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<p>"The question will naturally be asked, how came the Unions to score so well against Creighton's pitching? and the reply is, that they waited until they got a ball to suit them, Creighton delivering, on an average, 20 or 30 balls to each striker in four of the six innings played."</p>  +
<p>“The 13<sup>th</sup> Massachusetts played amongst themselves daily during April and May of 1862.”</p> <p>Patricia Millen, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">From Pastime to Passion: Baseball and the Civil War</span> (Heritage Books, 2001), page 19. Millen cites S. Crockett, “Sports and Recreational Practices of Union and Confederate Soldiers, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Research Quarterly</span> October 1961, pp?. Crockett article is unprocured as of May 2009, and primary source is unknown.<strong> Note:</strong> It would be useful to know what game the regiment played, and how they named it. The regiment was reportedly at Ship Island, MS, in these months.</p>  +
<p>“’Every volunteer who has been in service, has realized the tedium of camp life . . . there is waste time, which might be used advantageously at such manly exercises as cricket, base ball, foot ball, quoit pitching, etc.’ That paper lamented the shortage of sporting goods available for the men and called for hardware dealers to supply quoits and also cricket and base ball bats. ‘For want of such things,’ it concluded, ‘the time of the soldier is mainly spent playing cars.’”</p> <p>Source: <em>Charleston</em><em> Mercury, </em>April 3, 1862, page. 2, column. 1. Mentioned without citation in Kirsch, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Baseball in Blue and Gray</span> (Princeton U, 2003), page 40. It seems interesting that cricket and base ball receive comparable emphasis in this article.</p>  +
<p>A Wisconsin newspaper sent a writer to the nearby Camp Randall, where 881 prisoners of war were just arriving. “Some of the men and boys, of the 55<sup>th</sup> Tennessee regiment were amusing themselves with playing ball.” The reporter notes that many prisoners had only light clothing that would provide little protection against northern winds. Many of the prisoners had been among 7000 men captured in the CSA’s surrender of Island Ten, a strategic position in the Mississippi River near New Madrid, Missouri. The nature of the Tenneseeans’ ballplaying was not recorded.</p> <p>“Camp Randall,” <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Weekly Wisconsin Patriot </span>(Madison), April 26, 1862. Accessed at Genealogybank on 5/21/2009. Camp Randall was the former fairground for Madison WI.</p> <p>See also Madison Journal, April 22, 1862, Milwaukee Daily News, April 24, 1862, Manitowac Weekly Tribune, May 14, 1862.</p> <p>The Boston Recorder, June 12, 1862, reports that Union Col. Whipple [Charles Whipple, Col. 19th Wisconsin Infantry] plays baseball with the POWs at Camp Randall. [ba]</p>  +
<p>“Sometimes the war disrupted these pastimes . . . . In the spring of 1862 a game between the Fifty-Seventh and Sixty-Ninth Regiments of New York Jacob Cole was lying on the ground watching the match when he heard a ‘rumbling noise.’ When Cole and his friend stood up they heard nothing, but when they put their ears to the ground Cole told his friend that ‘our boys are fighting.’ He remembered: ‘Hardly had I spoken before orders came to report to our regiments at once. So the ball game came to a sudden stop never to resume.’”</p> <p>Source: Kirsch, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Baseball in Blue and Gray</span> (Princeton U, 2003), pages 41-42. Kirsch does not supply a primary source. It appears that Cole was in the 57<sup>th</sup> NY, and that the story of the interrupted ball game was carried in Jacob H. Cole, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Under Five Commanders: or, A Boy’s Experience with the Army of the Potomac </span>(News Printing Company, 1909), p. [?]. Accessed as snippet-view text May 31, 2009. <strong>Note:</strong> Can we confirm the source, determine where this game took place, and assess the credibility of Cole’s account?</p> <p>Per p. 30 of the Cole book, this took place May 31, 1862, near the battle of Seven Pines, VA, a few miles east of Richmond. [ba]</p>  +
