The pictures on this site show 3rd MA Heavy Artillery soldiers at Ft. Stevens and Ft. Totten in Washington, D.C. Ft. Stevens was the scene of a battle in July 1864 when Lt. Gen. Jubal Early and his Confederate forces attacked. President Lincoln came out to watch as the artillerymen and the Sixth Army Corps repulsed the Confederates and he made history as the only sitting president to be fired on in battle. In a famous incident, the 6'4" president, wearing his trademark stovepipe hat, had to be ordered off the parapet on which he was standing by a soldier - he was drawing fire from Confederate sharpshooters on the grounds of what is today the Walter Reed military hospital. The Associated Survivors of the Sixth Army Corps installed a plaque 56 years later commemorating that "Get down, you fool!" moment. You can read more about the site and the Lincoln story on HMdb.org, the Historical Marker Database. It's a very interesting database where readers are invited to submit photos and information. Click on the "About Us" button at the top to see how you can get involved in documenting American history.
I stumbled across a very cool site online, the Woburn Public Library's "Woburn's Civil War Veterans: Carte-de-Visite Portraits from Woburn Post 161 G.A.R." This collection of photo calling cards depicts individual men in what looks like late middle age, based on the white hair, and gives his residency, occupation, and age at enlistment, and the unit in which he served. None were in the 3rd MA Heavy Artillery, but if you are looking for an ancestor who lived in Woburn, MA circa 1890, check out this site. More information is in the online finding aid. A salute to the Dr. Thomas J. Glennon Archives of the Woburn Public Library!
Co. F shared its space at Ft. Stevens with what looks like a mixed-breed, small-to-medium size dog of white and some dark color. It looks very happy, although it was probably stone deaf if it sat next to the cannons too often. Check her/him out in the new "Non-Military Personnel" section.
After 4 years of finding & identifying images of Mayflower descendants (700 and counting) on my other site, Mayflowerfaces.com, I am turning to more recent generations. For Baby Boomers like me, Civil War era ancestors were our great-great and great-great-great grandparents, not anyone we would have had an opportunity to me meet in our own lifetime. So I'm attempting to find and identify individuals associated with the 3rd MA Heavy Artillery and introduce them to their descendants and others interested in Civil War history. If you can identify any of these sergeants, relaxing with their brass cannon at Fort Totten, Washington, DC in August 1865 let me know. Photo Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-cwpb-04138. |
AuthorThe author is a historian with a Ph.D. in US history and a love for genealogy and old photos. Archives
August 2018
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