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Images of Valor Dying: by Guest Author Randy Godwin

7/17/2013

The first time Randy Godwin really came to my attention was about two years ago, when judging a writing contest. I came upon Randy's submission, that was a story set in Georgia's Okefenokee swamp, and was a taut semi-fiction piece about an ancestor of his who was a lawman on the trail of some no-gooders that climaxed in the midst of that deadly abode.

In any event I thought it one of the best submissions I had perused out of about a thousand read entries. As a matter of fact I gave it third place overall, and Randy may be learning this fact for the first time right here.

After the contest I started reading more of Randy's work and we became friends. It can truly be stated that Randy is of a vanishing breed called the True Southern Gentleman. He comes from a part of Georgia were a man's word and handshake still stand for something. By the way, Randy is also married to a lovely lady named Beth, who keeps him in line on the rare occasions it becomes necessary, so she says.

Author, Randy Godwin

Randy's family goes back many, many generations on their farm and property. He is an excellent writer of the Old South in Georgia and elsewhere. He is also in a unique position with his stories, as he often mixes fact with fiction, with his own outstanding tales from the region. So, in so many words he often writes semi-fiction that delivers a story a reader will be unlikely to forget.

With that, dear readers of the Carolinian's Archives, it is my humble pleasure to introduce you to the first guest post of Randy's here. It seemed an excellent companion to a Civil War story honoring the 150th anniversary of Gettysburg; in which Randy's brother usually participates as a re-enactor, and did participate this year of 2013.

By the way friends, Randy Godwin at Hubpages.com has a fantastic variety of stories covering many subjects such as his awesome collection of S Georgia Amerindian artifacts and the mysterious "Carolina Bays" that cover the SE from his area to the Carolinas.

He's also an expert on RV equipment, Pool vacs and other similar things, and has helped thousands of folks with questions pertaining to them.

Randy Godwin on Hubpages

Images of Valor Dying, by Randy Godwin

My chosen profession has become a burden to me now. What was once an exciting and wondrous delving into the art of photography has quickly become a morbid obsession. Gerald Baxter is my professional name. A name once held in mediocre esteem by my fellow travelers, but of late has become a symbol for a type of ghoul or specter of doom.

I cannot blame them though, cannot feel any animosity for their looks of distaste thrown my way when I erect my equipment of light gathering. I am not their enemy, but still they shake their heads as I approach them as if a mere word to them would seal their fate, would forecast a certain death captured for all to see back home where they lived. No, they have the right to think so, these poor lads in arms.

Especially after today they may believe I am somehow responsible for their fate, somehow complicit in the whole disaster of trying to route the Rebs from behind the old stone wall below Marye’s Height. I’d prepared my glass plates with care early that morning and finally, after the fog lifted around ten, used them all. And yes indeed, I captured the faces of dead men, caught their last smiles and tears before they took the deadly walk towards the confederate lines.

Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman

Acts of Mortal Gods

I must admit to there being a certain feeling of godlike ability, a sense of control despite there being none at all. The mere magic of burning a likeness of a future dead man into a glass plate seems somehow wrong now. But I must do it again. Someone has to do it. It is one of those things we have no control over, one of the events in our lives which seems hell-bound and meant-to-be. You know what I mean, certainly you do.

Somehow it doesn’t seem like war to me, and I suppose it really isn’t. Sure, I could catch a stray bullet, or perhaps an artillery round could go awry, but there is always a chance of death in our short lives no matter the circumstance. I cannot see myself dying near the scene of a battle, but I suppose it could happen easily enough.

I never dreamed when I was serving an apprenticeship to the famous photographer, Matthew Brady, that I would be here now, making visual records of this sad American struggle. I never thought we would actually do it, would kill our fellow citizens, all for such silly reasons.

For what?

My job is not to figure the why of it, but to simply get it down on glass. Somehow it seems shameful for it to be, so I cannot say different now.

Burning the Glass

No, this is my job and I’ll do it as best I can; will burn the images of time into inanimate plates of former sand crystals and immortalize those who paid the ultimate price. As I said, someone has to do it. I move the horse drawn wagon containing my photography equipment from battle to battle, over rough roads and often through the fields of the local farmers.

They sometimes give me vegetables from their gardens or perhaps even a chicken or smoked ham in exchange for taking pictures of their family members. They too gaze in wonder at me, as if I am indeed somehow special to this angry world. But special I do not feel, not at all my friends.

Sometimes I meet with my peers, other men much like myself, living their lives while they record the demise of other not-so-fortunate warriors. Their guilt at such is similar to mine. I can see it in their eyes too; can tell it from their words and actions, even the way they move slowly about their tasks tell a tale of dread and misgiving.

