Myth of Heroes [Crandell]

Myth of Heroes

By John Crandell

Chapter excerpt from: Homage To Downtown – In Search of Place and Memory in Ancient L.A.

© 2008 all rights reserved

THE MYTH OF HEROES 85

86 THE MYTH OF HEROES


His very particular and determinable role in America’s Civil War is reason enough to note that Winfield Hancock once lived within the budding area of the Expansion District in Los Angeles. As well, his was an alluring flame in the realm of human personality and few within his orbit remained unaffected, one way or the other. Added to his roles in military and constitutional history as well as the history of presidential elections, there remains the matter of that still indefinable quality of such personalities as his, those who blaze across the heavens and live their lives as candles amongst the swirl of ordinary mortals.

In addition to all of this there has remained a most singular legend regarding his home on Main Street in Los Angeles. The story connecting his home at Third and Main with the horrific finale at the Battle of Gettysburg has both haunting and magisterial aspects poignantly (and only partially) illuminated by the late author Michael Shaara within his historical novel The Killer Angels. The magisterial aspect of the story is such that Shaara was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and his tome was quite faithfully reflected within a cinematic adaptation in 1993. However, nary is there mention of Los Angeles, either within the novel or the movie. That aside, the legend which Shaara incorporated into his novel did not begin or extend from the violence at Gettysburg. Rather, it was created in 1886 by a very imaginative woman. Never the less, the larger story of Hancock, his career, character and his confraternity at Third and Main streets forms a collateral legend, one which indelibly ties the city to the Civil War battle; it serves as the core of Los Angeles’ unknown pre-Hollywood Hollywood epic, one which has long awaited a most appropriate treatment.

Four of the five protagonists were previously acquainted, had served together (variously) as early as the war with the Seminole Indians in northern Florida, had fought alongside one another under Winfield Scott in Mexico and helped subdue the Mormon Secession at Salt Lake ten years later. The fifth protagonist, Cameron Thom, a native of Culpepper County, was Hancock’s Main Street neighbor and landlord as well. The other soldiers besides Hancock were Richard Garnett, Albert Johnston and Lewis Armistead and all of the five men were present at or stationed near Los Angeles during the twenty four months prior to the April 1861 bombardment of Fort Sumter and the outbreak of Civil War hostilities.

Hancock and Thom reunited only once, many years hence; Garnett and Armistead eventually served together under the command of Robert E. Lee. Fate would lead these latter three to oppose Hancock at Gettysburg in the greatest battle ever to occur on North American soil.

! !

Upon a Conestoga Wagon, bearing west towards granite and sand, twenty-four-year-old Cameron Erskine Thom fled dominion, sailed away and entered an extravagant American fable on an early


morning of March in the first spring of America’s all-enthralling rush to the luminal Mother Lode of California. Sadly, more than half of his traveling compatriots soon fell victim to typhoid in the early mining camps. Having studied in law at Jefferson’s university at Charlottesville, he was able to eventually garner an appointment as examining clerk on the board of the United States Lands Commission on cases emanating from southern California and in 1854 he moved his family to the pueblo of Los Angeles. By the time he would meet and befriend Hancock five years later, he had served as district attorney and had been elected as state senator. His brother Pembroke, a Mexican-American War veteran, had perhaps known of Hancock’s notable exploits in the horrific battle of Molino del Rey of late summer 1847.1

Exactly when Thom had purchased seven acres at 3rd and Main streets cannot be determined. Located at the west edge of the fertile river plain, the parcel was highly suited for agriculture and thus had been granted into private hands many years prior to Americanization. An existing brick dwelling on the lot had been constructed by Captain Jesse Hunter in 1853 and was the first dwelling in the city with walls constructed entirely of brick, rather than adobe block.2

In an 1887 memoir of her early years spent in Los Angeles, Emma Adams gave a quite detailed description of Thom’s seven-acre property, of his close personal friendship with Winfield and Almira Hancock and two brick cottages set side by side on Main street. She described a cottage which Thom had constructed for Hancock’s use, a duplicate of his own dwelling, as having been of one story, painted red and having a wide verandah in front where much socializing had taken place in the time previous to the Civil War. In 1884, a portion of the duplicate residence was moved a short distance to allow for the construction of Mayo Street, later East 3rd Street. Most likely this was put to use for retail purposes and was demolished in 1896 to allow construction of the Gray Hotel. The final use of the space was as the first office of Thomas L. Tally, a former cowhand who had recently removed from Waco, following the footsteps of his mother and brothers to become an exhibitor of Kinetoscopes in Los Angeles.3

After his service in the Mexican-American War, Hancock had been assigned to various forts in the Midwest and was stationed at Fort Leavenworth in 1857 when Brigham Young set up his theocracy at Great Salt Lake and declared independence from the United States, arousing the ire of the American citizenry. Hancock accompanied troops under the command of General William Harney, who was dispatched by President Buchanan to the Utah Territory to subdue the religious secession. The Army of Utah under the command of the grave, silent and handsome Albert Sydney Johnston had preceded them. Upon their arrival at Fort Bridger, Harney and his men found utter devastation. Mormon guerrillas had burnt the fort and Johnston’s wagon trains. With the loss of feed and no local pasturage, the mules and horses had starved to death.4

With the yielding of the Mormons following upon the outrage generated by the massacre at Mountain Meadows in southern Utah, Hancock was ordered to the command of a regiment of the 6th Infantry which departed August 21st, 1858 for the Pacific Coast via the Humboldt River and Carson Pass. They were met by a snowstorm in the Carson Valley on October 11th and forged through three feet of snow at the summit of the Sierra Nevada Range. Transit over the mountains consumed an entire month; they entered Sacramento on November 11th. Following a visit at Sutter’s Fort the expedition moved west down ‘J’ Street and camped that evening on the west side of the Sacramento


CAMERON ERSKINE THOM. CARTE DE VISITE. Courtesy – Henry Huntington Library Manuscripts Department.


THOM AND HANCOCK COTTAGES AT THIRD AND MAIN, 1861.


WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. CARTE DE VISITE, JANUARY 1864. GUTEKUNDT STUDIO, PHILADELPHIA. Courtesy of Bruce Stocking.


