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Health & Fitness

Civil War Travels With Ms. Rebelle

Visiting the grave of Union General Oliver Otis Howard.

This past October, after leaving the beautiful state of Maine and the coastal town of Bar Harbor, Ms. Rebelle and her sister drove into New Hampshire getting to see their first view of the peak of the fall foliage. We travelled Route 26 north from Maine to Errol, NH through Grafton Notch, Umbagog State Park, then took Route 16 south along the Androscoggin River, through Pinkham Notch, to Conway, NH. At Conway we went west along Route 112, the Kancamagus Highway, to Lincoln, NH.

Now you know I would have to find some Civil War reference in the towns we visited. It’s always a toss-up as to whether you pick the right time to see the peak of the fall foliage, but we did luck out driving through New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. I would seriously recommend that route for the sheer beauty of the countryside. The leg from Conway to Lincoln was my absolute favorite of the trip.

From Lincoln, we headed west through Vermont stopping in Montpelier for the grave for General Stephen Thomas before ending up in Burlington, Vermont. Burlington fronts on Lake Champlain. General Oliver Otis Howard, USA, is buried in Lakeview Cemetery, Pine Grove Section 1, Lot 40. The cemetery also fronts on Lake Champlain. Ms. Rebelle, armed with her cemetery map showing the sites of the three generals buried there, found General Howard very illusive to find. His main marker is flat to the ground. He does have a small elevated marker, and after driving around the relatively small cemetery at least three to four times, we finally found Howard’s grave. The other two Union generals buried there are George Jerrison Stannard who has a statue, and William Wells who has a big rock on his grave. I love the easy to find ones!

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Howard was born in Leeds, Maine on Nov. 8, 1830. His father was a farmer and died when Oliver was only 9 years old. Howard graduated from Bowdoin College in 1850 at the age of 19. He then went to West Point and graduated fourth in his class of 46 in 1854. Other illustrious graduates of that class included James Deshler, Archibald Gracie, Jr., Custis Lee, Stephen Dill Lee, John Pegram, William Dorsey Pender, Thomas H. Ruger, J.E.B. Stuart, John Bordenave Villepique, and Stephen Weed. He was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant of ordnance. His first assignments were at Watervliet Arsenal near Troy, NY, and then he was a temporary commander of Kennebec Arsenal in Augusta, ME. 

During the Seminole wars he was sent to Florida where he converted to evangelical Christianity. Howard seriously considered resigning from the Army to be a minister but when the Civil War began, he remained in the Army. One of his nicknames was the “Christian general.” At the beginning of the Civil War, he was appointed colonel of the Third Maine Infantry and saw action at the First Battle of Bull Run. He was given the rank of brigadier general on Sept. 2, 1861. He then joined General McClellan in the Peninsula Campaign.

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While commanding his brigade at Fair Oaks on June 1, 1862, Howard was wounded twice in his right arm. The arm had to be amputated. Thirty-one years later he would receive the Medal of Honor for his bravery at Fair Oaks. His citation reads: “Led the 61st New York Infantry in a charge in which he was twice severely wounded in the right arm, necessitating amputation.” His friend, General Philip Kearny, who had lost his left arm, joked that both of them would be able to shop for gloves together.

Howard recovered and was promoted to major general in Nov. 1862, commanding the XI Corps replacing General Franz Sigel. Many of the corps were German, spoke no English, and were resentful of their new general. At the battle of Chancellorsville, Howard earned another nickname “Uh-Oh Howard” for letting “Stonewall” Jackson flank him after being warned by General Hooker. Although Howard was the senior general at Gettysburg, Hancock was assigned field command over him after the death of John Reynolds on July 1, 1863. After Gettysburg, Howard’s corps was transferred to the Army of the Cumberland in Tennessee. His corps fought in the Battle of Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge, and forced the retreat of General Braxton Bragg. Howard led the right wing of General William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea.

When the Civil War ended, Howard became commissioner of the Freedman’s Bureau playing a major role in Reconstruction. He initiated programs for rations, courts, schooling, and medical care for the former slaves of the South. In 1867 he played a major role in founding Howard University in Washington, D.C. He served as president of the university from 1869-1874.

In 1874 he was sent to the Department of the Columbia in Fort Vancouver, Washington where he fought the Nez Perce and Chief Joseph (Ms. Rebelle went to Fort Vancouver in 2008 and saw his quarters there on Officer’s Row. The house was built in 1878 to Howard’s specifications at a cost of $6,938.20). Howard was also superintendent of West Point from 1881-82, served as Commander of the Department of the Platte from 1882-84, and the Department of the East at Fort Columbus on Governors Island, New York Harbor which became his last assignment. He retired from the Army in 1894 with the rank of major general. In 1895 he founded the Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee for education of the “mountain whites.”

Tributes to General Howard include a bust of him at Howard University, an equestrian statue on East Cemetery Hill in Gettysburg, a dormitory named for him at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington, Delaware, Howard County in Nebraska, and the Howard School of Academics and Technology in Chattanooga.

General Howard is also the author of several books: Donald’s School Days (1878), Nez Perce Joseph (1881), General Taylor (1892), Isabella of Castile (1894), Fighting for Humanity, or Camp and Quarterdeck (1898), Autobiography (1907), and My Life and Experiences among Our Hostile Indians (1907). The general died in Burlington, Vermont on October 26, 1909.

The Bull Run Civil War Round Table meets every second Thursday of every month at 7 p.m. at the . The public is invited to attend at no cost and visit the website www.bullruncwrt.org for additional activities (tours, etc.)

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