Remembering the Veterans

Civil War Veteran Aaron Beck 

    We entrust those we elect to bear the responsibility of careful consideration before sending men and women into war.  Before the decision was made to turn Memorial Day into a three day holiday, I remember how people dressed in their Sunday best and filled the cemetery to honor those who had served the nation and remember those we loved who were burried there.  The band marched, and flowers covered generations of graves.

    Local communities continue to honor those buried in our local cemeteries, but the crowds are smaller.  Many of the people buried in these local cemeteries no longer have family living near.  With the opportunity to have a 3-day weekend, many people travel.  School is out for the summer, and the band no longer marches.  I miss how special Memorial Day once was, but for many years I was among those who lived too far away to attend the services and decorate the graves.  I understand that times change.

    This year I want to honor my Great Grandfather, who served the nation as a Union Soldier, and the many other soldiers buried in the Farmington Macksville Cemetery.  He served during 4 years of that tragic war and kept a daily diary that he carried in his knapsack.  On September 19, 1863 during the battle of Lookout Mountain, he wrote:  "It was an awful slaughtering...Col. Balding commanding the brigade fell.  Col. Strong is feared wounded.  ,,,About sundown they attacked us all along the line.  We was holding our position finely but the enemy got in our rear and McCooks corps was cut off from the rest and entirely surrounded.  There was but one thing for us to do {and} that was to cut our way through, so we made a dash for the hills in our rear.  ,,,It was a sight I never want to see again.  We ran right over the dead and wounded in many places, the enemy and our men lay side by side."

    May those we elect have the wisdom to understand the responsibility they have been given to act with respect and consideration for our constitution and for all Americans, never again failing in their duty so tragically that our nation becomes divided and those we elect fail in their duty to all of us.

 

Mothers' Day Reflections

With Mother's Day this week, it seems relevant that I reflect on Isaac Beckley Werner's mother, Margaretha "Rebecca" Beckley Werner.  Shortly before his mother's death, Isaac recorded in the upper-left corner of the fly-leaf of his journal that his mother was still living.  She died on April 22, 1893, two years before Isaac's death.

Death of Tecumseh in 1813

Rebecca, as she was commonly known, lived during exciting times in America.  She was born September 11, 1812, during the years of the War of 1812, in which Britain had imposed a naval blockade to hinder neutral trade with France during the Napoleonic Wars.  The United States challenged this as illegal under international law.  Furthermore, Britain supplied Native Americans with weapons used to raid American settlers on the frontier, intending to hinder further settlement.  Particularly well known is the Battle of New Orleans in January of 1815, when British forces, unaware of the Treaty of Ghent having been signed on December 24, 1814, invaded Louisiana.

Rebecca married William Werner on November 15, 1842, when she was 30 and he was 40, his 41st birthday one month later.  Gold had been first discovered in California the previous March, but that initial gold rush was primarily Mexicans from Sonora on a small scale.  Universities were expanding across America, including Willamette University in Oregon, Wesleyan University in Ohio, the University of Notre Dame in Ohio, and The Citadel in South Carolina.

Assault on New Orleans in 1815

Rebecca was widowed June 13, 1865, and she and her daughters continued to live in the family home on their farm until the spring of 1868, when they moved into Reading, Pa.  On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S.  Grant at Appomattox Court House, and on April 14 (Good Friday) President Lincoln had been assassinated--tragic and tumultuous times.  By the time she and her daughters moved into Reading, the War had ended, but in February of 1868 Andrew Johnson, who had assumed the office after Lincoln's death, was impeached, his acquittal by one vote in the Senate not occurring until May.  Ulysses S. Grant had been elected President on November 3, 1868, but on December 25, before leaving office, Johnson granted unconditional pardons to all Civil War rebels.

Union Officers

After her younger daughter married, Rebecca made her home with Ettie's family until Rebecca's death in 1893 at the age of 80.  The 1880s were exciting years, with electric lights and telephones coming into use and "sky-scrapers" being built.  Rebecca had moved to Kansas when Ettie's husband was called to pastor a church in Abilene, and while Eastern Kansas and living in town may have allowed Rebecca more conveniences than Isaac experienced in his rural community, it was surely less sophisticated that Eastern American cities.  Perhaps Rebecca enjoyed the new 1887 'liquor-free' drink of Coca-Cola in Prohibitionist Kansas!

