Category Archives: Beginnings

What’s important to know about why Archie matters to me.

Lincoln Lives

Posted on January 22, 2013 | 1 comment

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” This wisdom from Abraham Lincoln continues to inspire many lives.

A&TLincoln

My great-grandfather, Archibald Van Orden, first saw President-Elect Lincoln at Peekskill, NY, in 1861. He would meet President Lincoln personally in 1865. Lincoln and his abiding commitment to Union would inspire Archie for a lifetime.

As I post in this blog highlights from the historical research I am pursuing, I am moved to add these thoughts about my great-grandfather himself: During four years serving his country in the Civil War, Archie lived more — and more fully — than most men live in a lifetime.

It is my honor and privilege to author the book that is inspired by Archie’s life — dire challenges, fearsome warfare, devastating losses, and the final triumph of love — that make his adventures more than a story of a man, and truly a tale for the ages.

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Whipping Bobby Lee

Posted on January 13, 2013 | Leave a comment

Robert E. Lee was among the great officers in the history of the United States Army.

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Undoubtedly, Lee was the greatest officer in the Confederate States Army.

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My great-grandfather, Archibald Van Orden, twice fought against the CSA Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee. In the US Infantry, Archie was seriously wounded in battle. In the US Cavalry, Archie was captured.

Some may say that war is not personal. Archie would tell us war gets personal fast when someone is shooting at you. Yet he would also see boys his age, just 16, shot and even killed on battlefields of Virginia, both Union and Confederate soldiers.

So who do you fight? The boy shooting at you? Or the man in command? Both.

Like many Northerners, Archie would personalize war on the enemy’s General. Colloquially, it was all about “whipping Bobby Lee”, before he whipped you.

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Escaping From Bandit’s Roost

Posted on January 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

When my great-grandfather, Archibald Van Orden, arrived at New York City in late 1861, he was 15 years old. Alone and with few funds, he sought shelter in an area called Five Points. Though the center of this notorious slum was called Paradise Park, nothing could have been farther from the truth. It was a living hell-hole.

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Cheap lodgings were available in squalid tenements, where robbery, assaults and even murders were almost daily occurrences. This was no place for a boy. Just walking the streets, danger lurked in every alley, such as “Bandit’s Roost” below.

Bandit's_Roost_by_Jacob_Riis

Even worse, the infamous gangs of Five Points — Bowery Boys, Dead Rabbits, and Roach Guards — frequently battled over their filthy turf. Innocent bystanders were hurt and even killed in sudden skirmishes among criminals.

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Archie was desperate to escape the daily dangers that surrounded him in the city, which increased his earlier resolve to join the Union Army, despite the fact that he was too young to enlist. The way he was able to accomplish his goal, in spite of the impediments, will be revealed in my book which I in the midst of writing now.

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Unconditional Surrender Grant

Posted on January 9, 2013 | 1 comment

Most Americans did not know the name Ulysses Simpson Grant in early 1862. However, by late 1868, all knew who he became: President of the United States.

The man known as U.S. Grant seemed destined for the highest office in the USA. He first came to national notice with a nickname: Unconditional Surrender Grant.

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Here’s how that came to be. After the defeat of the Union army by Confederates at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, Northerners became worried, and even despondent, about possibly losing a war they thought would be won in Virginia.

Out west, General Grant was marching his Union troops to surround by land the southern stronghold, Fort Donelson in Tennessee, while the Union navy attacked from the Cumberland River. At first, the battle did not go well for the North — Fort Donelson’s powerful cannon repulsed the Union boats. Then Confederate forces broke through Grant’s lines, seeking their escape from the trap.

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U.S. Grant rose to the occasion, rallying his volunteers to resume the offensive, hold their lines, and drive Confederates back into their fort. On February 16, 1862, Southern General Buckner had no choice but to seek terms for surrender.

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“No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender” was Grant’s reply. Telegraphs spread the news of this Union victory like wildfire, vaulting the General to celebrity with his new nickname “Unconditional Surrender Grant.”

In April 1865, my great-grandfather Archibald Van Orden would meet U.S. Grant while serving in his Union honor guard at the long-fought-for surrender of Robert E. Lee’s entire Army of Northern Virginia at Appommattox Courthouse.

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Yell Like Furies

Posted on January 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

None of us alive today has ever heard the screech of a rebel yell at the point of attack in the Civil War. But many veterans of those times recounted its effect.

For Confederate soldiers, while at a full forward sprint, the piercing yowl sounded more animal than human, enflaming their courage to do-or-die.

Southern Colonel Keller Anderson described it this way: “that maniacal maelstrom of sound; that penetrating, rasping, shrieking, blood-curdling noise that could be heard for miles and whose volume reached the heavens–such an expression as never yet came from the throats of sane men, but from men whom the seething blast of an imaginary hell would not check while the sound lasted.”

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On Union soldiers, the effect was truly terrifying, as attested by northern troops: “If you claim you heard it and weren’t scared that means you never heard it.”

Near the beginning of the Civil War, when rebel forces scattered federals at the First Battle of Bull Run, General “Stonewall” Jackson exhorted the 4th Virginia Infantry with this order: “When you charge, yell like furies.”

I can scarcely imagine the spine-tingling horror my great-grandfather, Abraham Van Orden, experienced the first time his ears were assaulted by the rebel yell.

