Danville’s Captain Addison Preston Reports on the Shenandoah Valley Campaign

August 2, 2012Posted inFrom the archives, Historical events, Historical people, NSM articles
Kurz and Allen illus­tra­tion of the cav­al­ry at the Bat­tle of Cedar Creek. Pho­to from the Library of Congress.

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Col. Addi­son Pre­ston was not only a good sol­dier; he was also a good writer and shared his expe­ri­ences with North Star readers.

In the spring of 1862, the Ver­mont Cav­al­ry was part of an over­all Union effort to pre­vent a Con­fed­er­ate move­ment against Wash­ing­ton. The Fed­er­als had set up head­quar­ters in the Shenan­doah Val­ley town of Stras­burg to con­trol the Man­as­sas Gap Rail­road (South­ern) and the Val­ley Pike. How­ev­er the North­ern­ers were forced to evac­u­ate the town by Gen­er­al Stonewall Jackson’s rapid flank­ing movement.

In a let­ter to the edi­tor, Cap­tain Addi­son Pre­ston of Danville offered a stir­ring account of the action seen by Com­pa­ny D of the Cav­al­ry. This unit was per­son­al­ly recruit­ed and com­mand­ed by Pre­ston. Born in Burke, the fam­i­ly soon moved to Danville. At the age of 21, Pre­ston entered Brown Uni­ver­si­ty and became an accom­plished schol­ar; how­ev­er, after a year and a half he had to with­draw because of illness.

Danville’s First Killed in Action, Rebels Vanish, and Vermont Soldier Gives Birth

August 2, 2012Posted inFrom the archives, Historical events, NSM articles
The May 17 1862 edi­tion of Harper’s Week­ly fea­tured a dra­mat­ic Winslow Homer illus­tra­tion of Rebel Sol­diers. The image is cap­tioned, “Rebels Out­side Their Works at York­town Recon­noi­ter­ing with Dark Lanterns — Sketched by Mr. Winslow Homer”. The image is an impres­sive illus­tra­tion of well equipped and dis­ci­plined con­fed­er­ate troops on a recon­nais­sance mission.

By Gary Far­row, mem­ber Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Danville’s first direct war casu­al­ty comes home. The Fed­er­als gain the upper hand at New Orleans, and the rebels in York­town dis­ap­pear. Mean­while there is a lit­tle mir­a­cle on Ship Island.

North Star May 10, 1862

Death of a Danville Cavalry Soldier

We regret to announce the death of cor­po­ral John C. Chase, who belonged to Co. D. 1st Cav­al­ry, a res­i­dent of this town, and who enlist­ed last fall and served under Capt. A. W. Pre­ston. He received a mor­tal wound on the 27th …under the fol­low­ing cir­cum­stances. On that day, an expe­di­tion was sent up in pur­suit of Ashby’s Cav­al­ry, in the Val­ley of the Shenan­doah … Orders were giv­en to pur­sue Ashby’s Cav­al­ry, who occu­pied a small vil­lage about 12 miles from Harrisburg.

Co. D. of our Cav­al­ry led by Lieut. Cum­mings was then ordered to charge through the vil­lage which order they exe­cut­ed in fine style, dri­ving the ene­my com­plete­ly across the riv­er. It was while mak­ing this charge that Cor­po­ral Chase was wound­ed — not by the reg­u­lar army foe, but by a pis­tol fired by some one from the win­dow of a house — the ball enter­ing into his hip and press­ing into his abdomen. Chase did not notice the wound at the time but road for­ward and ran down one of the rebel cav­al­ry, tak­ing him and his horse prisoner.

He soon how­ev­er became faint and called upon his broth­er sol­diers for help, who came up assist­ed him off his horse, and he was tak­en to camp where his wound was dressed, and after­wards was con­veyed to the hos­pi­tal in an ambu­lance. He lived but 24 hours retain­ing his fac­ul­ties to the last…

The Old Water Tower

April 12, 2012Posted inDanville Green, From the archives, Historical people

By Bet­ty Bolevic

The old water tow­er in Danville, built with­in a ten year peri­od after the Civ­il War.

Pri­or to Kate and Harold Beat­tie relo­cat­ing our fam­i­ly to the farm in Danville, and when spend­ing an occa­sion­al week­end with Gram­my McDon­ald, I would often sit in her large green wick­er rock­er on the wrap­around porch, con­tent­ed­ly draw­ing with my first box of crayons on the small blank sheets of paper secret­ly torn from the backs of books.

Years lat­er, sit­ting in the same spot, I would now and then become momen­tar­i­ly star­tled, first by the whis­tle, then the cloud of smoke, and final­ly the famil­iar click­ety-clack of the freight train gain­ing momen­tum as it wound its way toward St. Johns­bury after a stop at the Danville Sta­tion to unload goods – some for Delmer Smith’s Danville Grain Store.

