Pointless Prize: Civil War History

[AlanA]

lol, thanks, Beth!!

For example, “Bolivar Road” is the approach that Union troops used to engage with Confederate troops at Fox’s Gap (on Reno Monument Road) at the Battle of South Mountain in September of 1862. And I even got Reno Monument Rd. in the picture.

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[BicycleBeth]

@AlanA 207872 wrote:

lol, thanks, Beth!!

For example, “Bolivar Road” is the approach that Union troops used to engage with Confederate troops at Fox’s Gap (on Reno Monument Road) at the Battle of South Mountain in September of 1862. And I even got Reno Monument Rd. in the picture.

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I super, duper love this, Alan! How are the road conditions in the Catoctin Valley?

[AlanA]

@BicycleBeth 207879 wrote:

I super, duper love this, Alan! How are the road conditions in the Catoctin Valley?

Beth. As of today, they were awesome! They were perfectly dry. They had much less rain and ice than we got yesterday. That’s why I headed out that way (I saw on radar that they were not getting much as we were). However, they are now under a winter weather advisory for late tonight into tomorrow, so that will change soon. I will not head back out there tomorrow.

Oh, and thanks for the history lesson. I never knew that the Middletown Valley was called the Catoctin Valley back in the old days!

[bikesnick]

William B. Tillman, a free African American, was serving as cook and steward aboard the S.J.Waring, a Union merchant ship during the Civil War. The ship left New York for Uruguay but was captured by a Confederate privateer ship. Tillman, told he would be sold into slavery, still was allowed to continue his duties on route to Charleston, SC. He developed a plan, with a captured Union crewman, and attacked the captain, first and second mates with a hatchet, throwing them overboard, and taking control of the ship. He sailed the ship back to NY and was welcomed with much attention in the popular press. For saving the S.J.Waring he was awarded a $7000 ship recovery fee from a federal court. His popularity continued – Currier & Ives did his portrait, he spoke at PT Barnum’s museum, and Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Harper’s Weekly, Scientific American and others wrote about his efforts.

Tillman Drive (McLean, VA)
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[secstate]

I created a leaderboard on the website to track points for the Civil War prize. The prize sponsor’s point accounting is official but I hope the board is useful and fun. Please let me know if you have any feedback.

https://freezingsaddles.org/pointless/civilwarhistory

[bikesnick]

Robert Morris, Sr. was one of the first Black lawyers in the US. At the start of the Civil War, although he objected to the discrimination of Black soldiers, he helped in recruitment for the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, the first officially sanctioned African American unit in the US Army. He was the first Black lawyer in the US to file a lawsuit on behalf of a client and, he won.

Morris Street (Falls Church, VA)
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[bikesnick]

Rev. Marcus Dale, enrolled as a private in what became the 102nd US Colored Troops Regiment during the Civil War. He led a successful protest against unequal pay for Black soldiers and rose to the rank of commissary sergeant. After the war he taught school, and built a church and school room, but received death threats from white supremacists.

Dale Drive (Falls Church, VA)
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[bikesnick]

Rev. Dr. William J. Simmons, enslaved at birth, escaped with his mom and siblings while young. During the Civil War he served in the Union Army, including the Battle of Appomattox Court House and was present when General Robert E. Lee surrendered. He was a writer, educator, dentist, graduate of Howard University, ordained Baptist minister, and the second president of Simmons College of Kentucky (which was later renamed in his honor). He published a book about the lives of prominent African American men and was working on companion book about prominent women before he died.

Simmons Court (McLean, VA)
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[bikesnick]

Christian Abraham Fleetwood, an editor and publisher from Baltimore, enlisted in the 4th Regiment US Colored Infantry at the start of the Civil War. Having graduated from what became Lincoln College, he was given the rank of sergeant and promoted to sergeant major. He received the Medal of Honor and another medal for his extraordinary heroism during a battle outside Richmond, Virginia. (The medal is in the Smithsonian Museum of American History.) After the war, he organized a battalion and was a commissioned officer in the DC National Guards. He served as choirmaster at several Washington DC churches.

Fleetwood Road (McLean, VA)
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[bikesnick]

Joshua Dunbar, an enslaved plasterer from Kentucky, fled to Canada via the Underground Railroad. Two years into the Civil War, when the US Colored Troops were created, he returned to the US and enlisted in the 55th Massachusetts Regiment. Within a few months he was medically discharged, but reenlisted in a different Regiment. He served until the end of the war, rising to the rank of sergeant.
[His son, Paul Laurence Dunbar, was an internationally known poet, novelist, short story writer and lyricist for the first all African American musical produced on Broadway, In Dahomey. Maya Angelou titled her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, from a line in his poem Sympathy.]

Dunbar Lane (Falls Church, VA)
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[bikesnick]

Anderson Ruffin Abbott, born in Canada, became Canada’s first Black doctor. During the Civil War, he applied to be an assistant surgeon with the Union Army, but was refused. He reapplied as a medical cadet in the US Colored Troops and served in several hospitals during the war, including what became part of Howard University. He was in attendance after President Lincoln was shot. Mrs Lincoln later thanked him for his efforts by presenting a shawl which Lincoln had worn at his first inauguration.

Abbott Lane (Falls Church, VA)
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[bikesnick]

Charles Bennett Fisher served in the US Navy during the Civil War as an Officers’ Cook on the USS Kearsarge. That ship is most known for sinking the CSS Alabama off the coast of France in 1864. After the war he was a clerk with the US Treasury Department. He was one of the organizers of the first African American battalion of DC National Guards and served as an officer.

Fisher Drive (Falls Church, VA)
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[bikesnick]

Milton M. Holland, a Sergeant Major in the 5th US Colored Troops during the Civil War, was awarded the Medal of Honor for taking control of and leading Company C after all of the officers were killed or wounded in the battle at Chaffin’s Farm, Virginia.

Holland Street (McLean, VA)
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[bikesnick]

Andrew Jackson Smith was awarded the Medal of Honor for extraordinary valor during the Civil War. Smith, born enslaved, escaped when his owner intended for him to join the Confederate Army. He served as a corporal in the US 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment. In 1916, he was nominated for the Medal of Honor for his Civil War actions in a battle in South Carolina. The Army denied the request because of lack of sufficient official records. Finally in 2001, his descendants were presented with the medal by President Clinton at the White House.
(Another Andrew Jackson Smith was a US Army general during the Civil War, a graudate of the US Military Academy at West Point.)

Smith Street (McLean, VA)
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[AlanA]

Stay tuned for nicer weather. I didn’t quite make it to any of these three markers today!

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[Author]

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