Orders Regarding Courts Martial and More 

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Jun 12, 2015 - Jun 13, 2015

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• Lot Description
  Lot of 5: General Orders No. 46, 25 June 1864. Extract of 1st Corps ANV Military Court. Interesting punishments: in the case of Private B.P. Kelly, 15th SC, "To be caused to ride a wooden horse or a log not above ten inches in diameter, two hours a day, one in the morning and one in the evening for twenty days, Sundays excepted, without being relieved meanwhile from his other duties; and to forfeit one month's pay." His infraction is not indicated in this extract. The other two apparently were AWOL, and both were to carry a fence rail four hours a day (2 AM, 2 PM), without relief from other duties, and one to forfeit two month's pay, the other three month's pay. This also highlights the fact that by this time, they were not executing men for desertion, even though it was punishable by death. Both sides were encountering shortages of manpower, the South, of course, more than the North. They could not afford to execute too many (and the political ramifications would have been even more dire than the manpower shortages). Estimates of desertions in the Confederacy run as high as one in three at some point during the man's term of service, in part because families begged the men to come home as the Union Armies approached.
  
  This extract with docket on verso signed by W.H. Taylor (clerk signed?) and A.E. Young. Also docketed by G.M. Sorrel.
  
  G.O. No. 18, 1st AC, 6 Nov. 1864. When charges are brought against officers and men, the party filing them will give a copy to the Adjutant of the person's regiment or battalion, and that officer will serve the copy as soon as is practicable. Signed Osmun Latrobe.
  
  G.O. No. 19, 1st AC, 9 Nov. 1864. Orders establishment of Field Officers of the Day, who will visit their guards and pickets at least once during the day and once between midnight and daylight. "Division Commanders on the North side of the James River will act as field Officers of the Day for the whole line, alternating with each other every third day...Major Genl. Field will take the first tour." By command of Lt. Genl. Longstreet, signed by Osmun Latrobe.
  
  Judge Advocate's Office, Military Court of 1st Corps, ANV. Copy of the content of G.O. No. 12, very similar to G.O. No. 18 (above), indicating that commanding officers serve the men accused of infractions. Signed by C.W. Wallace, Judge Advocate, who indicates that the work of the court has been delayed, and this is an injustice to all. For reasons that are not clear, both of the above GO's (18 & 19) are docketed as received 21 Nov., even though they were issued nearly two weeks earlier, probably part of the cause of the JAG's frustration evidenced in this communication.
  
  G.O. No. 22, 1st AC, 22 Nov. 1864. Proceedings in Military court against Asst. Surgeon T.D. Merritt, 18th Miss. Infy. accused of drunkenness on duty, misbehavior before the enemy, and willful "misapplication of Hospital stores belonging to the Confederate States." Apparently the court could not come to an agreement, and Surgeon Merritt would be returned to duty with charges dismissed. Signed by Osmun Latrobe.
  
  Joseph Kershaw, CSA
  
  The following lots (84-101) were in the possession of Major General Joseph Brevard Kershaw (1822-1894) when he was captured at Sailor’s (Saylor’s, Sayler’s) Creek, 6 April 1865. Kershaw was a native of South Carolina. A Joseph Kershaw who immigrated to North America from Yorkshire in 1750 served as a Colonel in the Revolution. Kershaw’s wife, Harriet, was a daughter of one of General Marion’s aides-de-camp. Thus, both families had a history of military service. Kershaw began practice as a lawyer in Camden, SC in 1844, but served a year as lieutenant of Co. C, Palmetto regiment, in the Mexican War. He was later a state representative and was sent to the convention which decided South Carolina’s secession, although Kershaw, himself, was reportedly opposed to it.
  
  In February he was commissioned colonel of the 2^nd SC Regiment, serving at Sullivan’s Island. Barely a week after South Carolina’s secession, Federal troops under Maj. Robert Anderson evacuated Fort Moultrie on December 26, 1860, moving to the as-yet-incomplete, but stronger, Fort Sumter. From Fort Moultrie and other points around Charleston Harbor, shelling of Fort Sumter commenced on 12 April 1861. Fort Moultrie was one of the few points to take return fire from Sumter. Fort Sumter fell later the next day, and the war had begun. Kershaw was then sent to Virginia. He was engaged at Blackburn’s Ford and First Manassas.
  
  Although he had a bit of military experience, he was not trained as a military man.  Kershaw reportedly threw himself into learning everything about what is today called “military science.” The 2^nd SC became known as one of the better trained Confederate units, and Kershaw one of the Army of Northern Virginia’s best officers. He was probably as close as any of the Generals came to the “gentleman-soldier” of southern myth, although it took a bit of time to grow into his position. (He appears to have gotten off on the “wrong foot” with Beauregard, for example. The two went their separate ways after Charleston Harbor.)  Kershaw was savvy enough to pay attention to those who “knew the ropes.”
  