River. Included were 180 wagons, artisan shops, a hospital and the regimental band. Forty personnel under arrest brought up the rear and the regiment arrived at Benicia in mid November. After taking leave and traveling to Washington, Hancock soon returned with his family and was immediately appointed to become quartermaster of the Southern District of California at Los Angeles.5 Follow -ing their crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the Isthmus Route in Panama and sailing onward to California, the Hancocks arrived at San Pedro on Tuesday, the third day of May 1859. The newly arrived quartermaster immediately began inquiring as to possible locations for a new Army depot in Los Angeles.6

While on leave he’d traveled by steamer to the East Coast, vacationed for two months in the nation’s capital and returned west with his wife. He had married Almira Russell, the daughter of a St. Louis merchant while previously stationed at Jefferson Barracks. Supposedly, Mrs. Hancock had deep reservations about the western venture. In her memoir of 1887, which would also suffice for that of her late husband, she related an encounter with Robert E. Lee at one of Washington’s soirees, a highly ironic event in the play of future history. Astoundingly ironic if indeed it was true:

“How well I remember General Robert E. Lee, then a major, who was stationed there at that time. He was the Beau Ideal of a soldier and a gentleman. When bidding us “good-bye”, upon the eve of our departure, he said to me: “I understand that you consider deserting your post, which is by your husband’s side, and you are not going to California with him. If you will pardon me, I should like to give you a little advice. You must not think of doing this. As one considerably older than Hancock, and having had greater experience, I consider it fatal to the future happiness of young married people, upon small provocation, to live apart, either for a short or long time. The result is invariably that they cease to be essential to each other. Now promise me that you will not permit him to sail without you.”7

! !

Chief among the responsibilities of Hancock’s assignment in Los Angeles was the large task of supplying troops assigned and isolated at two distant points along the Colorado River/Arizona border. Theretofore, the Army’s primary interest in southern California had been in contending with pilferage and predations by various native American tribes ranging through the Tehachapi Mountains and Owens Valley, to lands of the Quechan Indians near the Yuma River crossing on the lower Colorado River, and easterly to the Pima Indian villages near where the city of Phoenix was destined to emerge.

Lewis Addison Armistead had served continuously with the 6th Infantry since the war with Mexico; Richard Brooke Garnett had also served many years with the 6th, but had not gone to Mexico. They had previously been together in Florida under the command of Armistead’s father in the Seminole War of the early 1840s. In the winter season preceding Hancock’s assignment to Los Angeles, Garnett had command of two companies of troops at Fort Yuma near the juncture of the Colorado and Yuma rivers. In charge of two other companies, Armistead was directed to assume command of the new post


ALMIRA RUSSELL HANCOCK. Courtesy – Library of Congress.


at Beale’s Crossing, located at the southern tip of present-day Nevada.8

Richard Garnett’s command visited Los Angeles early in June following Hancock’s arrival. The troop’s two-week encampment outside the city likely afforded both men the opportunity to reconnoiter their previous associations. Armistead certainly would have been a subject of discussion. Both had served separate assignments with him and there had long remained the old West Point legend of his cracking Jubal Early’s skull with a mess plate in June 1836.9

Garnett would shortly return with his men on July 7th to board the USS Floyd at San Pedro and proceed to the Gulf of California and a new assignment at Fort Yuma.10 During the evening of July 29th, Hancock received an express message from Armistead stationed at Beale’s Crossing. Two-hundred Indians had sacked the campsite of an Army search party and absconded with their mules. Armistead requested additional men and materiel plus a herd of cattle. The native’s trouncing of Fort Mojave’s vegetable garden on August 9th incited a series of major hostilities.11

Following his suppression of this uprising, Armistead proceeded on a leave of absence. He made a short visit to Los Angeles on September 14th as a passenger aboard the overland stage bound for San Francisco; whether or not there was sufficient time for a visit with old friends is not known. His visit home to Virginia was to last nearly a year; Army headquarters in Washington finally ordered his return to California on October 1st of 1860 and on the following December 27th, he assumed command of San Diego Barracks and remained in the assignment until leaving federal service the following spring.12 Garnett was appointed as commander of Fort Yuma on October 11th, 1859, where he’d been on duty in blazing heat since early August.13

With the extreme heat and the sun’s declining azimuth, such gardening efforts as practiced during the spring at Fort Mojave would probably have been of no use to Garnett’s men. By the end of the year, disease became prevalent at Fort Yuma. The incidence of scurvy was attributed to the lack of a balanced diet and heavy dependence upon salt-preserved meat. Hancock had not been able to see to the provision of dried fruit or vegetable preserves; eight enlisted men perished during the month of December alone. Dysentery also claimed the life of Lieutenant D.D. Clark two days before New Year’s. The officer had first arrived at the post only a few weeks earlier.14

Growing conditions in the Los Angeles region had been very poor in the winter-summer season of 1859 and with the resultant harvest, business conditions plummeted. A local depression set in that fall and continued well into the spring of the following year. Sufficient produce for supply to the river forts may have been unavailable to Hancock.15

! !

General Albert Sydney Johnston, recently commander of the Army of Utah, arrived from the east on the first day of spring, 1860, with a party of thirty-two men. He was greeted on his approach to Los Angeles by Hancock as well as by his brother-in-law, Doctor John Strother Griffin. He proceeded on to San Francisco via the overland stage after a few days’ visit with the Griffin family at their home on Main Street, one and a half blocks north of Hancock’s residence.16

In the following month, Hancock was afforded complementary use of office space by John Temple


LEWIS ADDISON ARMISTEAD. Courtesy – U.S. National Archives.

ALBERT SYDNEY JOHNSTON. Courtesy – Harper’s Weekly.

RICHARD BROOKE GARNETT. Courtesy – U.S. National Archives.


within the latter’s “Marble Temple block” adjacent to the brand spanking new Temple Market block, to be converted for use in the following year as the county courthouse. He would keep his office in operation on the second floor of Temple’s building until early in the following year whereupon he incorporated his office and residence together in Thom’s square brick cottage at 3rd and Main.17

Relieved of his desert command in October 1860, Garnett departed for Los Angeles and upon arrival, secured lodging at the Bella Union Hotel. This would be his final visit to the city pursuant to being reassigned to the Army depot at Benicia.18 Later that month, Hancock initiated an experiment in view to supplanting the cost of commercial messenger service to Fort Mojave. With animal propulsion courtesy of one specimen from Edward Beale’s famed dromedary corps, Georges Xaralampo, or “Greek George,” was dispatched from the city on the final day of summer, with route directions over Cajon Pass, down the Mojave River and east across the barren Mojave Sink. Unfortunately, camels are more suited for carrying heavy burdens in fine soil or sand; they are not capable of high-speed voyaging over rocky terrain. One week later, an express messenger arriving from the Colorado River reported that he’d found George and companion laid up at Lane’s Crossing in “not too good condition.” The lives of two camels were eventually expended in Hancock’s forlorn effort to hasten communications with Army troops stationed on the far California border.19