Waiting to Bury the Dead and Gaining Ground to Rest In ...

The dead claim no sides in this battle. They are beyond any glory and honor, if there is such in this war. They lie still upon the battlefield until the often former slaves rush in to pick them up and deposit their remains into some cold, lonely hole, often in the very earth they have fought so desperately for. They have this spot of turf for their eternal resting place as if this was the original plan before the battle began.

I wonder will my work actually make a difference in the lives of those who will eventually lay eyes upon the long dead warriors. It is hard to look a upon these colorful scenes through the camera lens and imagine the picture as it turns out in shades of gray, black, and white long after the battle is over. It’s almost as if the drabness of the finished product somehow purposely needs the cold gray light to lend sobriety to the scenes of war. And, perhaps, it does.

So off I go, setting up my camera, finding a spot to work unencumbered with danger or guilt, of not being a main character in this unhappy charade. No, it isn't an easy job to remain so detached from the conflict, but then, there are always such men attached to these wars.

Those who make the important decisions to attack or defend are often in same situation. I cannot but wonder if those men had to fight their own battles if there would ever be any. Somehow I think not.

Robert F. Hoke, Stephen D. Ramseur- Young Civil War Generals From Lincolnton

7/9/2013

Marching feet, Johnny Reb,
what's the price of heroes? ~REM

Dedicated to the Gettysburg National Military Park and the descendants and relatives of Generals Hoke and Ramseur

"Major tell my father I died with my face to the enemy." ~ I.E.Avery

Robert Frederick Hoke

Avery's brigade of nine hundred men quickly came to attention that 2nd day of July at Gettysburg ready to attack Cemetery Hill. Colonel Avery was riding Colonel Robert Hoke's large and faithful war-horse, Old Joe. He was in command that fateful evening of Hoke's Brigade as the usual leader of the unit, Hoke himself, was convalescing after being wounded at the previous battle in May at Chancellorsville.

It was a good thing Hoke was absent as he probably would have fallen like his replacement I.E. Avery did. As can be seen at the beginning of the story, the brave Avery wrote his final words on a scrap of paper. He certainly did die with his face to the enemy; stoically till unconsciousness, hours later in a makeshift hospital behind the lines.

Robert Hoke's photo via wikipedia.org

North Carolina not only had the highest number of soldiers at Gettysburg from any Southern state but also suffered the largest number of casualties as any other there as well. (It should, of course, be remembered that the other states suffered terribly, too). It well earned its appellation of First at Big Bethel, Foremost at Gettysburg and Last at Appomattox. Meaning it had the first southerner killed in the first land battle of the war, reached the farthest distance on the Gettysburg battle's third day during the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge, and was the last to fire its arms at the enemy on April the 9th, 1865, the day of the surrender of Lee's vastly depleted, but still defiant remnants of an army.

North Carolina also happened to have had one of the last state legislatures to approve an ordinance of secession from the Union. It can be said with some accuracy, to have been a torn state on whether to secede or not, and remained so throughout the war in certain places, particularly the mountains and a couple of mid-state counties largely settled by Moravian and Quaker pacifist- leaning religious folk.

Robert Hoke was born in this house on the first floor room to the right on May the 27th, 1837. Lincolnton as the small town and capital seat of Lincoln county, N. C., in the west-central part of the Old North State, was a great place for a young boy to grow up in the mid-19th century.

Robert and his friends, like future general Dodson Ramseur, enjoyed the fields and woods all about, especially the Revolutionary Battleground of Ramsour's Mill. (That story is on Once Upon a History and was an honor to write about.)

Robert Hoke is one of the lesser known generals of the Civil War, as he never attempted to capitalize on his fame during the years after the end of the conflict. Many others did do so by newspaper articles, books and memoirs, and back and forth arguments on battle strategy's, wrong decisions and right decisions; by generals such as Longstreet, Early, and Pickett for the South, and men like Meade, O.O. Howard, and Sickles for the North; just to name several high-ranking vets who stirred things up between themselves and others over the years after the war. Which also kept their names in front of the public through the newspapers and the time when the personal recollections and histories were initially written for future historians' source material.

Daniel Barefoot's excellent bio of Robert Hoke which is available for purchase through the Book Shoppe

Perhaps this is what General Hoke may have looked like, riding home on Old Joe, although the horse was black-coated.

Rewarded for outstanding service ...