Sadly, although Isaac and his mother both lived in Kansas in the 1880s and early 1890s, I found no evidence that he was able to share a Mother's Day with Rebecca.  The responsibilities of his farm, the early risks of claim jumpers, the expense of travel, and his poor health in later years seem to have made a reunion impossible.

As you gather with family to celebrate Mother's Day this year, perhaps it would be fun for the mothers among you to share with children the changes over the decades of your own lives.

Remember, you can enlarge images by clicking on them.

The Path to Reconciliation of Two Brothers

Kentucky Flag, adopted 1918, standardized 1963

This blog is about two brothers who faced the same decision during the Civil War and made opposing choices.  In fact, they were not unique.  Many families have ancestors from the same family who chose opposing sides in the Civil War, brothers fighting against brothers, cousins against cousins.  What this blog is about is how two particular brothers eventually reconciled their divided loyalties.  (This blog has mentioned the conflicted feelings about the War that Isaac Werner, who was from a Union state but did not serve, had.)

Recently, in a Missouri cemetery I noticed a large gray granite equestrian statue.  I was curious, so I took several photographs, with plans to research its history.  The story behind the monument was unexpected.  

My research quickly revealed that family members fighting on opposite sides during the Civil War was far from unique.  Various explanations for why such situations occurred may be found, among them social pressure from friends and family, love of place, influence of a spouse, economic concerns, coercion, even interpretations of the Bible used by people from both the North and the South.  It would be impossible to list every reason nor is that what this blog is about.  Instead it is a story of reconciliation and family.

At the start of the Civil War Kentucky declared it's neutrality.  However, Confederate General Leonidas Polk's failed attempt to take Kentucky for the Confederacy lead the Kentucky  legislature to petition the Union Army for assistance.  Establishing its neutrality was difficult not only because of the divided loyalties of its citizens but also because of its strategic location.  At times during the War both the Union and the Confederate flags flew over different parts of the state.  History records the raids and battles, as well as internal violence and guerrilla warfare

Marker of David Dennis

fought on Kentucky soil.  The message on the state flag adopted in 1918 expresses the desire to heal those wounds and unify Kentucky after the Civil War:  "United We Stand, Divided We Fall."  This highly abbreviated summary of Kentucky's history helps explain the conflicted loyalties of brothers Davis Pergram Dennis, the older brother, and John Austin Dennis, the younger brother.  Although their markers contain their given first names, the older brother actually used the name of "David" rather than his given name of Davis, and the younger brother used his middle name of Austin.

Their parents had seven children, these two sons and five daughters.  According to a newspaper article published January 10, 1907 in The Owingsville Outlook, (Ky) their father, John Yokum Dennis, was a "strong Union man and was prominent locally in support of the North."  Both parents and all seven children were born in Kentucky.   

In the 1860 Federal Census, Austin was a boy of 16, still living at home, but David was 25, a farmhand living in the home of a different family--presumably the household of his employer.  Two years later, both brothers enlisted, but on opposing sides.

David joined the 2nd Battalion, KY, Mounted Rifles, which concluded its organization in late fall of 1862 to fight for the Confederacy.  Austin's Union military records show that he enlisted on August 10, 1862, joining Co. B, KY 10th Cavalry Regiment, and after serving slightly more than a year Austin was mustered out on September 17, 1863.  The duration of David's service is less certain, but it is known that he was a Prisoner of War and that he entered the war as a Private and left with the same rank.  The 2nd Battalion, Mounted Rifles which David joined was disbanded in early 1865, so the maximum time he could have served with them was 2 years and a few months, but the length of his imprisonment by the Union is unknown.

This blog is not intended, however, to be about the brutality of war but rather about the capacity to heal.  According to the Owingsville Newspaper article, the family's Kentucky farm suffered during the War and they had been reduced to wretched poverty.  The family decided to stay together and move to Missouri to make a fresh start.  The importance of having made that move together seems to have been significant enough that it is recorded on the brothers' stones.  In the 1870 census both Davis and Austin were living with their parents in Missouri, along with three of their sisters.

Marker of Austin Dennis

Both parents died between 1879-1880, as did their sister Emily.  Their oldest sister Mary had died in 1875, leaving her husband to raise their six children.  These brothers, once so divided by the Civil War, had within two years lost their Kentucky farm, their parents, and two of their five sisters.  The important part of their story is how they and the rest of their family chose to face these hardships together.

