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

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 funer­al took place at the Methodist Chapel in the vil­lage, last Thurs­day in the pres­ence of sym­pa­thiz­ing friends. The deceased was buried with full mil­i­tary hon­ors… The funer­al pro­ces­sion was escort­ed to the grave with mar­tial music, and a guard of sol­diers. The cof­fin was draped in the Amer­i­can flag… The scene was solemn and impres­sive — the last sad rite, that of fir­ing a vol­ley over his grave — and the brave sol­dier was “left alone in his glory.”

****

The Ver­mont Cavalry’s Cor­po­ral John Chase lost his life in an engage­ment against Ashby’s Cav­al­ry, part of Con­fed­er­ate Major Gen­er­al Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s famous Shenan­doah Val­ley Cam­paign of 1862. The Jack­son forces con­duct­ed a guer­ril­la hit-and-run oper­a­tion with­in the Union’s inte­ri­or lines with a series of minor bat­tles over the course of 48 days. This tied up three Fed­er­al armies (52,000 men), which would oth­er­wise have been sup­port­ing the North’s offen­sive to take Richmond.

Enter­ing the Army rel­a­tive­ly late in life, 37, Chase was well regard­ed by his Com­pa­ny. Upon his death, his col­leagues chipped in $150 to pro­vide a metal­lic cof­fin and trans­port his body back to Danville. His ser­vice was held at the Methodist Church next to the Danville green.

Pri­or to join­ing the ser­vice, he was active mem­ber of the con­gre­ga­tion and vol­un­teered as the head Sun­day school teacher. Each Sab­bath he would walk the two miles from his home in Greenbank’s Vil­lage and back again.

Cor­po­ral Chase was laid to rest in Green­wood Ceme­tery (now called Danville Green Ceme­tery). His tomb­stone reads:

Ser­vant of God, well done

Thy glo­ri­ous war­fare is past

The bat­tle is fought, the race is run

And thou art crowned at last

Even­tu­al­ly 130 of his col­leagues in the Ver­mont Cav­al­ry would suf­fer the same fate.

North Star May 10, 1862

From the Potomac Army

Oper­a­tions Against Yorktown

The Rebel Army Com­pelled to Evac­u­ate Yorktown

Large Amount of Prop­er­ty Abandoned

Our Troops in Pos­ses­sion of the Enemy’s Works

The Ene­my Pur­sued by Our Army

First Despatch Wash­ing­ton May 14 12:30 P.M.

The fol­low­ing report has just been received from Fortress Monroe: -

“York­town was evac­u­at­ed last night. Our troops now occu­py the enemy’s works. The ene­my left a large amount of camp equipage and guns, which they could not destroy for fear of being seen.”

****

The Con­fed­er­ate army was in bad shape. They were extend­ed across the Vir­ginia penin­su­la from York on the York Riv­er to Wal­nut Creek, where the Ver­mont Brigade had sus­tained their casu­al­ties; not only out­num­bered ten to one, the South­ern­ers were in dis­ar­ray over the tran­si­tion between expir­ing enlist­ments and the imple­men­ta­tion of conscription.

But they did man­age to buy some time through a bit of trick­ery. Con­fed­er­ate Gen­er­al John B. Magrud­er marched a cou­ple of thou­sand troops through a small clear­ing with­in site of the Fed­er­als and brought them back around again through a small for­est and repeat­ed the exer­cise over and over. Con­se­quent­ly Gen­er­al Heintzel­man, who was lead­ing the fed­er­al advance, report­ed back to McClel­lan that the Con­fed­er­ates were well for­ti­fied with many more com­ing to the front. How­ev­er, rebel com­mand knew the ruse could not go on for­ev­er and that the posi­tion was ulti­mate­ly unten­able, and they withdrew.

North Star May 17, 1862

Battle of New Orleans–Rebel Treachery

Com. Porter states that after the forts had agreed to sur­ren­der, and while he was in the

cab­in of the Har­ri­et Lane, under a flag of truce, draw­ing up arti­cles of capit­u­la­tion with ves­sels of the fleet all around him, the rebels were employed in tow­ing an iron float­ing bat­tery of 18 guns — … to place above the forts, set fire to the bat­tery and turned adrift upon our ves­sels. Com. Porter asked the rebel Gen­er­al aboard his ship (who was present to sign the papers of capit­u­la­tion) if the bat­tery had pow­der or guns aboard — The Gen­er­al replied he did not know.

The Com­modore told him that he and his men could stand the fire and blowup if he could, and went on with the con­fer­ence, after direct­ing his offi­cers to look out for their ships. While drift­ing on us, the guns get­ting heat­ed, explod­ed throw­ing the shot about the riv­er… Had she blown up near the ves­sels, she would have destroyed the whole of them.

Com. Porter after­wards took pris­on­ers the offi­cers and men engaged in this busi­ness and put them in close con­fine­ment. He thinks they should be sent North and kept in close con­fine­ment until the war clos­es or be tried for their infa­mous con­duct in vio­lat­ing a flag of truce.

****

New Orleans is locat­ed 105 miles upriv­er from where the Mis­sis­sip­pi enters the Gulf, At the 30 mile mark con­fed­er­ate forts St Phillip and Jack­son lay across oppo­site sides of the riv­er pro­tect­ing against a fur­ther advance towards the city. Com Porter’s role in the fed­er­al inva­sion was to lay waste to these strong­holds so that the rest of the navy could safe­ly pass. His flotil­la pumped 13,000 mor­tar shells into the two forts while the rebels sus­tained a loss of four men killed, four­teen wound­ed and only sev­en guns dis­abled. The forts could not be dis­armed so the Navy had to fight its way up river.

Once Admi­ral Farragut’s ships came on Lake Pontchar­train, they were at a high­er sea lev­el than near­by New Orleans. This would have allowed them to rain shells down upon the city. The Con­fed­er­ates had no choice but to evacuate.

North Star May 23, 1862

War and General Items

A let­ter to a per­son in Bran­don, from Ship Island, says that a Ver­mont pri­vate on guard

there fell sick one night and was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal, where the sol­dier gave birth to a child. The sol­dier and young recruit are doing well.

****

Over 400 women, besides nurs­es, served dur­ing the con­flict. No doubt there were a few more “Civ­il War” babies born along the way.

North Star May 31 1862

The Wounded Vt. Soldiers

The Burling­ton Free Press of last week says — By the kind per­mis­sion of Dr Thay­er, we spent an hour or two recent­ly at the Marine Hos­pi­tal, now occu­pied as an Army Hos­pi­tal filled with Ver­mont troops wound­ed at Yorktown…

The wounds are of all descrip­tions, the major­i­ty, how­ev­er, being in the legs and thighs, show­ing the rebel sol­diers fired low.

****

Some of the patients’ recu­per­a­tive suc­cess was attrib­uted to Vermont’s clean air.