Citizen-soldier Hoke's rise through the ranks was meteoric. Volunteering in June of 1861 as a second lieutenant, by June of 1864 he'd attained the rank of major general after his forces retook Plymouth, NC in April of 1864 -- becoming, at age twenty-six, the youngest Southern officer of that rank in the Rebel army. And although very magnanimous to his defeated foes at Plymouth, one very unpleasant duty of this operation for Hoke was having his sergeants pick-out turncoat rebels from the captured blue-coated ranks for a traitor's hanging. To avoid that fate, many of these unfortunate soldiers had taken overdoses of morphine but were walked off its effects. This desperate action by the men was no doubt the result of their knowledge that 22 rebel deserters, by the order of General Pickett, had been hung at Kinston the previous February.

Civil War historians, and Hoke himself, realized, that if given just a day or two more in eastern Carolina, he would have cleared Union forces from the state at New Bern, returning all its resources to the Confederacy. But it was not to be, as his 7,000 men were immediately recalled to protect Richmond after the start of Grant's many- pronged offensive in May of 1864. Hoke's troops were in the vanguard of repulsing General Ben Butler's armies in-between Richmond and Petersburg as Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia battled the massive Federal army elsewhere. His division was then pivotal, with now, nearly 8,000 men, in handing General Grant one of his worst and bloodiest field defeats of the war at Cold Harbor, thus saving Richmond and earning the accolades of the people of the capital, the South in general, and Lee himself.

Hoke's military war record was generally outstanding and varied, fighting in the war's first action at Big Bethel, Virginia, to one of the war's last major battles leading his by then much respected veteran division of two North Carolina brigades (which included the brave and hard-fighting, but sometimes scared, teenage Junior Reserves), plus Hagood's South Carolina brigade and Colquitt's Georgia one, at Bentonville, North Carolina. As mentioned previously, he missed the mighty struggle at Gettysburg due to his wounding at the battle of Chancellorsville, perhaps, something that was meant to be as he most likely would have died there leading his, then, brigade. Fate apparently had a different plan in store for this remarkable and beloved American soldier.

Many considered during the war that Robert F. Hoke was thought highly enough by Robert E. Lee to become his protégé during the autumn of 1864. They were certainly close and what an intriguing thought and outstanding achievement to think that Lee might have given command of the Army of Northern Virginia to a man but 27 years old in case of his death or disability. Come the winter, though, Lee reluctantly sent the division, certainly one of the finest in his army, to defend Fort Fisher. After that he held up the Yankee advance on Wilmington(where he evacuated crucial supplies on the eve of its fall , delaying the inevitable, but allowing the South to fight on in NC), and later brilliantly led his division in battle at Wise's Forks and Bentonville.

In his later years, Hoke was to take on an almost uncanny resemblance to ole Marse Robert, too, one of the greatest war commanders in history and most venerated by his troops and fellow citizens, including his soldier opponents and many others in the North, and, world-at-large for that matter.

The photo at left was formerly called the Pleasant Retreat Academy ( now called Memorial Hall) and both Hoke and boyhood friend Dodson Ramseur were taught here as youngsters.

After the surrender of Joe Johnston's army at Bennet's Place in NC to Sherman (almost three weeks after Lee's surrender), Robert returned home to a devastated Lincolnton. Union general Stoneman's cavalry raid and occupation had seen to that in spades. But Hoke returned home with hope. He refused to wallow in melancholy like many others were.

He quickly hitched his faithful war horse Old Joe to the plow and started growing crops on the Hoke's family land. The man also set about to rebuilding his State and the South in general, and even at one point was offered high honors and the governorship of N.C. on a platter, all of which this modest and highly respected Cincinnatus -like man turned down. He later helped rebuild the industry of NC and opened a resort and spring water bottling company near-by to Lincolnton, where he was to live and pass away on July the 12th, 1912.

Hoke was buried with full military honors in Raleigh's Oakwood cemetery. His goal was to leave the war behind and reunite the country and help his State recover during the harsh years of Reconstruction and beyond. Hoke rarely gave newspaper or magazine interviews, never wrote books or a memoir, thus avoiding the second-civil-war of words that went on through the years amongst so many other veterans from both sides.

He married Lydia Ann Maverick Van Wyck in 1869, producing children which included Dr. Michael Hoke, famed pioneer orthopedic surgeon and founder of the Scottish Rite Children's Hospital, one of the five orthopedic consultants in developing the Shriners' Hospital for Children. He was also a close adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in these matters.

Stephen Dodson Ramseur

Stephen Dodson Ramseur
Photo via wikipedia.org

Ramseur graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1860 as a second lieutenant. He was also a close childhood friend of Robert Hoke as mentioned previously.

Dodson fought in the 1862 early summer battles called The Seven Days series of battles where he was badly wounded but noticed by General Lee and was also elected by his men the commander of the 49th NC regiment, after which he was sent home to heal.