The Owingsville newspaper story states that it was the deaths of their parents that made the brothers begin thinking about an appropriate family burial site.  However, my research did not resolve the confusion about the burial places of their parents.  As near as I could determine, the parents were first buried in the Napton, MO cemetery near their home; however, their eldest daughter Mary had been buried in Kentucky and it appears her parents were dis-intured to be buried with her rather than being re-interred in a crypt beneath the equestrian statue as originally planned.  The following description is taken from the 1907 newspaper article:  "The monument cost $3,000, [and] is a fine equestrian statue, made of gray granite, and represents a Confederate cavalryman.  Upon it are suitable inscriptions to their parents, and here will also be written the epitaphs of the two Missourians, who having fought on opposite sides in the strife between the States, have, since Appomattox, worked side by side and will lie down to rest together."

Marker of Rachel Dennis, buried near her brothers

It should be noted that the state to which they relocated had its own complicated history during this time.  During the Civil War nearly 110,000 Missourians had worn the Union blue, but at least 30,000 had joined the Confederate Army, with unnumbered other Missouri "bushwhackers" acting independently.  It was in this environment of lingering resentments and animosities that David and Austin put the past behind them and worked together to build a successful farming operation.

Those years after the war reflect the healing family unity David and Austin achieved.  David married very briefly in 1871, the marriage ending in divorce.  By the 1880 Federal Census, David had become the head of the Dennis household, and it was quite a household!  Living with David were not only his brother Austin but also two of his unmarried sisters, Rachel age 34 and Sarah Catherine age 30, but in addition were six of his oldest sister's children.  Mary Dennis Igo had died in 1875, followed by her husband a few months after, and their children John 18, Charles 17, Laura 13, Catherine 10, Samuel 9, and Anna 5 were now in the Dennis household.  Austin married in 1890 and had his own family, but in the 1900 Federal Census, David remained the head of a household that continued to include his sister Rachel and four of his Igo nieces and nephews--Charles 35, Laura 32, Samuel 29, and Annie 25.  By 1910 only Rachel remained in David's home.  Rachel's stone is the one pictured with her brother's stones above.  David Dennis was 83 at the time of his death in 1918; his brother Austin followed him at the age of 77 in 1921, having met a tragic death.

The equestrian statue that marks their graves was completed at least by 1907 when the newspaper article appeared, and both brothers were living at that time.  It is unclear why they chose a Confederate cavalryman  atop the horse, as both brothers served in mounted units.  A website featuring the monument includes this message:  Parted in life only by individual thinking and opinions, the brothers are united through the ages by a common tomb."  

Whatever may have been the brothers' intentions at the time the equestrian memorial was commissioned in the early 1900s, there is no inscription for their parents, where only the family surname appears.  Nor is the story of their opposing allegiances during the Civil War inscribed on the memorial, although the newspaper article from 1907 would indicate that was their intention.  However, their lives do tell the story of a nation and a family once divided but reconciled and reunited after the War.

I believe in the importance of remembering our history.  That was the subject of the first blog I posted and the theme of many blogs since.  Our history has lessons to teach, and those lessons should not be forgotten, whether they reflect good or bad decisions our leaders and 'we the people' made.  Our public memorials must be the ones we aspire to emulate, and while the symbols of mistaken judgments should be preserved to document  our imperfect past, the purpose for their display must never glorify the mistakes they record.

I believe that, once, the intention of the brothers had been known in their community, for a member of our family who was with us when we saw the statue said it represented a Union soldier on one side and a Confederate soldier on the other side.  As we walked around the statue we observed that the oral history he remembered was in error.  However, it seems likely that, once, the community had known the story of the brothers' reconciliation and the message the statue was intended to convey.  The oral history about the memorial that our relative remembered  aligns with the newspaper account of the monument's purpose.  For some reason, the inscriptions the brothers planned were never recorded on the monument.

It is the story of the healing of this family, the coming together to build successful farms and care for family members without regard for past loyalties during the Civil War that is the truly heroic story of these two brothers.  It should not be the part of their story that is forgotten.

How Far is Gettysburg?

Monument at Gettysburg Cemetery

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is less than one hundred miles from Isaac's hometown of Wernersville, Pennsylvania, the village founded by William Werner, Isaac's father.  (To read more about Isaac's hometown and childhood, go to the blog archives to read "Visit to Wernersville, Feb. 16, 2012; Isaac's Birth & Childhood, Nov. 4, 2011; Isaac's Childhood Church, Feb. 23, 2012.)  Today the distance can be driven in well under two hours, but at the time of the American Civil War, when Isaac and his twin brother Henry were still in their teens, the trip through rugged country would have taken much longer. 

