Henry E. Handerson, a tutor from the Western Reserve of Ohio, fifteen miles east of Cleveland, enlisted in the Confederate army on June 17, 1861…A graduate of Hobart College at Geneva, New York, Handerson was not an ordinary soldier. His memoir is the account of a Northerner—who after only two years of residency in antebellum Louisiana decided to cast his lot with the Confederacy. Handerson was no wild-eyed secessionist. He was not in favor of the separation movement, but once it had matured he felt it his duty to lend his support to the defense of his newly adopted state and country.
…Already a member of a local home guard company, the twenty-four-year-old Ohio-born Handerson was quickly enrolled as a private in the Stafford Guards, later Company B, of the Ninth Louisiana Infantry. After a brief stay at Camp Moore, Louisiana, Handerson departed for Virginia with his regiment, arriving at Richmond on July 17. The Ninth Louisiana reached Manassas Junction in the early morning hours of July 22, missing the bloody battle at that place by one day. The Ninth was first bloodied at the Battle of Front Royal, Virginia, on May 23, 1862, in a brisk fight with the Union First Maryland Infantry. As part of Stonewall Jackson’s command, the regiment and Handerson marched and fought up and down the length of the Shenandoah Valley before moving down to Richmond to participate in the bloody Seven Days Battle. After this action Handerson was transferred to the quartermaster’s department, but returned to his regiment after being elected second lieutenant of his company shortly after Antietam. Handerson took part in the Fredericksburg battle, and later in the spring of 1863, was wounded in the neck at Chancellorsville. Lieutenant Handerson recovered from his wound just in time to reach Gettysburg on the last day of the battle there. When Leroy Stafford was promoted to general and posted to command a brigade of Louisiana troops, Handerson went with him as a captain and as his assistant adjutant general. In the Battle of the Wilderness, while carrying a dispatch, Handerson ran into an advancing battle line and was taken prisoner. At first, taken to Fort Delaware, the Ohio Confederate was picked to become one of the “immortal six hundred,” the group of Confederate officers, who in retaliation for some fancied Confederate inhumanities, were taken to Morris Island, South Carolina, and confined under poor living conditions, in a stockade in the direct line of fire from the Confederates at Charleston. Surviving this ordeal, Handerson wound up the war at Fort Pulaski, Georgia.
Handerson’s memoirs and his letters give a sympathetic picture of war and life in the Confederate army as seen through the eyes of a Northerner who lacked the emotional involvement of the native-born Southerners. His account of service with the army of Northern Virginia and as a prisoner of war is of particular value regarding the everyday details and incidents of a soldier’s life. Important figures and Confederate heroes are treated fairly but objectively by this keen-eyed observer.-Edward Cunningham
…Already a member of a local home guard company, the twenty-four-year-old Ohio-born Handerson was quickly enrolled as a private in the Stafford Guards, later Company B, of the Ninth Louisiana Infantry. After a brief stay at Camp Moore, Louisiana, Handerson departed for Virginia with his regiment, arriving at Richmond on July 17. The Ninth Louisiana reached Manassas Junction in the early morning hours of July 22, missing the bloody battle at that place by one day. The Ninth was first bloodied at the Battle of Front Royal, Virginia, on May 23, 1862, in a brisk fight with the Union First Maryland Infantry. As part of Stonewall Jackson’s command, the regiment and Handerson marched and fought up and down the length of the Shenandoah Valley before moving down to Richmond to participate in the bloody Seven Days Battle. After this action Handerson was transferred to the quartermaster’s department, but returned to his regiment after being elected second lieutenant of his company shortly after Antietam. Handerson took part in the Fredericksburg battle, and later in the spring of 1863, was wounded in the neck at Chancellorsville. Lieutenant Handerson recovered from his wound just in time to reach Gettysburg on the last day of the battle there. When Leroy Stafford was promoted to general and posted to command a brigade of Louisiana troops, Handerson went with him as a captain and as his assistant adjutant general. In the Battle of the Wilderness, while carrying a dispatch, Handerson ran into an advancing battle line and was taken prisoner. At first, taken to Fort Delaware, the Ohio Confederate was picked to become one of the “immortal six hundred,” the group of Confederate officers, who in retaliation for some fancied Confederate inhumanities, were taken to Morris Island, South Carolina, and confined under poor living conditions, in a stockade in the direct line of fire from the Confederates at Charleston. Surviving this ordeal, Handerson wound up the war at Fort Pulaski, Georgia.
Handerson’s memoirs and his letters give a sympathetic picture of war and life in the Confederate army as seen through the eyes of a Northerner who lacked the emotional involvement of the native-born Southerners. His account of service with the army of Northern Virginia and as a prisoner of war is of particular value regarding the everyday details and incidents of a soldier’s life. Important figures and Confederate heroes are treated fairly but objectively by this keen-eyed observer.-Edward Cunningham
