Sergeant Henry W. Tisdale of 35th MA Captured at North Anna River

Freddy

2nd Lieutenant
Joined
Dec 19, 2006
Location
Worcester, MA
As many of you know my great grandfather, Sergeant Henry W. Tisdale, fought with the 35th MA Volunteers during the Civil War and kept a diary which can be read at www.civilwardiary.net.

Over the years his descendants, including myself, have visited some of the places he had during the war. My brother has visited Vicksburg, MS and Andersonville, GA with my mother and aunt, who are his grandchildren. I have visited the place he trained in Lynnfield, MA, where he was wounded at South Mountain, MD, and recently to the North Anna River Battlefield in VA, where he was captured on May 24, 1864.

This last visit to the North Anna Battlefield was very interesting and tiring. Being an AKA amputee it was difficult walking the trail in the Virginia summer heat. It was amazing to view the still visible inverted 'V" Confederate defense along the line. Reading the trail stop information was very helpful. It was clear that I came within about 50 yards of the Union advance on the trench line that Sergeant Tisdale and the members of the 35th MA led in the unsuccessful and suicidal initial skirmish assault.

The landscape there was thick woods and hilly with poor visibility making it very difficult to pinpoint exactly where Sergeant Tisdale was taken prisoner by the 7th Alabama. Anderson Station that he mentioned in his diary is gone now, but there was a photo of it at a trail stop. The RR remains. I tried to drive around the North side of the river to find several river crossings/fords, i.e., Ox Ford and Jerrico Mills, that he mentioned but they are private property today and cannot be seen from the road.

As with the South Mountain Battlefield I felt a sort of eerie spell knowing men died fighting in these places. It is almost as if ghosts of the dead were lingering at the place of their demise. What I am coming to realize is that Civil War battlefields were not always open fields. South Mountain was fields, woods, and mountainous. While the North Anna was a river, fields, woods, and hills. Brave men on both sides fought and died for their beliefs there.

I guess I am lucky that I have my great grandfather's diary to follow in his footsteps with the 9th Corps.
 
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