 

Pennsylvania was a Union state, and during the Civil War the commonwealth raised over 360,000 soldiers for the Federal armies, more than any other state except New York, although other states sent a larger proportion of their populations.  Thaddeus Stevens, the senator who played such a pivotal role in the recent movie, "Lincoln," was from Pennsylvania, as were several well-known generals.

 

The map shows the division of states during the Civil War, the Union states indicated in dark blue, the Union states that permitted slavery (so-called 'Border States') in light blue, and the Confederate states in red.  Territories at the time of the War are shown in white.  Yet, lines drawn on a map do not always tell the entire story.  Sympathies of individuals did not always align with those of the states in which they lived, and Pennsylvania was no different from other states in that regard.  In addition, there were many who preferred to avoid military service entirely, if that could be managed.

The exhibit that greets visitors as they enter the Gettysburg Museum lists all the states and the numbers of soldiers that fought from each state.  Each state lists both Union and Confederate soldiers, and it surprises most visitors that large numbers of men and boys chose to disregard the state alignments to serve, instead, the side with whom they agreed.

 

In 1861, when Isaac and his brother Henry were 17-year-old school boys in Wernersville, PA, their teacher was a man named Francis Trout Hoover.  Almost three and a half decades later, their old teacher published a book titled, Enemies in the Rear:  Or, a Golden Circle Squared.  A Story of Southeastern Pennsylvania in the Time of Our Civil War.  This book is a fictionalized account of the division of loyalties among citizens in the fictional village of Haltfest, located in Berks County, PA; however, most believe that Haltfest is a pseudonym for Wernersville.  By the time the book was published, F. T. Hoover lived in Rushville, NY and Isaac was deceased and could not have read his former teacher's book.
 

Statue at the Gettysburg Visitors' Center

In the Preface, F. T. Hoover began his story about draft dodgers and active Southern sympathizers with these words:  "To square the circle, that is, to determine its exact contents in square measure, has generally been held to be impossible; but, as herein appears, the national government solved the famous problem perfectly, at least so far as it related to the Golden Circle of Knights in southeastern Pennsylvania.  And the solution showed the exact contents of this particular Circle to be an admixture, in about equal parts, of ignorance, hypocrisy and treason." 

 

As can be deduced from that beginning, F. T. Hoover did not treat his old village and its citizens in a complimentary way in his book.  People still living at the time of the book's publication, who were personally familiar with the events of their community during the Civil War, recognized specific characters, despite their fictitious names.  While they said that some of Hoover's story was pure fiction, they admitted that much of it was true.  So true, in fact, that someone wrote a book identifying the real people masked in the story by pseudonyms.  According to a local historian, copies of that book are rare, most having been destroyed by people who did not want their family names identified!

 

Canon at Gettysburg Battlefield

F.T. Hoover says in the Preface:  "...during the war the agitation and conflict were not all confined to the army and navy, the capital and the great cities.  Remote districts and obscure country places also felt the great movements and were stirred, though of course in a smaller degree.  And that in such localities many thrilling episodes occurred we can readily believe if we will but remember that in those days there were enrolling officers, drafts, and Knights of the Golden Circle." 

 

We tend to look back at history and see things in precise terms--the Union and the Confederacy.  Yet, then as now things are rarely so sharply defined.  The opinions and actions of some people fit the extremes of inflexible black and white, but experience shows that the opinions and attitudes of most people fall in shades of gray rather than absolutes.

The pain and suffering of the Civil War were the result of Americans thinking they could not work

together to resolve disagreements.  Enough Americans believed the differences were so great that the nation should be divided, but President Lincoln never believed that the South had the legal right to secede.  The flag of the United States from 1861-1863 retained all its stars throughout the war, adding a new star for the state of West Virginia.  The Union was preserved.

Francis Trout Hoover wrote his book "to deepen the interest of the present generation in the history" so that we would never again fall into the trap of Ignorance, Hypocrisy, and Treason.  I would add a fourth danger, warning us never to succumb to the arrogance of believing our generation is smarter than the Founding Fathers and over 200 years of history.

(If you wish to read Francis Trout Hoover's book, Enemies in the Rear:  Or, a Golden Circle Squared," about this little known slice of history during the Civil War, you can find several publishers of F.T. Hoover's novel in the form of 'books on demand' at amazon.com.)