Come the following January, a revolt broke out amongst the remaining camels at the government corral on Spring Street. On the second night following New Year’s, one or more of those at the bottom of the corral’s pecking order proceeded with a “coup de grace” against the immediate dromedary-in-chief; Hancock discovered the mutilated remains of the large animal early the next morning, following what had perhaps been the oddest overnight ruckus in Los Angeles history.20

Just prior to the great seventeen-hour rain deluge of Christmas 1860, word arrived of the Army’s decision to join the separate departments of California and Oregon into one unit, to be officially known as the Department of The Pacific, with headquarters at San Francisco. Rumors of such a change had been circulating since the previous summer, including the notion of a possible new command being assigned to Albert S. Johnston.21

With the commencement of war the following April, Hancock volunteered to Washington for combat but his offering was ignored and he soon repeated his request, this time directly to his namesake, Winfield Scott. His orders of reassignment arrived unexpectedly on August 3rd and he departed with his family on August 10th after his five-year-old daughter christened Phineas Banning’s ill-fated steamer “Ada Hancock” at the harbor. A few days hence, he reported to Army headquarters in San Francisco and received orders assigning him to the warfront. Fortunately for the Union cause, he would not meet his match until after the end of the war, not until the April day of 1867 when he would meet Roman Nose, the foremost warrior of the Sioux Nation, upon the far western plain of Kansas.22

! !

Within the introduction to his 1988 biography of Hancock, author David Jordan speculated that Mrs. Hancock destroyed her husband’s personal papers following the general’s death in February 1886. A thorough lack of materials traceable to Hancock’s possession at the end of his life led Jordan to


surmise the possible destruction.23 As are all of our own affairs of memory, Almira Hancock’s published reminiscences of events in Los Angeles in June of 1861 are suspect. A portion of the manuscript which describes a now-legendary farewell party held on the evening preceding the departure of a group of southerners was written, at the least, in a state of confusion – and at the most, in adroit contrivance. A haunting myth sprang forth upon the weave of “Allie” Hancock’s gossamer fable, a story which suggested that George Pickett, Garnett and Armistead had all been present together with her husband one last time in the City of Angels and that the gathering had ended with a heart-throbbing farewell. She related that it was Armistead who had been the most distraught: “With tears which were contagious, streaming down his face, and hands upon Mr. Hancock’s shoulders, while looking him steadily in the eye, said, “Hancock, good-bye; you can never know what this has cost me, and I hope God will strike me dead if I am ever induced to leave my native soil, should worse come to worst.”24

! !

Alphonzo Ridley and Albert S. Johnston crossed paths on Los Angeles’ Main Street simply by accident one evening sometime early in the month of June of that year, 1861. Ridley was the town’s under-sheriff and putative leader of a local militia group drawn together by strong sentiments in favor of the Confederacy. With his being deposed by General Edwin Sumner after three months in command of the Department of The Pacific, Johnston had come to the city to try to figure or decide regarding his and his family’s immediate future. All evidence indicates that he had no intentions of taking up arms against the Union prior to his departing California that year. Upon Ridley’s broaching the prospect of Johston’s accompaniment of a party of southerners to the new Confederacy, they quickly repaired a few steps away to confer in private within the residence of Johnston’s brother-in-law. Johnston then decided to investigate future prospects for himself and his family at the Johnston family ranch in Texas and to accompany Ridley’s group across the desert.25

If the two men were so paranoid of being overheard, of having their intentions be discovered, why would Johnston and his wife then proceed to attend a “farewell” reception, the legendary event of June 15th, a few doors to the south at the office and dwelling of Hancock, who by then had certainly become the primary figurehead of Union stability under an explosive political climate in Los Angeles?

The degree of Union paranoia of secessionist activity and the possible loss of California’s munificence had been manifest by the dispatch of Edwin Sumner incognito on March 22nd from Washington to San Francisco, and his relief of Johnston. Without provocation, General of The Army Winfield Scott would shortly issue orders for Johnston’s arrest in such case that the latter should attempt to return east, either overland or by sea. The order was issued on June 3rd, two weeks prior to Johnston’s disappearance from Los Angeles.26

It is questionable whether Hancock would have openly associated with intended secessionists given the stridency and danger then extant, as well as the potential adverse impact upon his future career. In addition, if he’d known of Scott’s order, he would have had to ascertain Johnston’s intentions. Although it will probably never be established to a certainty, it can easily be speculated that the farewell event alleged by Hancock’s widow was a fictional and highly romantic construct, rather than


a simple confusion of memory. Salient portions of Shaara’s The Killer Angels apparently were inspired by Almira Hancock’s fabulous yarn.

Lewis Armistead was not present in Los Angeles on June 15th, the evening before the Southerners set out to rendezvous at Warner’s Ranch and proceed eastward under the night-time illumination of the great celestial comet of that July (with multi-hued fountains and exceeding 100 degrees length, it was one of the brightest in all of recorded history).27 He would arrive back in Los Angeles more that a week hence and then rapidly depart in pursuit of Ridley and Johnston having finally gained a leave of resignation.28

Detailed research by military historian George Stammerjohan leads to the conclusion that Armistead traveled to San Francisco in early May of that year having granted himself leave-of-absence in a precipitous effort to directly resign his commission, had met with Sumner’s rebuff and was ordered to return to San Diego to begin again with his effort to receive a sixty-day leave of resignation. His new letter of resignation was dated May 26th, 1861, the day upon which he had returned to San Diego. Stammerjohan’s research belies the official Post Return for San Diego Barracks that Armistead submitted to Army authorities for that month’s garrison activities, one that reflected false information.29 Garnett and Pickett were also not present with the Hancock’s on the evening of June 15th. George Pickett had never visited or counseled with Hancock in Los Angeles. After resigning from his command at Fort Steilacoom near Puget Sound, he proceeded eight-hundred miles overland and quite possibly boarded the steamer Uncle Sam in San Francisco on August 21st enroute to New York City. Ironically, Hancock and his family were passengers on this boat; might the hero of Molino del Rey have known or recognized the hero of Chapultepec?30

On May 14th in the week during which Armistead visited the Bay Area, San Francisco headquarters had issued Special Orders Number 82 directing Armistead’s relief from command at San Diego and temporary assignment out of the 6th Infantry, to proceed to Camp Fitzgerald in Los Angeles and report to Major Steven Carleton. The next day, Sumner, infuriated over Armistead’s brash approach to protocol, issued General Orders Number 6, directing that commanding officers at all posts proceeding under seven days or less leave of absence, specifically not travel further afield “that they cannot in the usual mode of travel rejoin their posts by the expiration of the leave.”31