  The following February (1862) he was commissioned Brigadier General, and given command of a brigade is Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. He stayed with Lee’s forces through the Peninsula, Northern Virginia and Maryland Campaigns, and was engaged with Lee at Gettysburg the following year. He then transferred to the West with Longstreet’s Corps where he was part of the charge at Chickamauga that destroyed the Federal right wing.
  
  He returned to Virginia with Longstreet, was promoted to Major General and took command of a division in 1864 in the Wilderness, Spotsylvania C.H., Cold Harbor and Shenandoah Campaign. He was with Ewell after the evacuation of Richmond, during which he was captured three days before Lee surrendered. Other than those last few days, he was in the thick of the war from beginning to end.
  
  The papers in the following lots were in Kershaw’s possession at that time. Most of them are dated 1864, when he took command of the division. Custis Lee, also captured at Sayler’s Creek, was immediately paroled. Inexplicably Kershaw was held for three months, as was Ewell.
  
  G.M. “Moxley” Sorrel
  
  George Moxley Sorrel (“Moxley”) (1836-1901) was a bank clerk in Savannah when the war began. He left his job to enlist for the Confederate cause. He was commissioned into General James Longstreet’s staff, and was present at the first major battle of the war, Manassas. A few days later, he was appointed acting adjutant general of Longstreet’s division. October 31, 1864, he was promoted to Brig. Gen. and given command of a brigade in Mahone’s division, A.P. Hill’s corps. It was likely at this time that Latrobe took over Sorrel’s position on Longstreet’s staff.  In one incident reported by Confederate Military History from Antietam/Sharpsburg, Longstreet and his staff came up on the Confederate center, which had been left with but a small regiment, the remainder sent to reinforce the left. There were two artillery, but the gunners were dead or wounded. Longstreet held the horses while his staff, primarily Sorrel and Latrobe, manned the guns, holding off the advancing Federals until reinforcements arrived, saving Lee’s army (and at least bringing the battle to a draw rather than a Confederate loss).  Not mere paper-pushers, these guys! And Sorrel would go on to be a good field commander – for a few months, until the end of the war.
  
  Osmun Latrobe
  
  Osmun Latrobe (1835-1915) was born in Mississippi, but attended Maryland Military Academy, and returned to Baltimore after the war. His grandfather, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, was the designer of the U.S. Capitol. His father, John H.B. Latrobe, was a man of many faces – inventor, lawyer, architect, philanthropist, and more. He succeeded Henry Clay as president of the American Colonization Society, helping to expand the colony of “Maryland in Liberia.” Osmun served on the staff of Gen. D.R. Jones until Jones’ death, when he transferred to Longstreet’s staff, as AAG and Inspector General, eventually becoming AG and Chief of Staff of the First Army Corps, replacing Sorrel in that role near the end of the war.
  
  Walter Taylor
  
  One of the “bigger” names here is that of Walter Taylor. From the time he reported for service in Richmond in May 1861, Walter Herron Taylor (1838-1916) was assigned to Lee’s staff as ADC and, later, AAG. Taylor was the perfect complement to Lee, handling administrative duties and correspondence, which Lee hated, with efficiency. When Lee was assigned the Army of Northern Virginia after Joe Johnston was wounded, he retained Robert Chilton and A.P. Mason from Johnston’s staff, and brought several, including Taylor, with him from Richmond. Lee reportedly kept his staff to a minimum (certainly increasing pressure on Taylor), to keep as many trained officers in the field as possible. This does show up on these papers. Lee orders every able-bodied man, including teamsters and cattle-herders to return to their units by 1864. Apparently one of Lee’s tactics by the summer and autumn of that year was defensive – stay put, dig in, and release many of these men for service on the front. If the wagons aren’t moving, you don’t need wagoners - they can man pickets, dig rifle pits and build roads. 
  
  Taylor achieved such status that he seems to have occasionally signed papers for Lee, and had clerks signing orders for him (by command of Lee). Most of these are marked “(Sgd.) W.H. Taylor,” indicating that someone else signed them. The irony is that Taylor was such a high-ranking aide, that others signed his signature. Probably the reality is that so many copies of orders and other documents left Lee’s command, that, had Taylor signed all of them, he would have been crippled well before the end of the war!
  
  Taylor (and several other aides, especially Charles Marshall) accompanied Lee to Richmond after the surrender at Appomattox Court House. Taylor’s own wife of just over a week was also waiting for him in there (Lee had allowed Taylor go to Richmond to marry Bettie Saunders on 2 April). On Easter Sunday, April 16, 1865, Taylor and G.W. Custis Lee (Lee’s son) were photographed by Mathew Brady on the back porch of Lee’s Richmond home, 707 E. Franklin St., in the now-famous series of photos. A majority of these orders have Taylor’s name on them somewhere, since Kershaw’s Division was in the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia.

  Condition

  Folds as expected. Short separations of folds at margins. A few folds with light toning along them, mostly on verso.
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