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Crossroads of Death

Posted on January 2, 2013 | Leave a comment

My last post was entitled “Crossroads of Life”, focusing on the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, forever changing America for the better.

This post is entitled “Crossroads of Death”, for a key battle that took place in the same time period, beginning December 31, 1862, and ending January 3, 1863.

The USA called it The Battle of Stone’s Creek. The CSA called it The Battle of Murfreesboro.  Either way, it was a watershed clash with critical consequences.

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Of all the battles in the Civil War, the highest percentage of casualties on both sides occurred here. One out of every three soldiers engaged in this bloodbath was either killed or wounded. The carnage was inconceivable. As confederates charged one key federal position, four of every five attackers were shot down. No surprise that this hillock was thereafter dubbed “Hell’s Half Acre.”

Prior to this turning point, southern armies in the eastern theatre had repeatedly whipped the northern armies. But Union General Rosencrans proved at Stone’s Creek that the boys in blue could give as good as they got. Northerners finally won a hard-fought struggle with bravery, determination and sacrifice.

Eventually, this battle would enable Union General Sherman to seize control across  Tennessee, readying a surge into Georgia, dealing a mortal cut to the CSA. When my great-grandfather, Archie Van Orden, read news of the great victory at Stone’s Creek, it steeled his resolve to re-enlist for the US Cavalry in 1863.

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Crossroads of Life

Posted on December 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, but it was not to go into effect until 100 days later on January 1, 1863. If slave states in rebellion returned to the Union before then, slaves would not have been freed.

Imagine the tension, the anticipation, the fear, and the hope in the hearts of African-Americans on New Year’s Eve 1862. It was the ultimate crossroads — one road led to a life of freedom; the other to a living death of slavery continued.

Watch Night 1862

As this painting depicts, in evening church services, known as a Watch Night, whole families of slaves waited with baited breath, hungering for the moment a pocket watch would tick to 12:01 AM on January 1, 1863. The crossroads of life were finally reached, which would ultimately end slavery in America forever.

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A Fish Named Hamilton

Posted on December 29, 2012 | 11 comments

Hamilton Fish was a boyhood chum of my great-great-grandfather, Abraham Van Orden, in NYC. They remained friends throughout life. As fortune would have it, his friendship not only helped Abraham in adulthood, he even rescued my great-grandfather, Archie Van Orden, during his days of direst war horrors in late 1864.

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Even in young adulthood, Hamilton demonstrated innate talent for politics. Perhaps this was a genetic predisposition, as he was a descendant of Pieter Stuyvesant, Director-General of the Dutch Colony of Nieuw Netherland in 1647 (which would become New York in 1664 ). From those 17th century roots, the Fish and Van Orden families became neighbors, collaborators, and friends. Hamilton’s parents, Nicholas and Elizabeth, named him in honor of their friend, Alexander Hamilton, who was a Founding Father of the United States of America.

Hamilton Fish would be elected by the people of New York to serve as State Representative, NY Governor, and U.S. Senator. An early and vital supporter of Abraham Lincoln as the Republican Party Candidate for President in 1860, Hamilton would be recognized by Lincoln for his exceptional abilities, with presidential appointments both during and after the Civil War.

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Thousands of Union troops were spared horrible extremes of pain and death through the personal intercession of Hamilton Fish in southern prison camps. Thus, it is no surprise that Archie’s younger brother, my great-grand-uncle, was named Hamilton Fish Van Orden in honor of that great man and patriot.

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Anaconda Strike

Posted on December 28, 2012 | 1 comment

In 1861, Winfield Scott was Commanding General of the US Army. This old hero of the War of 1812 remained strategically sharp, though he became infirm and obese. Yet, as the painting shows, in his prime, Scott was an impressive officer.

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Building from his experience and advice from others, Scott proposed a Civil War grand strategy that was known colloquially as the Anaconda Plan. This name was inspired by the world’s largest snake, which crushes the life out of any prey.

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As we see in this illustration, a blockade of southern ports was key to the plan. In my own analysis, I would say his full strategy could be called “Three Lethal Cuts”: First, Cut Off (coastal embargoes); Second, Cut Down (amphibious assaults down the Mississippi River, severing the Confederacy in half); Third, Cut In (rampaging from west to east through Tennessee and Georgia, destroying many CSA assets).

My great-grandfather, Archie Van Orden may have read of Scott’s Anaconda Plan in northern newspapers of 1861, before enlisting, for this was no national secret. Carrying out the plan would take years and cost almost innumerable lives — but eventually the strategic brilliance of Winfield Scott won the day, and the war.

 

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34 Hours of Hell

Posted on December 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

On Friday, April 12, 1861, Confederate batteries in Charleston, SC opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, which had remained under Federal control. At 4:30 AM the first cannon fired. Bombardment continued for 34 hours. Though none on either side were killed, the shelling remained hellish to Union forces garrisoned in the masonry fort. They were outgunned and undersupplied.

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After Union supplies of materiel and food were exhausted, Major Robert Anderson had no choice except to surrender to the Confederates by April 14.  Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1861 subsequently called for raising 75,000 troops to defend Washington, D.C. against attack. For all intents and purposes, the Civil War had commenced after the unprovoked attack on Fort Sumter from rebel batteries commanded by General Beauregard.

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Major Anderson was allowed to remove the flag from Fort Sumter. No doubt he and his troops held the final lyrics of the patriotic song written by Francis Scott Key in their hearts for the rest of the dreadful war:
“And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

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