Armistead finally was relieved from his garrison command on June 18th and departed the following day for Los Angeles in charge of a company of troops detached to assist securing Hancock’s depot. Word of the approval of his leave awaited his arrival at the depot; soon he visited Mrs. Johnston at the Griffin residence and without doubt stopped in at Third and Main to say farewell to Winfield and Almira, more than a week following the departure of Johnston and Ridley. And his fate at Gettysburg indeed turned out as he had conjectured, if we accept Mrs. Hancock’s account of the parting of ways.32

Albert Johnston returned to his boyhood home in Texas only to discover it in crumbled ruins and then had to join the Confederate Army as his only resort. Ultimately, he was destined to lead the last charge into the peach orchard astride Fire Eater at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee. His clothing was grazed by a number of bullets and the sole of one boot split in half; his men had forced the Union line to break and retreat. Only after returning to the Confederate line did Johnston realize that he’d been shot, too late to be treated, and then bled to death from a wound behind a knee.33


And by common lore we know that Armistead died two days after leading 150 of his troops over the stone wall at the High Water Mark, the finale at Gettysburg. Every Confederate who crossed the wall became either a casualty or a prisoner. Shot through by two Minnie-Balls, Armistead fell beside a Union cannon and when approached soon after by Hancock’s chief assistant, he requested that a message be delivered: “Tell General Hancock for me that I have done him and done you all an injury which I shall regret the longest day that I live.”34

His remains were disinterred a month later and taken to Baltimore for reburial in St. Paul’s Churchyard beside those of his uncle George Armistead, the hero of the 1814 Battle of Fort McHenry. The Star Spangled Banner, observed through the mist of “dawn’s early light”, thus inspiring Francis Scott Key, was for many years the most treasured possession of the Armistead family.35 Hancock was also shot only minutes later some two hundred yards distant; but he recovered and would resume his command the following year. Upon the ending of the war and the assassination of Lincoln he was to be summoned to Washington by the new president to help restore order. The capital fell into the throes of pandemonium with all of the various rumors of conspiracy, and Hancock’s arrival would largely serve to calm the populace.36

Johnston’s widow remained to live the balance of her life in southern California. She eventually purchased 262 acres of Rancho San Pasqual in the San Gabriel Valley, built a residence thereon and named it Fair Oaks after her childhood hometown in Virginia. In a letter written to her from Vallecitos on June 30th, 1861, General Johnston remarked that Armistead had joined the party of Confederates that morning and had also delivered her letter.37

A report by a pony express rider from Fort Yuma was subsequently published in the Los Angeles Star. This report confirmed that Armistead had caught up and joined with Ridley and Johnston’s party, and that he was accompanied by one of his three younger brothers. Frank Stanley Armistead, his next younger brother, had graduated from West Point in 1856, had recently resigned his commission and joined the Confederate Army to serve as General James Longstreet’s assistant adjutant general at the Battle of Bull Run, the point in time at which his elder brother was journeying eastward across the southwestern deserts.38

The two other brothers were destined to serve together in Company ‘A’ of Virginia’s 6th Cavalry. It was the second youngest brother, Walker K. Armistead Jr., who would be present and assigned to Lewis’ own personal staff at the Gettysburg disaster, two years following their rendezvous in southern California.39 Lewis Armistead’s only son had been born in 1844 and also was named Walker Keith Armistead. Eight years after his father’s death, this son married Julia Frances Appleton, a grand-daughter of Daniel Webster, and in October 1867, Edward Bowles Armistead, Lewis’ youngest brother, married Susan Lewis Marshall, a great grand-daughter of United States Chief Justice John Marshall. Following her death the next year, Edward proceeded to then marry Elizabeth Lewis Marshall, the Chief Justice’s great great niece.40

! !

Relieved from desert command in late September 1860 and reassigned to the “Army Yard” at Benicia supply depot, Richard Garnett resigned his officer’s commission on May 17th, during the week


in which Armistead arrived on his quest to headquarters on Washington Street in San Francisco. He departed the west coast by steamer within the week; perhaps Armistead had anticipated joining him. His cousin, Robert S. Garnett, with whom he had graduated from West Point, had resigned as well only two weeks earlier upon returning from Europe where he’d toured the cannon depots of Paris. Major Robert Garnett had once served for thirty months as aide-de-camp to General Zachary Taylor previous to Taylor’s election as president and would soon become the first Confederate general to die in the rebellion after five weeks service as Robert E. Lee’s chief of staff.41

Garnett had first come west in 1858 under Hancock’s command as a member of the march to California, following their involvement in quelling the Mormon secession in Utah. The Misfortunes which he’d encountered on the farther edge in California’s desert might be seen as harbingers of that which he would meet under the command of Stonewall Jackson in northern Virginia, followed by death on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg. Hit directly by canon shot at twenty yards distance, his body could not be identified; it was interred in a mass grave. Jackson had attempted to stage a court-martial against him for fourteen months following the Battle of Kernstown; he had fulfilled both the personal and military obligations of his brigade command in serving as pall-bearer at Jackson’s funeral, following his nemesis’ death at Chancellorsville, only two months prior to Gettysburg.42

! !

Hancock’s first success in the war occurred in March 1862 at the Battle of Williamsburg immediately following McClellan’s siege of Yorktown on the Virginia Peninsula. Outflanking the Confederates and finding himself cut off from the Union line, Hancock requested reinforcement and instead of withdrawing as ordered by Edwin Sumner, he waited, foreseeing an alternative fate and formed his troops into a reverse-slope defense. Immediately they were confronted by an overwhelming force of Southerners formed in solid phalanx, repeatedly cheering “Bull Run!” As related by historian Bruce Stocking, Hancock dashed to the fore and electrified the scene with his booming voice: “Gentlemen, charge with the bayonet!”

Thus motivated, his troops (including George Armstrong Custer) charged into and decimated the Southerners. They suffered only 126 casualties as opposed to over 600 of that of the Confederates commanded by Jubal Early. Williamsburg then fell and Hancock’s name was soon trumpeted from coast to coast with McClellan’s appellation “Hancock The Superb.”43

During the following fifteen months he would be involved in the successive battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the last in which his division stood rearguard while the defeated Union forces under the confused direction of Joseph Hooker withdrew to safety across the Rappahannock. Hancock’s force withstood four hours of continual assault and artillery barrage; in command and inspiration of his troops in protecting the Army of the The Potomac, he played what may have the most critical role of the entire war. If the Union Army had been decimated while trying to escape across the river, Washington would have stood defenseless and the Battle of Gettysburg would never have occurred.44

By all accounts of the day and nearly all measures, Hancock can well be considered as being


one of the most alluring characters in our nation’s history, and one of the most forgotten. To say that he was beloved by those of his time seems archaic, but nothing more can adequately be said in attempting to delineate the bond which had developed between Winfield Hancock and the American public in the years following the war.45

His earlier military acquaintances dating to his days at West Point and in Mexico would recall his remarkable beauty and its attendant effect wherever he would happen to travel. His striking appearance, his calming and commanding presence and his interpersonal alchemy all synergized and wrought miracles at various scenes of battle. Men felt safe in his presence and his presence at Williamsburg and at Chancellorsville had served to avert disaster for the Union army and would so again at Gettysburg, at Spotsylvania and at the Wilderness. And with his unbridled penchant for cussing, everyone would either fall over in laughter, or the atmosphere immediately turned sapphire.46

But it was Chancellorsville rather than Gettysburg which some historians now consider to have been the apogee of Lee’s four-year campaign towards Southern independence. For his leadership in preventing the Union’s defeat at Chancellorsville, Lincoln promoted Hancock to serve as commander of the entire second corps, and with this corps the thirty-eight-year-old general soon realized his greatest achievement.