<p>“The evening parade was an uncommonly nice one . . . . The new colors were all brought out and the effect was very pretty, as they were escorted out and back and saluted by all the officers and me. After parade came a game of base-ball for the captains and other officers, and in the sweet evening air and early moonlight we heard cheerful sounds all about us at the men sang patriotic songs, laughed and chatted, or danced jig to the sound of a violin.”</p> <p>Eliza Howland, “Diary of Eliza Newton Woolsey Howland, April 1862, in <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Letters of a Family During the War for the Union 1861-1865</span> [Pubr? Date?] Volume 1, page 360. Eliza Howland’s husband Joseph was an officer with the 16<sup>th</sup> New York Volunteers. The couple lived in Mattawan NY before the War. Provided by Jeff Kittell, 5/12/09. Available online at The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries Database, at <a href="http://solomon.cwld.alexanderstreet.com/">http://solomon.cwld.alexanderstreet.com/</a>. <strong>Note:</strong> can we determine the location of the event?</p> <p>Per p. 284 of the Howland book, this took place April 3, 1862, in the camp of Slocum's division, near Fairfax, VA. [ba]</p>  +
<p>The regimental history has four references to ballplaying. In July 1862, the unit arrived at Camp Lincoln at Newport News VA, where “the amusements at this camp were fishing for crabs, bathing, foraging and base-ball playing” [page 187]. Back at Newport News in March 1863, “the officers and men enjoyed themselves much in the innocent games of cricket and base-ball.” [page 290]. In May 1863, at a temporary camp near Somerset KY, “both officers and men enjoyed themselves hugely by playing at base ball in daytime between drill hours and at night by the performance of genuine negro minstrels, who were the field hands belonging to the neighboring plantations” [page 301]. Waiting in Annapolis for expected deployment to North Carolina in April 1864, “[b]ase ball is enjoyed by a large number of officers and men every afternoon, when the weather permits, and, I assure you, some very creditable playing is done – some that would do honor to any base ball club extant. [page 539].</p> <p>Thomas H. Parker, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">History of the 51<sup>st</sup> Regiment of PV [Pennsylvania Volunteers]</span> (King and Baird, Philadelphia, 1869). Accessed 6/2/09 on Google books via “’51<sup>st</sup> regiment’ parker” search. The regiment formed in Harrisburg in late 1861.</p>  +
<p>May: “One of the boys in a letter home vividly describes a hailstorm . . . ‘one day we had a regular hailstorm . . . The boys were out playing ball when it commenced sprinkling, and they thought it wasn’t going to be much of a shower, they kept right on playing, when all of a sudden came the [hail] stones, and the boys put for their tents . . . Queer weather here!’”</p> <p>July 4: “Some of the officers played baseball and drill was neglected.”</p> <p>Alfred S. Roe, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Twenty-Fourth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, 1861-1866</span> (Twenty-Fourth Veteran Association, Worcester, 1907), pages 112 and 135. Accessed on Google books 6/2/09 via “twenty-fourth regiment” search. The regiment’s officers were mostly from Boston. The regiment, organized at Readville, 10 miles SW of Boston, and was at Seabrook Island SC on these dates.</p>  +
<p>Notes upon visiting a camp near Alexandria VA: “Here were in progress all the occupations, and all the idleness, of the soldier in the tented field. Some were cooking the company-rations in pots hung over fires in the open air; some played at ball, or developed their muscular power by gymnastic exercise; some read newspapers, some smoked cigars or pipes.”</p> <p>Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Fortress Monroe,” in I. Finseth, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">The American Civil War</span> (CRC Press, 2006), page 398. Accessed in restricted view on Google Books 6/16/09.</p>  +
<p>“THE BIRTH OF BASE-BALL. Some of the men who went home on furlough in 1862 returned to their regiments with tales of a marvelous new game which was spreading though the Northern States. In camp at White Oak Church near Falmouth, Va., Kearny’s brigade played this ‘baseball,’ as it was known. Bartlett’s boys won this historic game.”</p> <p>F. Miller and R. Lanier, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Photographic History of the Civil War,</span> Volume Eight, Soldier Life, (Review of Reviews Co., New York, 1911), plate following page 243. This text sits next to a photograph of men playing football in 1864. <strong>Note: </strong> can we locate the cited photo?</p>  +