I avid­ly watched the steam engine maneu­ver­ing its loaded cars slow­ly and effort­less­ly around the bend from the vil­lage and across the swampy field adja­cent to the front of our house, always in antic­i­pa­tion that this would be one of the rare times it would squeal to a stop and take on water that ran from the spring in Will Findley’s field (cur­rent­ly Mt View Dri­ve) and was stored in a tank with­in the gray cylin­dri­cal wood­en tow­er to the right of the track — a some­what rau­cous and lengthy process.

Prognostications for the New Year–January 1862

December 28, 2011Posted inFrom the archives, Historical events, Historical people

Prognostications for the New Year, Money Finds Its Way Back Home, and the Panorama of War Comes to Danville

By Gary Far­row, mem­ber of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Union­ist Cap­tain Lyon, who was in charge of guard­ing a US artillery sta­tion in the slave state of Missouri.

The troops set­tled in for the first full month of win­ter. Restrict­ed move­ment meant that major bat­tles in many parts of the coun­try would have to wait for spring, so the news turned to the more mun­dane aspects of the war. And, as tech­no­log­i­cal changes (such as the tele­graph) sped news to Danville, the town would see and expe­ri­ence a new, rich­er and more vivid medi­um that told the sto­ry of their age.

Grandiose prog­nos­ti­ca­tions short­change peo­ple and their sto­ries. This was nev­er truer than in the bor­der states of Mis­souri and West Vir­ginia, which were, in their own unique way, micro­cosms of the larg­er conflict.

News from the Civil War: The Spigot Starts to Open

October 10, 2011Posted inFrom the archives, Historical events

By Gary Far­row, Mem­ber of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Jour­nal­ists, prob­a­bly from the New York Her­ald, are on-site, report­ing on the war through use of the telegraph.

Pri­or to the Civ­il War, rev­o­lu­tion­ary tech­nol­o­gy remade the news­pa­per busi­ness so that infor­ma­tion could be deliv­ered from far­away places faster and cheap­er than ever before. The Octo­ber ‘61 edi­tions of the North Star brought home opin­ion from a Boston Jour­nal cor­re­spon­dent, the sen­ti­ments of a Danville sol­dier at the Vir­ginia front, and news of mil­i­tary activ­i­ties on the Gulf Coast,

North Star October 5, 1861

The Gen­er­al who would­n’t fight. A draw­ing of Gen­er­al McClel­lan and his staff. The Gen­er­al is stand­ing on the left with his hand in his jacket.

Why McClellan Holds On

The Wash­ing­ton Cor­re­spon­dent of the Boston Jour­nal writes… It has been two months since the advance of the Fed­er­al troops from Bull Run to Washington.…the peo­ple are anx­ious to have some­thing done by the large army to blot out the dis­agree­able part of that affair…

…It was sup­posed that every­thing would be in readi­ness by the first of Sep­tem­ber and that by the present time we should have made a tri­umphant march towards the very heart of seces­sion, but instead here we are throw­ing up entrench­ments with rebels flaunt­ing their hate­ful burn­ing in our face with the great dome of the cap­i­tal in full view of their work at Munson’s. It is pro­vok­ing to the blood…

…But the beau­ty of his [McClellan’s] hang­ing on… He has, by remain­ing qui­et com­plete­ly frus­trat­ed the plans of the rebels. They intend to attack us, but found we are get­ting very strong… They have con­quered all in vain… When he sees that the prop­er time has come to let go, I am con­fi­dent that he will do it in a man­ner that will win admiration.

Romance and Reality, Dissension and Dollars: The War News Trickles In

September 23, 2011Posted inFrom the archives, Historical events
A pho­to of a Civ­il War ambu­lance crew.
By Gary Far­row, Mem­ber of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

 

Sep­tem­ber of 1861, the Civ­il War was page two. It wasn’t all that unusu­al for the North Star to have no Civ­il War head­lines on the front page.

There was one item with polit­i­cal reper­cus­sions nation­al­ly. A Union Gen­er­al had tak­en it upon him­self to issue a procla­ma­tion about slav­ery. There was also a let­ter by a Ver­mont POW and a report about the Danville Com­pa­ny. That month, the read­er could also learn about what vol­un­teers were get­ting for pay.

North Star Sep­tem­ber 7, 1861

The Vermont Prisoners at Richmond

Let­ter from Cap­tain Drew
Rich­mond, VA Aug 19, 1861
 Edi­tors of the Free Press:

I am per­mit­ted by Gen­er­al Winders, the humane and oblig­ing com­man­der of this post to write you, giv­ing a list of Vt boys con­fined here, and some infor­ma­tion as to our cap­ture. For sev­er­al days before the bat­tle, I had been sick and on “Sun­day the 21st” [A ref­er­ence to the Bat­tle of Bull Run and its date July 21] was hard­ly able to move.