Many decades before, in the Maryland village of Taneytown, his grandfather had been dispatched by General Washington towards Valley Forge in charge of nearly a thousand Hessian mercenaries captured from Burgoyne’s army in The War of Independence.47 And on the first of July in 1863, having received word of the initial engagement and the death of John Reynolds west of Gettysburg, George Meade would dispatch his second corps commander from Taneytown to assume control of the battlesite and to assess its geography. Enroute northward on Taneytown Road Hancock met up with a lone Army ambulance bearing the body of Reynolds homewards.

The general’s arrival at East Cemetery Hill reignited the confidence of the Union troops who had become scattered and were running for their lives down the Baltimore Pike. A huge cheer arose at the sight of Hancock; an atmosphere of wild panic evaporated and the soldiers quickly assembled into ranks. Soon they fortified Oliver Howard’s forces atop Cemetery Hill, crucial terrain towards which Jubal Early’s Confederates seemed to be advancing. Having controlled the Union men and inspired them to secure the high ground, the commander sent word to Meade describing the advantages of the site and with that information, Meade committed his entire force to engage Lee’s army.48

Disaster again loomed with Daniel Sickle’s blunder on the Union left on the second of July. Sickle’s movement of the third corps far in advance of the general line resulted in a quarter-mile long gap at Plum Run below Little Round Top. James Longstreet’s brilliant first corps assault on the gap soon presented the threat of the cutoff and loss of the Union’s entire left side. Meade procrastinated in the resultant chaos and finally sent in his second corps commander. Again, Hancock would seize the moment and effectually save the day for the Army of The Potomac by ordering three crucial maneuvers including overpowering charges by the 13th Vermont and 1st Minnesota regiments.49

During the peak of the great Confederate cannonade the next afternoon, Hancock proceeded to ride out in front and along the entire length of his command and retraced his path in return. In exposing himself to the rain of exploding shells during the two-mile ride, he proffered reassuring


WINFIELD HANCOCK AND HIS SECOND CORPS COMMAND. BATTLE OF COLD HARBOR. MATHEW BRADY. Courtesy – Library of Congress.


CEMETERY RIDGE, GETTYSBURG. U.S. Geological Survey.


and enticing gestures to steel his men for the coming horror.50 And from Seminary Ridge to the west then came Pickett’s Charge, including Armistead, Garnett and other associates of his days spent in Los Angeles.

! !

Cameron Thom, along with his brothers William and Pembroke, and their three sisters, Elizabeth, Abigail and Marion, had all been raised at a large plantation called Berryhill laying near the Rapahannock River between Fredericksburg and Culpeper. Their grandfather, Alexander Thom, had immigrated to Virginia from Scotland following his participation with the Scot Highlanders in the 1744 storming of Edinburgh. The grandfather was forced to flee the British Isles following the defeat of the Highlanders by the Hessians and the Campbells at Culloden Moor two years later.51

The mother of the Thom brood was Abigail de Hart Mayo, a sister-in-law of General Winfield Scott; their father, John Thom, served as a Virginia state senator for many years and is recorded as having been a friend of President Jefferson. Zachary Taylor was a family acquaintance with whom they visited at the White House.52 Upon the outbreak of the war with Mexico in 1846, Pembroke had traveled to Washington to meet with James K. Polk at the White House to request a commission as an army lieutenant and proceeded to serve with Company ‘H’ of the 11th Cavalry in Mexico.53 Following the attack on Fort Sumter, this same brother became involved in organizing Virginia’s 1st “Old Irish” Infantry Battalion at Richmond which soon was engaged in the Battle of Cheat Mountain and there-after incorporated into the forces of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley.54

Cameron, Pembroke and William Thom all participated in the Confederate war effort. Pembroke had attended medical studies at the University of Virginia and served four years as assistant surgeon aboard the USS Savannah after 1853. In October 1859, he was present among troops dispatched by the governor of Virginia to quell the uprising instigated by John Brown at Harper’s Ferry.55

Although Cameron and William were not given formal assignments in the Confederate Army, they made use of their family’s influence in Richmond to gain honorary appointments in the war effort. Both of their names are included in the National Archives’ roster of Confederate Army mem bers, without rank.56 William, a physician, served as an inspector of hospitals in the medical corps, and it was he who traveled to Washington following the war’s end to obtain immediate pardons both for himself and Cameron; he also obtained a pardon for Pembroke in December 1865.57

Cameron Thom remained at operating his law practice in Los Angeles until the winter of 1863. The death of his second wife the previous August prompted a decision to reverse course and shortly after New Year’s Day he wrote to Pembroke relating his decision to leave his infant son in the care of his late wife’s family and cast his fortunes with the Confederate secession. He instigated a legal transfer of ownership of his properties to his son to prevent confiscation by authorities.58

Setting off early in March, he retraced the northern route which he had taken in the Gold Rush and arrived in Richmond late in the month of May. His father had been a childhood friend with William “Extra Billy” Smith, and they had served together in the Virginia senate. Smith had once served four years as Virginia’s governor and then proceeded west to practice law for two years in San


Francisco, dabble on the perimeter of California state politics at the point in time at which Cameron had lived in Sacramento, and returned to Richmond in 1852 to pursue a career in the United States Congress. Shortly prior to the outbreak of war in 1861, Smith gained a colonelcy in the Confederate Army at the ripe age of sixty-four and eventually commanded the 4th Virginia Brigade.59

Despite his recent status as a “foreigner,” Thom had sufficient influence as to gain service with Smith’s personal staff as an honorary captain. He left Richmond to join up with Smith’s command in Pennsylvania during the last week of June, a few days before the forces of Henry Heth and John Buford were destined to engage one-another, that which began the confrontation at Gettysburg.60

