What a Find….

When we were in Gettysburg a couple of weekends ago, J. D. Petruzzi and I met up with Al Ovies, a fellow cavalry historian from Miami. Al was up north to see some cavalry battlefields, but more importantly, to do some research at the United States Army Military History Institute in Carlisle and also at the Gettysburg National Military Park archives.

Not having worked on anything specifically Gettysburg-related in quite a while (other than the Stuart’s Ride project, that is), I hadn’t checked the park archives for new material in several years. Al spent a couple of days there, and discovered a fragment of a memoir by Andrew D. Jackson of Co. G, 6th Michigan Cavalry, that had been donated by one of Jackson’s descendants. The descendant is planning on publishing the memoir, so only a fragment was there, and it has a use restriction on it, meaning that it can’t be copied without the permission of its owner. In other words, it’s just there as a research tool that can’t be used substantively without permission.

Al transcribed a few bits of it and sent those bits on to me. I read them and said, “wow!” Jackson’s account of the July 2 Battle of Hunterstown is really spectacular. Consequently, I decided to do a little detective work, and I tracked down the owner. I wrote to him, and we’ve been corresponding. I’ve offered to help, and he’s given J. D. and me permission to quote from the Gettysburg portion of the memoir in one of our upcoming projects.

He sent those chapters, as well as the chapter that deals with another favorite subject of mine, Sheridan’s June 1864 Trevilian Raid, today. I’m absolutely blown away by the detail in Jackson’s memoir, which is based on his daily diary and letters written at the time. His account of the Battle of Trevilian Station, for instance, is without question the most detailed treatment of the 6th Michigan’s participation in this two-day slugfest I have ever seen, and I have literally looked at hundreds of accounts. There’s new material in here on Hanover, Hunterstown, East Cavalry Field, and during the retreat from Gettysburg that is really a first-rate addition to the body of knowledge. I would be so bold as to say that it may well be THE single finest enlisted man’s memoir arising from the Civil War that I have ever seen.

Fortunately, the owner is getting the memoirs ready to be published, and he expects to finish them up some time this fall. I’ve offered to help, as this is a piece that DEFINITELY deserves to be published. So, if all goes well, this account will be available to the general public much sooner than later, and then the use restriction will become irrelevant. He then intends to donate the original documents to a university for posterity, and so that others will have the benefit of them. That’s not only very generous, it’s really quite selfless; it would be very easy to simply hang on to the originals and have them simply disappear after a while.

Of course, it’s always frustrating when these sorts of things surface when it’s too late to use them as we might like to. I wish I could count the number of times that people have given me things AFTER a project is completed and it’s too late to do anything about it that leave me shaking my head and asking where that person was when I really needed them. That, of course, is a purely emotional and selfish reaction. At the same time, I realize that it’s unavoidable and that each project reaches a point where you just have to say, “I’ve given my best shot,” and declare it finished. I will never get every possible source, and I realize that. Still, it’s frustrating.

That brand new, previously unknown primary sources such as this one still surface is part of what I find so fascinating about the study of the Civil War. That this particular one was written by a lowly sergeant and not a famous general makes it all the more appealing. I edited a similarly wonderful memoir by a private of the 5th Michigan Cavalry a few years ago, and it had also been buried in family archives until one descendant got ambitious and decided to do something about it.

That accounts this spectacular still turn up in people’s dusty attics and in odd places amazes me. We can only hope that they will continue to do so.