<p>On a lay day during a long October 1862 march from Harper’s Ferry WV toward Fredericksburg VA, the 21<sup>st</sup> CT “indulged the natural propensity of the soldier for foraging.” To thwart that, the Captain “ordered the roll to be called every hour, so that it was difficult to get far from camp. The boys enjoyed a game of baseball, notwithstanding the march of the day before, and the prospect of a longer march the next day.” This is the only reference to ballplaying in the history.</p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Story of the Twenty-First Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, During the Civil War. 1861-1865</span> (Stewart Printing Co., Middletown, 1900). Accessed on Google books 6/2/09, via “story of the twenty-first” search. The regiment was recruited in Eastern CT in late summer 1862, with the most men enlisting from Groton and Hartford.</p>  +
<p>A soldier in the 18<sup>th</sup> CT, Charles Lynch spent Thanksgiving at a camp near Baltimore. “November. The most important event was our first Thanksgiving in camp. Passed very pleasantly. A good dinner, with games of foot and base-ball.”</p> <p>After Appomattox, Lynch wrote: June 5<sup>th</sup>: . . . Thank God the cruel war is over. Playing ball, pitching quoits, helping the farmers, is the way we pass the time while waiting for orders to be mustered out. We have many friends in this town and vicinity.” These are the only references in the diary to ballplaying. In June Lynch was stationed in Martinsburg WV, about 30 miles west of Frederick MD and 75 miles northwest of Washington.</p> <p>Charles H. Lynch, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Civil War Diary 1862-1865</span> (private printing, 1915), page 11, page 154. Accessed on Google books 6/2/09 via “charles h. lynch” search. Lynch, and presumably much of the regiment, was from the Norwich CT area. Lead provided by Jeff Kittel, 5/12/09.</p>  +
<p>Thanksgiving in Fairfax County in northernmost VA: “At 2 o’clock, the regiment turned out on the parade ground. The colonel had procured a foot ball. Sides were arranged by the lieutenant colonel and two or three royal games of foot ball – most manly of sports, and closest in its mimicry of actual warfare – were played. . . . Many joined in games of base ball; others formed rings and watched friendly contests of the champion wrestlers of the different companies . . . . It was a “tall time” all around.”</p> <p>George G. Benedict, “Letter from George Grenville Benedict, December 6, 1862,” <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Army Life in Virginia: Letters from the Twelfth Regiment</span> (Free Press, Burlington, 1895), pp 80-81. Accessed 6/3/09 on Google Books via “army life in Virginia” search. Benedict, from Burlington, had been an editor and postmaster before the Civil War, and later became a state senator. The regiment appears to have been raised in the Burlington area. Submitted by Jeff Kittel, 5/12/09.</p>  +
<p>“We had plenty of pork and hard tack to go with the beans. We amused ourselves when the weather would permit by having a game of baseball.”</p> <p>William A. Waugh, Reminiscences of the rebellion or what I saw as a private soldier on the 5<sup>th</sup> Mass. Light Battery from 1861-1863. Provided by Michael Aubrecht, May 15 2009. Waugh is here describing life in winter quarters near Falmouth on the Virginia coast and east of Fredericksburg.</p> <p> </p>  +
<p>“On Christmas Day 1862 the officers of Manigault’s brigade had a footrace, and afterward the colonels ‘chose sides from among the officers and men to play base[ball].’”</p> <p>Larry J. Daniel, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee: A Portrait of Life in a Confederate Army</span> (U of North Carolina Press, 1991), page 90. Daniel evidently attributes this quotation of a letter from James Hall to his father, December 25, 1862. His treatment of the name of the game, “base[ball], implies that the original letter read “base.” Manigault’s Brigade formed in Corinth, MS, in April 1862, comprising two South Carolina regiments and three from Alabama. We do not know the location of the brigade in December 1862, when Manigault was apparently elevated from colonel of the 10<sup>th</sup> SC to lead the brigade.</p> <p>The James Hall letter is cited more fully in Kevin Roberts, "We Were Marching on Christmas Day" p. 62:</p> <p>"We have tried to make a Christmas of it here. We have had foot races, wrestling and base[ball] playing ... {The colonels] chose sides from among their officers and met to play base[ball]."</p>  +