Thom was involved in the battle and subsequently contracted typhoid fever during the cold, sodden retreat towards the Potomac; a case of pneumonia then set in and he eventually recovered under his brother William’s care at a Confederate hospital at Staunton in the southern Shenandoah Valley. During the battle, Smith’s forces were initially engaged along the north side of Gettysburg and in the area of “The Fish Hook” on the second and third days of the battle. So it is highly unlikely that Thom came into contact with Garnett or Armistead, both assigned to Seminary Ridge along the west front of the battle. But they all had easily been in view from Hancock’s position on Cemetery Ridge.61

With the approach of Christmas five months later, the Second Corps of the Union Army took possession of the Thom plantation near Cullpepper. Corps command was established in the mansion where Cameron had been born and raised. Meanwhile, Hancock continued to recuperate at his own father’s house at Norristown near Philadelphia. And it was atop Berry Hill, the boyhood home of his former landlord where he returned to duty, resumed command of his Second Corps on March 24th near nine months following the great battle. Thereafter, U.S. Grant moved the Union army southward on its overland campaign towards Richmond. As forces departed Berry Hill, the lower rooms of the residence were filled with brush and the structure was set ablaze. The plantation slaves departed in company with the federals.62

After a visit to New York during the summer following the war’s end, Cameron returned to California by steamer to resume a previous life shattered by death. His infant son had died during his absence; he soon married Belle Hathwell, sister of his second wife.63

Regaining the property at 3rd and Main and re-establishing a law office, Thom was again elected as district attorney. Eventually he helped sheriff Frank Burns in rescuing Orientals in the city’s infamous 1872 Chinese Massacre and prosecuted thirteen murderers in the horrid episode. For his new family he built a large residence to the south of the pair of brick cottages fronting Main Street. In 1887 he leased a portion of his property to the Los Angeles Panorama Company which then proceeded to erect an immense circular exhibit hall featuring a painted cyclorama of the Siege of Paris. Of 45 foot height and 420 foot circumference, this painting was created in Paris by the staff of French artisan Felix Philippoteaux who theretofore had created large canvasses of the Battle of Gettysburg for lesser cycloramas at Chicago, Boston, Brooklyn and Philadelphia. Thom’s later residence and the cyclorama were ultimately demolished in 1907 and replaced three years later by Abe Edelman’s Adolphus Theater.64

Thom’s original brick dwelling house, the city’s first residence made of brick walls, stood intact until the first week of August 1901; it was then demolished to make way for construction of an


CYCLORAMA OF THE BATTLE OF PARIS. AN ARCHITECTURAL ADAPTATION OF EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE’S FILMIC DECK OF CARDS. AUDIENCE MEMBERS SAT UPON AN ELEVATED CIRCULAR PLATFORM WHICH ROTATED SO THAT VIEWERS EXPERIENCED A SEQUENCE OF BATTLE IMAGES PAINTED ON THE PERIMETER WALLS. QUITE LIKELY THIS WAS THE LARGEST CYCLORAMA CONSTRUCTED IN THE 19TH CENTURY. IMAGES WERE PAINTED BY THE STAFF OF FRENCHMAN PAUL PHILIPPOTEAUX FOUR YEARS FOLLOWING COMPLETION OF THEIR FAMED CYCLORAMA OF THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG AT BOSTON. YOUNG WOMEN’S BOARDING HOME AT LEFT. ST. VIBIANA’S CATHEDRAL AT RIGHT. CITY’S FIRST FLOWER MARKET IN FOREGROUND. GREENHOUSES WOULD BE MOVED TO 16TH AND SAN PEDRO STREETS IN APRIL OF 1896. Courtesy – Security Pacific Collection, Los Angeles Public Library.


anonymous two-story commercial block for Victor Ponet. The architectural firm of Morgan and Walls had prepared plans that summer for the new building; it would be completed in the middle of the coming winter and six weeks later, the center commercial space within the bottom floor was leased and soon was opened for business as Thomas Tally’s ‘Electric Theater,’ the nation’s first formal commercial attraction devoted wholly to projected motion pictures.65

The influence of Thom’s personality and career in southern California would be reflected at his funeral many years later in 1915. Those who served as pall-bearers included Henry O’Melveny, John Mott, Oscar Lawler and Thom’s three sons. The list of honorary pall-bearers included the names Sepulveda, Rowland, Newmark, Cohn, Lindley, Patton, Otis, Flint, Slauson and Kerckhoff.66

! !

The Hancocks’ visit to San Francisco near Christmas of 1883 had brought that metropolis near to pandemonium and delayed Winfield and Almira’s proceeding on by train to the Southland and their only return visit ever to a very changed pueblo. Seeking to prevent chaos, they disembarked at Sepulveda Station in the San Fernando Valley and were quietly greeted by Mayor Cameron Thom and a small civic delegation. A large parade and triumphal celebration were scheduled to be held three days later on New Year’s Day. That evening they lodged at the Pico House fronting on the central plaza following a short tour of the city. Thom had anticipated a surprise for them on Calle Principal.67

A large new cathedral had been built at Main and Second streets in the preceding decade and the Roundhouse and Garden of Paradise still remained, despite being put to other uses. Thom halted at Third and Main; there stood the brick cottage, now covered-over by one of Winnie’s old rose vines. The next day’s Daily Herald reported the couple as alighting from their carriage and having been swept by emotion in seeing their former home, from whence they’d proceeded at a crucial and excruciating point in American history.68

In wild festivities on New Year’s Day of 1884 the Hancocks were celebrated by the largest gathering in Los Angeles’ history. Buildings within the central business district were profusely decorated. Minute- guns rang out from Fort Moore Hill as the visitor’s carriage proceeded south on Main and Spring streets towards the Nadeau Hotel. There the general reviewed a civic parade from the second floor balcony. It included the city’s fire units and a brilliant display of torchlights. Following the parade the crowd did not disperse and the streets near the hotel soon filled with a mass of humanity extending in all four directions from 1st and Spring streets.69

Winfield Hancock’s death two years later brought forth a wave of bereavement across the nation, possibly the most acute since the death of Lincoln over twenty years earlier. William Tecumseh Sherman was particularly moved, and in paying tribute, tied Hancock indelibly to the cardinal events of Gettysburg. Others were left to chart his accomplishments and compare his valor with that of the Greek warrior Themistocles. And none among the veterans of his second corps of 1863 could ever have forgotten the extraordinary example which he’d displayed at the final retreat at Chancellorsville, and at the approach of Pickett’s massive assault on the horrible third of July.70


VIEW NORTH ON MAIN STREET AT THIRD. SCHWARZ BLOCK AT LEFT. COMMERCIAL STOREFRONT AT RIGHT WAS FORMERLY THE LOCATION OF THE HANCOCK RESIDENCE. ST. VIBIANA’S CATHEDRAL BEYOND. Courtesy – Henry Huntington Library Manuscripts Department.


