149th anniversary of Missionary Ridge

Battle of Mission [i.e., Missionary] Ridge, Nov. 25th, 1863 - presented with the compliments of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company / Cosack & Co. lith., Buffalo & Chicago. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

 
Today marks the 149th anniversary of the Battle of Missionary Ridge in Chattanooga Tennessee. On this day one solder among thousands was mortally wounded during the battle:

 "Among all the noble spirits that that day struggles so grandly for their country's flag, there was none more heroic than Walter V. Reeder, Company C of the 36th, who, having received the wound in the thigh, of which he died in about two weeks, lay bleeding on the hill-side, and taking a handkerchief out of his pocket, waved it towards the top of the ridge, silently inspiring his comrades to complete what he had so gallantly helped to commence." (History of the Thirty-Six Regiment Illinois Volunteers, during the War of the Rebellion" L.G. Bennett and WM. M. Haigh, 1876)

I know about Walter and his brother Carvosso because of an almost forgotten tombstone near Somonauk, Il. In the summer of 1997 I was a photojournalist working for the The Daily Times (now The Times) in Ottawa, Il. Workers with the La Salle County Genealogy Guild were clearing and documenting stones in Bernard Cemetery. Among the stones was that of Carvosso and Walter Reeder. It read:

"CARVOSSO, died Mar. 4 1868 aged 26 yrs. 4 days. WALTER, fatally wounded at Mission Ridge Nov. 25, 1863 and died at Chattanooga, Tenn. Dec. 13, 1863 aged 20 yrs, 8 mos. 11 ds. Both were with the 36th Ill. Vol. Infantry."

In 1997, I only knew the first names of the two soldiers and the unit they were fighting with. Over the course of a year of research I was able to obtain their medical and pension records, as well as state mustering records.



More importantly, there were two repositories of letters preserved from Walter when he sent them back to his family. I have copies of these letters, and they describe everything from camp life to his beliefs on slavery, battle accounts and how much he missed his family at home.

Although both boys have their name on this headstone, Walter lies in a marked grave at the National Cemetery in Chattanooga. Carvasso is buried in Somonauk.

 

If it wasn't for the interest in these two soldiers, and the research I did 15 years ago, I would not be making wet plate photos today.

My wet plate gallery opening at the Alley Gallery in Danville will also coincide with the 149th day of the Battle of Missionary Ridge. Amazing.

Thank you Walter and Carvosso. Thank you for giving me a window to the past, enlightening me on the ways of a soldier during the Civil War. Thank you for almost 10 years of wet plate photography and thank you for your service to our country.

I thought I would end this blog with a few words from Walter, written in August of 1863. Three short months before a musket ball tore though his thigh, lodged in his spine, and took his life a few weeks after the battle of Missionary Ridge.

Benton Barracks, St. Louis
Saturday Aug. 1st '63

"The tide of time still rolls onward, and now, I find myself to be a Soldier of almost two (2) years standing, and in taking a hasty thought back over the past, I can scarcely think where the time has gone. But then to think of the hardships we have endured, the marches we have made, and enter into all this minutiae it looks like a long long time.
      I trust that I am truly thankful that my life is still spared, though I have passed through many dangers, both seen and unseen, and my comrades have fallen on my right hand and on my left. Why my poor soul has been spared I cannot say, but I hope, to some good purpose, I trust that I may be kept from harm and return to my Home not soon to be returned again by war.
     I think some times of my comrades, who started with me in a Soldiers life, with prospects for life as good or better than mine. But they now sleep in the soil of the sunny south, and they will rest until the morning of the Resurrection when they will rise to judgment. Some of our Boys Sleep at Rolla Mo, Some at Springfield Mo. Some in Arkansas. Some in Mississippi, Some slumber in Kentucky others lie in far off Tennessee. It is a sad thought to think of this so many laying down their lives, in its morning when life seems to them to wear new attractions, and when hope pictured out a happy future to step off the stage of being.
     It seems hard to die in the spring time of life. When there seems to be so much to live for, but how much harder it is to die far from Home, among comparative strangers. No Mothers or Sisters soft hand to perform those offices, that no one can do well as they. No Fathers kind solicitude for their affection, and to comfort as far as maybe the last hours of their suffers. This seems quite hard but all this do the Soldiers. Committed to maintain our Governments. To give to the American people a land of Freedom. Where they may have civil and Religious liberty. This is what our Soldiers die for, and Should not the nation mourn their fate?"