<p>“The report of musketry is heard but a very little distance from us . . . yet on the other side of the road is most of our company, playing Bat Ball and perhaps in less than half an hour, they may be called to play a Ball game of a more serious nature.”</p> <p>Attributed to “an Ohio private” who wrote home from Virginia in 1862, in Ward and Burns, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Baseball: An Illustrated History</span> (Knopf, 1994), page 13. No source is given. <strong>Note:</strong> can we find the original source and fill in some detail? <strong>Note:</strong> the private’s use of the term “bat ball” is unusual. “Bat ball” is found in much earlier times [it was banned in both Pittsfield and Northampton MA in 1791]. In this case, since the private is an observer, not a player, it may be that he is using an incorrect label for the game he observes in 1862. Still, it may possibly imply that the term “bat ball” was current in Ohio in the pre-war years (in the private’s youth?), if not later.</p>  +
<p>[A] "[In April 1863] the Third Corps and the Sixth Corps baseball teams met near White Oak Church, Virginia, to play for the championship of the Army of the Potomac."</p> <p>[B] "Ballplaying in the Civil War Camps increased rapidly during the War, reaching a peak of 82 known games in April 1863 -- while the troops still remained in their winter camps.  Base ball was by a large margin the game of choice among soldiers, but wicket, cricket, and the Massachusetts game were occasionally played.  Play was much more common in the winter camps than near the battle fronts."</p> <p>[C] <strong>Note: </strong>In August 2013 Civil War scholar Bruce Allardice added this context to the recollected Army-wide "championship game":</p> <p>"The pitcher for the winning team was Lt. James Alexander Linen (1840-1918) of the 26th NJ, formerly of the Newark Eureka BBC. Linen later headed the bank, hence the mention in the book. In 1865 Linen organized the Wyoming BBC of Scranton, which changed its name to the Scranton BBC the next year. The 26th NJ was a Newark outfit, and a contemporary Newark newspaper says that many members of the prewar Eurekas and Adriatics of that town had joined the 26th. The 26th was in the Sixth Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, stationed at/near White Oak Church near Fredericksburg, VA. April 1863, the army was in camp.  The book says Linen played against Charlie Walker a former catcher of the Newark Adriatics who was now catcher for the "Third Corps" club.</p> <p>"With all that being said, in my opinion the clubs that played this game weren't 'corps' clubs, but rather regimental and/or brigade clubs that by their play against other regiments/brigades claimed the Third and Sixth Corps championships.</p> <p>"Steinke's "Scranton", page 44, has a line drawing and long article on Linen which mentions this game. See also the "New York Clipper" website, which has a photo of Linen."</p>  +
<p>Apparently not liking either the New York Rules or Massachusetts Game Rules, the two formal sets available to them, the boys of the South Berkshire Institute, a prep school in New Marlborough, MA, drew up a hybrid game. Their version is rare in that its documentation has survived.</p>  +
<p>“Not even regular guard and fatigue duty, drill and digging in the trenches could exhaust all of the energies of thee Massachusetts boys, so they must needs organize a baseball club, a thing they had never done in the month of January, and company rivalry ran high. The nine from Company I beat that of Company C to the tune of fifty to twenty-nine. It goes without saying that this was in the days of old-fashioned ball, when large scores were not unusual, and a phenomenally small one by no means argued a superior game.”</p> <p>Alfred S. Roe, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Fifth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry</span> (Fifth Regiment Veteran Association, Boston, 1911) page 196 The book has no other reference to ballplaying. This passage appears in an account of late January 1863, and the camp was evidently near Newbern VA [a railroad terminus], about 45 miles SW of Roanoke in Southwest Virginia. Accessed at Google Books 6/609 via “fifth Massachusetts roe” search. The regiment comprised men from towns NW of Boston.</p> <p>The unit was at New Bern, NC in January 1863. [ba]</p>  +
<p>The regimental history, writing of winter camp on the Rappahannock River in late January,: “The duties of a soldier’s life in camp were resumed. Drill, dress parade, inspection, picket and guard duty, policing, building roads, were the usual occupations. Amusements were encouraged and chess, checkers, baseball and athletic exercises helped to while away tedious hours.”</p> <p>Camille Baquet, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">History of the First Brigade, New Jersey Volunteers </span>(State of New Jersey, 1910), page 71. This is the only reference to ballplaying in the book, which covers 1861 to 1865. Accessed 6/6/09 on Google Books via “baquet ‘first brigade’’’ search.</p>  +