! !

At a reception for local Second Corps veterans near the end of the week-long visit to Los Angeles, Thom had saluted Hancock in addressing the hundreds of those gathered, who all would soon again gather below the valley narrows for the couple’s departure from River Station. His voice cracked and wavered; he sensed that he wouldn’t again meet with his treasured friend. The poignancy of the moment must surely have been rare and indelible as he voiced his early farewell: “But we are not left without hope that he will some day return - become an angel and with the angels, dwell in this earthly paradise, La Ciudad de Los Angeles. General, you will always find the latch string to all our doors hanging on the outside, and warm hearts within to welcome you.”71

“In myth, History evaporates” – Roland Barthes


WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK, CARTE DE VISITE, JANUARY, 1864. GUTEKUNDT STUDIO, PHILADELPHIA. Courtesy – Bruce Stocking.


1 E. Caswell Perry and Carroll W. Parcher, Glendale Area History, p. 5; Press Reference Library, Notables of The West, p. 347; Summary Report, Thom Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library; Cameron Erskine Thom, Written reminiscences to Stella Smith dated August 22, 1914, Thom Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library; Catherine Thom Bartlett, My Dear Brother – A Confederate Chronicle, pp. 98 -100; Maximilain Schele de Vere, Students of The University of Virginia~A Semi-Centennial Catalogue with Brief Biographical Sketches, p. 37.

2 Hunter’s land grant petitions dated January 18, 1853 and November 1, 1854, City Council Records V: 128, 313-314, Los Angeles City Archives; “In The Old Days” Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1896, p. 2.

3 Mayo Tract Subdivision, February 28, 1883, Map no. 570, Solano-Reeve Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library; Emma Adams, To and Fro in Southern California, p. 85-87; Los Angeles Builder and Contractor, April 29, 1896, p. 2; Gordon Hendricks, The Kinetoscope, p. 125.

4 Ralph Bieber, Frontier Life in The Army, (Letters of Eugene Bandel, Translated by Olga Bandel and Richard Jente), pp. 222, 227.

5 Frederick E. Goodrich, The Life and Public Services of Winfield S. Hancock, pp. 71-82; Ralph Bieber, op. cit., pp. 222-239.

6 Los Angeles Star, May 7, 1859, p. 2; Almira R. Hancock, Reminiscences of Winfield Hancock, p. 47.7 Hancock, Reminiscences, p. 46. 8 Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Gray, pp. 11, 12, 99; Stewart Sifakis, Who Was Who in The Civil War, p. 238; George W.

Cullum, Biographical Register of The Officers of The United States Military Academy II: 94.9 Los Angeles Star, June 4, 1859, p. 2; June 11, 1859, p. 2. 10 ibid, July 9, 1859, p. 2.11 ibid, July 30, 1859, p. 2; Aug. 13, 1859, p. 2; Aug. 20, 1859, p. 2; Aug. 27, 1859, p. 2.12 ibid, Sept. 17, 1859, p. 2; Post Return, San Diego Barracks, Oct. 1860, United States Army, M617, U.S. Archives.13 Los Angeles Star, Oct. 15, 1859, p. 2; Jan. 7, 1860, p. 2.14 ibid, Dec. 31, 1859, p. 2; Jan. 7, 1860, p. 2; Apr. 6, 1861, p. 2.15 ibid, Mar. 3, 1860, p. 2; June 16, 1860, p. 2.16 ibid, Mar. 24, 1860, p. 2.17 ibid, Apr. 7, 1860, p. 2; Adams, To and Fro, p. 85.18 ibid, Oct. 20, 1860, p. 2.19 George Stammerjohan, “The Camel Experiment in California,” Dogtown Territorial Quarterly 18, Summer 1994: 48;

Los Angeles Star, Sept. 22, 1860, p. 2; Sept. 29, 1860, p. 2.20 Los Angeles Star, Jan. 5, 1861, p. 2. According to Stammerjohan, the larger camel, named “Seid,” was whitish in color

and his head had been crushed. The hide and bones of the animal are displayed in Washington at the Smithsonian’s American History Museum (see “The Camel Experiment in California,” p. 63.)

21 Los Angeles Star, July 21, 1860, p. 2; Dec. 22, 1860, p. 2.22 Hancock, Reminiscences, p. 65; Harris Newmark, Sixty Years in Southern California, p. 301; W.J.D. Kennedy, On The

Plains with Custer and Hancock: The Journal of Issac Coates, Army Surgeon, pp. 64, 164.23 David M. Jordan, Winfield Hancock, A Soldier’s Life, p. XI.24 Hancock, Reminiscences, p. 46.25 Charles P. Roland, Albert Sydney Johnston, Soldier in Three Republics, p. 252; J.M. Scammell, “Military Units in Califor-

nia, 1853-1862,” Quarterly California Historical Society 29, Sept. 1950: 234-237; Benjamin F. Gilbert, “The Mythical Johnston Conspiracy,” ibid, Sept. 1949: 165-173.

26 Letter from Winfield Scott to Commanding Officer, Department of the West, June 3, 1861, War of The Rebellion: Official Records of The Union and Confederate Armies, (Hereafter cited as OR ), Ser. I, Vol. 50, Pt. I, p. 496.

27 Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Comet, pp. 144, 177; Johnston, Life of General Sydney S. Johnston, p. 281.28 Post Return, San Diego Barracks, June 1861.29 Los Angeles Star, May 11, 1861, p. 2; May 18, 1861, p. 2; May 25, 1861, p. 2. The Post Return for that May submit-

ted by Armistead reports that he was absent with leave for twelve days between May 14th and May 25th. Evidence uncovered by Stammerjohan indicates that Armistead had departed from the post as early as May 3rd, intending to board a northbound steamer at San Pedro enroute to resigning at San Francisco headquarters. He was absent for more than three weeks.

30 Edward G. Longacre, Pickett, Leader of the Charge, pp. 52-53; Letter from California State Historian George Stam-merjohan to author Wayne Motts, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Aug. 23, 1996.

31 Edwin V. Sumner, General Orders Number 6, May 15, 1861, OR, Ser. I, Vol. 50, Pt. I, p. 486; Post Return, San Diego Barracks, June 1861.


32 Post Return, San Diego Barracks, June 1861; Hancock, Reminiscences, pp. 69-70. Mrs. Hancock related that Armistead presented her with his prayerbook in bidding adieu at their reception in Los Angeles. Within his book The Killer Angeles, Michael Shaara wrote that Armistead requested of General James Longstreet that the prayerbook be deliv-ered to her in such case that he were killed in battle on the next (third) day at Gettysburg. Although his is a work of historical fiction, Shaara explicitly stated that all of the situations which he presented were historically accurate.

