ACWS

11/08/2026

Our next event! Friday 14th - Sunday 16th August 2026, Northampton Balloon Festival, Northampton Racecourse, Kettering Road, Northampton, NN2 6JA.
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05/08/2026

About two weeks after the Battle of the Wilderness, 19-year-old Corp. Daniel Chisholm, 116th Pennsylvania Inf., wrote to his father giving some details about his first experience in battle. He proudly explained that his company “stood up and done their duty. We had one man killed, Parks A. Boyd, and 2 or 3 wounded.”

Chisholm also related a close call during the battle: “I had the front part of my Cap shot off by a Minie Ball, It knocked it off my head and made me feel a little strange about the top knot.” Thinking it might make a good souvenir, Chisholm noted, “I would like to send my Cap home if I could get the chance.” Apparently, the corporal did send his forage cap home as it later appeared in a photograph with a descriptive label.

Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

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29/07/2026

During the calm before the storm of Chancellorsville, the 30th North Carolina’s Col. Francis Marion Parker wrote home to his wife on April 27, 1863, while his regiment picketed along the Rappahannock River.

Col. Parker noted that there was “nothing to do but to watch a few Yankee pickets on the opposite side of the river.” However, he and his men were interested in reading, particularly letters from home. As he put it, “when that reading is in the shape of a letter from a dear wife at home; one who we know loves us, as only woman can love, then it is, that we can fully appreciate such favors.”

Writing just as the Army of the Potomac was on the move, Col. Parker did not sense a battle in the immediate future. “As to the probabilities of a fight, I think they are very weak,” Parker wrote. He could not have been more wrong. A week later, on May 3, 1863, his regiment would suffer 26 killed, 99 wounded, and 1 missing. Col. Parker survived the battle, and the war, dying in 1905.


Like our Facebook posts? CVBT is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit entity. We exist only because of the generosity of our members and donors. Please consider giving or joining to support our efforts.
https://cvbt.org/support-us/

19/07/2026

Our next event! Friday 24th - Saturday 25th July 2026, Doncaster Balloon Festival, Thorne Road, Town Field, Doncaster, DN1 2JS.
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18/07/2026

in 1863, Sgt. William Carney of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry earned the Medal of Honor during the Union attack on Fort Wagner in Charleston, South Carolina. The commander of the regiment, Col. Robert Gould Shaw, along with almost 250 other men, were killed in the attack. It would take until 1900 for Carney to finally receive the medal. The citation reads:

“When the color sergeant was shot down, this soldier grasped the flag, led the way to the parapet, and planted the colors thereon. When the troops fell back he brought off the flag, under a fierce fire in which he was twice severely wounded.”

Upon reaching the safety of his own lines, Carney reportedly said, “Boys, I only did my duty; the old flag never touched the ground!"

Image: Sgt. William Carney, 1864 (photo by John Ritchie, public domain)

18/07/2026

18/07/2026

Surgeons, stewards, nurses, and ambulance men worked themselves to exhaustion.
On the march or after a battle, they often had no tent to shelter their well deserved rest. Ambulance wagons sometimes filled that gap.

Writing from Nashville in 1864, Dr. Stephen Black recorded: "I have been sleeping in our Ambulance since I have been here, in fact for the last twelve months or more I have not had a tent in the time."

Women volunteers weren't exempt. Mrs. John Harris recalled: "The first night we slept in our ambulance; no room in the small house, the only dwelling near, could be procured."

When Hospital Steward Stephen Bonsall's wagon got bogged down he "tried to sleep in the machine, the hubs under the mud and water, and myself about six inches above it. What added much to the romance of my position was the indisputable fact that a most decidedly defunct horse was located in the immediate vicinity, diffusing an odour much more powerful than agreeable."

These were all technically in violation of orders that forbid the use of ambulances for anything but the movement of medical supplies and the infirm.

Dr. Daniel Holt discovered this to his dismay, when he tried to rest in an ambulance and was discovered by General William B. Franklin who "ordered me out in the most abusive and profane manner telling me that 'never again to let him know of my being in an ambulance while I had feet to carry me' an order which I have strictly obeyed, taking a remarkable antipathy to such riding ever since."

Photo credit:
Detail from James Gardner, "Virginia, Brandy Station, Shebang, Headquarters of the Sanitary Commission," November 1863, Courtesy of National Archives and Research Administration.

04/07/2026

Our next event is TODAY!!!!!
Saturday 4th July 2026, Swindon Balloon Festival, Hay Lane, Swindon, SN5 3PA.
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03/07/2026

02/07/2026

For the Civil War soldier on the march, heat became another enemy to fight.