were there and dressing, you know, in their dressing uniforms, I was in my glory. And we fed them. And the next time they came up, they stayed all night and stayed in our homes, wonderful experience. And the only cost was I had to give the VMI cadets a tour of the battlefield, but it was worth every bit of that great, great experience
Let me see, oh, again, you have some comical experiences along the way. A little girl. We always ask the kids, “Would you like to see in where Mr. Lincoln stood?” Yeah, sure, where? Well, the step, the church blew down and the foundation was there, but the step. So Mr. Lincoln stood there, and went into the church and visited the wounded. So this little girl from California said, “Mr. John, do you think that Mr. Lincoln had to take his hat off to go into the church?” I said, he probably did. He probably did.
Well, time’s passing, and let’s see. Oh, another person that I know you’re interest, and I appreciate that. And Lincoln once said, “if we don’t know where we came from, we don’t know where we’re going.” And again, not to preach at you, but what we once called good, we now call evil and what we called evil is now good.But anyhow, phone rang. This is Jody Powell, and he asked for me, and I thought, yeah, and I’m Mickey Mouse. So we got to talking and I’m slow at times, I’ll admit that. But I said, “Jody Powell, President Carter’s press secretary?”, he said, “yeah, but don’t let that bother you.” And I got a call from Jim Lehrer once. So, again, the seeds that were sown in the blessing that had been mine through history, and Stephen Sears’s book had just come out, The Landscape Turned Red, which I like, but some of the guides don’t, but he wanted to know what I thought of. So I got to meet Jody, and he came when he was in office many times, and he always began or ended at the Georgia Monument on Cornfield Avenue. You talk about the devastation of war, Jody had six ancestors on his mother and daddy’s side here, and before the war was over, 10. Four were killed, four were wounded, and one was the POW. You talk about a price.
All right. We have to go on. Wounded in the West Woods was General Sedgwick from Massachusetts and his nephew, 28 years old, that was on his staff, and that wound was mortal. He was taken to a home at the edge of Keedysville. He, along with Paul Revere and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Massachusetts troops. And anyhow, the wife and three little girls were in Europe at the time. He married a German lady. So all roads led to Antietam. Doctors, nurses, people looking for their loved ones. So the mother and sister came. And little Eugenia, she was 12. She helped to take care of Major Sedgwick. And a Christmas, there was a letter, and a little package. And it was a thank you letter, and ear rings for Eugenia. And she said, “I’m trying to cope with my grief, but the hardest thing I have to face is several times a day, our three little girls say, “Mommy, Mommy, when’s daddy coming home? When’s daddy coming home?” That’s the story of the cast of Antietam.
And we go back to Ada Mumma again, five years old, but the memories, the memories, and there were wounded troops in the barn and the her parents didn’t want her to go in, but she disobeyed. They didn’t want her to see the sights and hear the sounds and smell, the smells. And one wounded Confederate from North Carolina said, “Little girl, little girl, would you get me a drink?” And a little five year old girl, Ada did, and he’d always say, “Thank you, honey. Thank you, honey.” And one day, her parents said, don’t go to the barn. And she figured that the soldier had died. And anyhow, she went out and he had left her his Confederate camp, and it hung on a knob in a hay loft until about 30 years ago, and they authenticated the hat and it was sold at auction at a tremendous price. But Ada lived to the mid 1930s. The family, because of the loss moved to the Rohrbach Inn. But then this little girl experienced more sorrow because in November, her mother, who was five months pregnant at the time of the battle, she and the baby died in childbirth, two months before the time of delivery. And they found since from the doctor’s log book that there may have been as many as 75 people who died in the six months after the battle due to war related situation. So again, “mommy when’s daddy coming home”. “Thank you, honey. Thank you.”
Well, last two things, I think, I might ramble some, but anyhow, In 1988, the remains of five North Carolina bodies were plowed up in the Miller cornfield. 2008, another body was found in the cornfield. And in 1988, a fellow who was metal detecting right near the tower of Bloody Lane, found the partial remains of five members of the Irish Brigade. One year later, the Fighting 69th, New York National Guard unit, came down, camped at the monument, and went over marched over them to the National Cemetery. The monument is right close to the rostrum, and they are on a bright Sunday afternoon, these Irish soldiers some 120, what, seven years later, were buried. And of the many tremendous experiences that I’ve had due to these folks here, this turned out to be one of the greatest.
Once I was invited to Fremont, Nebraska, but I was told to come on weekends because the roundtable met on Monday night and I wondered why. So Saturday morning and go from the sublime to the ridiculous and come back, hopefully. But anyhow, after my shower, I went to my room, and here were a pair of red socks, never worn a pair of red socks in my life. Red T-shirt, red sweatshirt, red cap, and my host was an ardent graduate and supporter of the University in Nebraska. So we were off to see the Cornhuskers play, but that’s on the sublime.
But again, I never dreamed that the experience that began in Boonsboro from my student teaching would lead to over 2,000 tours, wonderful people, and these experiences, but probably at the top, that afternoon with the Catholic priest from New York City, I was invited to share in a funeral service and many, many years later, I can say, I hope humbly and with dignity, that I read the scriptures and offered the prayer for five soldiers who were among the missing, known but the God, who were buried here on this battlefield.
So history is people and places, and one last thing. On October the 2nd of Friday, a horse in buggy and a procession, pulled into the Grove farm out the west end of Sharpspurg. Called Mt Airy. Little Louisa was 10 years old, and in the parlor, and there’s still blood stains on the floor, where Union and Confederate wounded and the last time I was there, they were still there. The beds were hay, maybe a blanket for a pillow. And Lincoln walked in, shook hands with the wounded, and there’s even one account in the Philadelphia paper that Lincoln took the hand of a wounded Confederate and prayed with him and said, I hope you make it.
Our friend Bob here does a wonderful presentation of Ward Hill Lamon, 6′ four, a giant of a man, Lincoln’s bodyguard, and he was with Lincoln at Mount Airy, and Lincoln was close to tears, and Hill started to strum in the banjo. And even back then, the papers came out with fake news, and the news was, Mr. Lincoln tours the battlefield and makes light of the plate of the wounded and the die. Lincoln said, “Hill, this has hurt me more than any criticism I’ve ever received.” and he was called the ape in the White House because he said, “I’ve never met a man uglier than myself and criticized terribly. And he said, “Hill. Hill, if I ever get the chance, I’m gonna tell the nation what I think of this terrible war” and November of the next year, there were four score and seven years, the Gettysburg. And I can’t prove it, but I believe the Gettysburg Address was conceived at the Grove Farm and conveys the real feeling. So we didn’t discuss tactics or strategy, but history is people and places.
And I hope you have enjoyed our tour, some of it sad, maybe a little comical, but again, just as we have our memories of 9/11, the bombing of the USS Cole and other things. So the cast of 1862 had their memories and we hope that it has done something for you.
So thank you for coming out and God bless you. And again, thank you. Thank you very much, we have time for a few questions. I might not be able to answer, but if I can’t, I’m gonna tell you the truth. Any questions?
Question: You mentioned a doctor earlier. The doctor, what was his name again?
Answer: Dr. Letterman
Question: Did you say that President McKinley or candidate McKinley kissed a girl?
Answer: Yes. Her name was Effie Petrie, and she married Mr. G. Edgar Ramsburg, who was a cattle dealer, and lived in the square here in Sharpsburg, and I think the Ramsburg family owned the Nicodemus property out here for many years.