33 Roland, Albert Sydney Johnston, Soldier in Three Republics, p. 257; Geoffrey C. Ward, The Civil War, p. 116.34 Jordan, Winfield Hancock, p. 99; Letter of Henry Bingham to W.S. Hancock, Jan. 5, 1869, Bachelder Papers, Vol. I,

p. 350, New Hampshire Historical Society.35 William Roane Aylett to George Pickett, Report of Activities of 53rd Virginia Brigade on July 3rd at Gettysburg,

Henry Huntington Library; James E. Poindexter, Address on The Life and Services of General Lewis A. Armistead, given at Richmond, Virginia on January 29, 1909, Henry Huntington Library, pp. 1-7.

36 Jordan, Winfield Hancock, p. 176.37 William P. Johnston, Life of General A.S. Johnston, p. 279.38 Los Angeles Star, July 6, 1861, p. 2; July 20, 1861, p. 2; James Longstreet, Report of Actions at Battle of Bull Run, July

28, 1861, OR, Ser. I, Vol 2, p. 544.39 Robert A. Brock (ed.), (untitled), Southern Historical Papers 38, 1910: 159; Virginia Armistead Garber, The Armistead

Family, 1635-1910, pp. 68-69.40 Garber, The Armistead Family, pp. 68 -69.41 Cullum, Biographical Register 2: 93-94; Sifakis, Who Was Who, p. 238.42 Cullum, Biographical Register 2: 94; Warner, Generals in Gray, p. 99; Brock, (untitled), Southern Historical Papers 13,

1885: 282; ibid, (untitled), Vol 21, 1893: 154.43 Goodrich, Life and Public Services, p. 92; Chauncy F. Black, Lives of Cleveland and Hendricks, p. 330; Bruce Stocking,

“From The Pages of The Past,” Major General, The W.S. Hancock Society, Vol. VI, No. 2, June 1999: 7; Dimitri Rotov, “Guest Quarters,” Major General, The W.S. Hancock Society, Vol. VII, No. 3, Sept. 1999: 8.

44 Goodrich, Life and Public Services, pp. 114-122; Ernest B. Ferguson, Chancellorsville 1863 – The Souls of The Brave, pp. 248-250; Carol Reardon, “The Valiant Rearguard, Hancock’s Division at Chancellorsville”, within Chancellorsville, The Battle and Its Aftermath, ed. By Gary W. Gallagher, pp. 143, 158-166.

45 John Nicholson, In Memoriam, unpaginated, entire three volumes.46 Henry Heth, The Memoirs of Henry Heth, pp. 58, 71; Jordan, Winfield Hancock, pp. 17, 72, 114 -125, 130-133.47 Goodrich, Life and Public Services, p. 133; Black, Lives of Cleveland and Hendricks, p. 331.48 Goodrich, Life and Public Services, pp. 132, 135-136; Gary W. Gallagher, The First Day at Gettysburg – Essays on Confeder-

ate and Union Leadership, pp. 83, 88.49 Coddington, Gettysburg Campaign, pp. 400-426; Harry W. Pfanz, Gettysburg – The Second Day, pp. 410-411.50 Goodrich, Life and Public Services, p. 50.51 Bartlett, My Dear Brother, pp. 3 -9.52 DeCourcy W. Thom, “Something More of The Great Confederate General, Stonewall Jackson and One of His Fol-

lowers in The South of Yesteryear,” Maryland Historical Magazine 25, June 1930: 137; Bartlett, My Dear Brother, pp. 45, 46.

53 Virgil D. White, (ed.), Index to Mexican War Pension Files, p. 57.54 The Richmond Times Dispatch, April 3, 1906, p. 7; Letters of Robert Lemmon to His Mother, Apr. 3rd & 12th, 1862,

Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore; Bartlett, My Dear Brother, pp. 51-52, 56.55 Bartlett, My Dear Brother, pp. 46-48; DeCourcy W. Thom, “Something More,” p. 148.56 Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, M253, United States National Archives.57 DeCourcy W. Thom, “Something More,” p. 146; Bartlett, My Dear Brother, pp. 187-189.58 Summary Report and Letter from Cameron E. Thom to Joseph Pembroke, Jan. 5, 1863, Thom Collection, Henry

Huntington Library; Bartlett, My Dear Brother, p. 72.59 Bartlett, My Dear Brother, pp. 95, 106; John W. Bell, Memoirs of Governor William Smith of Virginia, pp. 129-132.60 Bell, Memoirs, p. 132; Bartlett, My Dear Brother, pp. 100, 107.61 Bartlett, My Dear Brother, pp. 100, 105, 107, 108.62 ibid, My Dear Brother, pp. 126, 132; Bruce Stocking, “From The Pages of The Past,” Major General, No. 2, September

2005, p.6.63 ibid, pp. 185, 207.


64 Paul DeFalla, “Lanterns in The Western Sky,” Quarterly Historical Society of Southern California, 42, June 1960: 176 -179; Henry W. Splitter, “Art in Los Angeles Before 1900,” ibid, Vol 41, March 1959: 54; Los Angeles Daily Herald, January 29, 1888, p. 6; Los Angeles Builder & Contractor, Oct. 6, 1910, p. 1; Harold Holzer and Mark E. Neely, “Cycloramas,” Civil War Times Illustrated 35, Aug. 1996: 37, 38.

65 Los Angeles Builder & Contractor, Aug. 1, 1901, p. 2; Sept. 5, 1901, p. 2; Feb. 20, 1902, p. 2; Charles Musser, The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907, p. 95; “Many Hits in Silent Drama,” Los Angeles Times, May 7, 1922, Pt. II, p. 30.

66 Los Angeles Herald, Feb. 4, 1915, p. 2.67 Los Angeles Daily Herald, Dec. 21, 1883, p. 2; Dec. 22, 1883, p. 2; Dec. 25, 1883, p. 3.68 ibid, Dec. 29, 1883, p. 2.69 ibid, Jan. 3, 1884, p. 2.70 Los Angeles Times, Feb. 11, 1886, p. 1; Nicholson, In Memoriam, unpaginated, entire three volumes; Jordan, Winfield

Hancock, pp. 2-4; Ernest B. Ferguson, Chancellorsville 1863 – The Souls of The Brave, pp. 248-250. Ferguson provides a highly detailed account of Hancock’s alluring command of Union force, which prevented annihilation at the battle.

71 Los Angeles Daily Herald, Jan. 1-3, 1884, p. 2.

Myth of Heroes [Crandell]

Documents

Transcript of Myth of Heroes [Crandell]