Lincoln County and its environs were where men like these hunted, walked or rode, swam, and learned the ways of nature as boys. In short, it was their land, their heritage, their country. And when the call came to defend it, they answered that call patriotically.

The middle and western parts of NC had a low ratio of bonds-people to the white population and many unionist-leaning folk in its regions. But most men, at least in the beginning, answered the call of duty in their mostly insular communities as they still do today in this world of instant communication. It was a smaller world back then - no instant news to most of the populace via TV or internet, and of that fact we should well remember. Although telegraphs were in use, they were generally utilized by commanders to Richmond or Washington.

The small group of elitist lawmakers of the South were mostly large acreage agriculturists, but were still wrong to hold on to the practice of African bondage when others had abandoned it for moral reasons, as well as barely living-wage industrialization and yeomanry farming. And we should also realize it had not been all that many decades before, that the institution ( though fought over at the Articles of Confederation in 1787 & subsequently) had been legal and tolerated in many states outside the South and even countries like France and Great Britain.

Of course places like the New and old England had a much different ratio of whites to blacks, which also factors in when we consider the history of the subject going way back before even the Declaration of Independence, particularly in states like SC and later Mississippi. What is generally unknown is the number of Carolinian's in power positions, like the Laurens, for example, who tried to end the practice starting in the Revolutionary War years. Those who followed in their footsteps were finally defeated in this desire by a small cabal of powerful politicians and plantation owners around the 1830s.

The NC soldiers often grumbled about " a rich man's war and a poor man's fight", but the average Southerner able to bear arms fought for what he considered a direct military threat to his land, his family, neighbors, and constitutional rights. Abraham Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers, including some thousands from NC, to put down the rebellion, seemed to seal the deal for succession; not to mention the fact that that would have meant North Carolinian's would be fighting against their fellow southerners if the nicknamed Tar Heel State actually did stay in the Union..

The appellation of Tar Heel is thought to do with NC soldiers tendency to stick to their ranks like they had tar upon their heels. In other words - hard-fighters who tended to bravely hold together, stand fast as it were, in the fiercest battles. An irony, in a sense, because the highest desertion rates also came from NC. And in addition was the fact that one of the state's important industries, for quite some time, had been tar extraction from its many, thick stands of pine trees.

Promoted by the Commander himself

After the battle at Sharpsburg, or Antietam, the bloodiest single day in American history, Dodson returned to the army recovered from his wound received at the Seven Days' Battle as colonel of the 49th N.C. regiment, only to find himself promoted to brigade command and given his brigadier general's star on Nov. 1st, 1862. At the youthful age of twenty-five, he was the youngest general in the army on that day, which apparently had been promoted by none other than the commanding general of the Army of Northern Virginia himself, Robert E. Lee.

In one of the South's greatest victories of the war at Chancellorsville, in May of 1863, Ramseur's, then, brigade, was in the lead of Stonewall Jackson's stun-ning, victorious flanking attack. General Dodson's men were fated to suffer 50% casualties in that very famous surprise assault.

Ramseur fought on bravely again at the titanic struggle of Gettysburg, through to the next year's sanguinary two day Battle of The Wilderness, and the following bloody contest on May the 12th, defending the lines at Spotsylvania Courthouse; here he was wounded again but refused to leave the battlefield.

Ramseur was promoted to major general and took over Early's division after Spotsylvania, which made him the youngest major general to ever graduate West Point. He fought from there at places like Cold Harbor, against Grant's massive army attempting to take Richmond on the run.

And he later followed General Early's small Army of the Shenandoah on its desperate invasion of the North in an attempt to draw off some of the federal army besieging Petersburg and Richmond -- with perhaps a chance at freeing prisoners-of-war at Point Lookout in Maryland or even taking, relatively speaking, a lightly defended Washington City itself.

Stephen Dodson Ramseur was to later, bravely, fall mortally wounded with Early's Shenandoah Valley army trying to rally his out-numbered and retreating men in Oct. of 1864 at the battle of Cedar Creek, Va. His remains were sent home for an honored burial.

Ramseur's grave in St. Luke's Episcopal Cemetery, with his wife and child buried beside him.

The general's original monument was destroyed during hurricane Hugo. The Daughters of the American Revolution replaced it with the one shown here.

Historic St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Lincolnton, NC where Ramseur is buried.

Union and Confederate military veterans gathered in Gettysburg in 1913, on the 50th anniversary of the end of the battle to remember the fallen and attempt personal reconciliations which were successful. At least for many of the vets closure had come at last; after all, in the end they were both just American soldiers doing their patriotic duty as they saw it.

Photo via wikipedia.org.