JPK Huson 1863
Brev. Brig. Gen'l
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2012
- Location
- Central Pennsylvania
Harper's artist, of course, captured some, slight idea of an army sucking itself along through gelatinous earth. Whose? Sign said " Burny" Confederates gleefully snarked via signs along the way, " Burny In Mud ", " This Way To Richmond ", " Burnside's Army Stuck In Mud ". Well, how could they resist?
Story of all our lives, here at CWT? " While looking for something else, tripped over this... " Wearing size 20, history-geek boots does that to us. Spend a fair amount of time in old Penn Yan papers; JPK would have returned there, had he not encountered a sniper's bullet fired from the Bliss Barn, a few months after this article ran in his local paper.
Lt. Dan Hulse, from Penn Yan, New York, checking in with his hometown paper from Co. A, 50th New York Volunteers sounds grubby, tired and a little cranky in spots- but a trooper. ( cavalry notwithstanding )
Wonderful description of what it took to get horse batteries under way- and Hulse sounds as if this may be a touchy point.
Teamsters driving- pontoon trains, artillery, infantry- nightmarish logistics on getting an army from A to h*ll, through 18" mud. Hulse's train alone was a mile long.
Edwin Forbes making misery look a little noble.
Every wagon had settled from 18" to 2 ' in mud! In a train that long! How did everyone not just unhitch the horses and desert?
" Burny Stuck In The Mud " ........ it was a humorous kind of army.
In cleaner days, although not the 50th NY, near Arlington, in 1861.
Read this next bit carefully, on Hooker and his supposed mastery over the weather, where Burnside failed. The, we imagine, Hulse got himself to bed- and hopefully eventually back to Pen Yann, Yates County, New York.
Love letters on-the-spot, inside Time, from iconic moments with which we're so familiar it's far too easy, forgetting those moving around inside. Cool letter, before The Mud March was The Mud March- it was just a miserable, spectacularly awful few days.