Notes
Notes Introduction 1. Charles Henry Howard to Eliza Gilmore, April 1, 1865, Charles Henry Howard Collection, George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives, Bowdoin College Library (hereafter referred to as CHHC). 2. Otis McGraw Howard, General Charles H. Howard: A Short Outline of a Useful Life (Chicago: Privately printed, 1925), 7; John Carpenter, Sword and Olive Branch: Oliver Otis Howard (New York: Fordham University Press, 1999), 2. 3. Carpenter, Sword and Olive Branch, 2. 4. Otis McGraw Howard, General Charles H. Howard, 9. 5. Carpenter, Sword and Olive Branch, 6–11; Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, Major General, United States Army, 2 vols. (New York: Trow Press, 1907), 1:40–41. Otis was nominated to attend West Point by his uncle, thencongressman John Otis. The congressman believed his own son would not be accepted owing to the “narrowness of his chest,” and believed Otis or his brother Rowland to be strong applicants to attend in his stead (Oliver Otis Howard to John Otis, June 24, 1850, Oliver Otis Howard Papers, Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum, Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, Tennessee. 6. Otis McGraw Howard, General Charles H. Howard, 9–10. 7. Otis graduated from West Point in 1854. Otis’s service following West Point saw him assigned to a variety of military outposts in New York, Maine, and Florida, before returning to teach at West Point in 1857. Otis Howard lived with his wife, Elizabeth, affectionately referred to as “Elizabeth” or “Lizzie” in all correspondence of Charles’s (Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography, 1:59–89). 8. Charles Henry Howard to Eliza Gilmore, April 11, 1857, CHHC. Notes to Pages xvii–xx 210 9. Otis McGraw Howard, General Charles H. Howard, 13. Rowland Howard graduated from Bowdoin in 1856 and, following his graduation in the spring of 1860 from the seminary, would serve the remainder of his life as a minister in a variety of Congregational churches in the North. The only time that Rowland stepped away from the ministry was to serve in the Christian Commission during the Civil War. Rowland pursued his ministerial duties until his death in 1892 (Rowland Bailey Howard Papers , George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives, Bowdoin College Library [hereafter referred to as Rowland Bailey Howard Papers]). 10. Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography, 1:152–65. In Otis’s account of the battle he repeatedly noted that Charles tried to serve as a rallying force for the brigade on Chinn Ridge when the men began to waver (at this point Otis was acting commander of a brigade as well as the official colonel of the 3rd Maine). Allegedly Charles implored Otis at times to try and rally to retake the field (Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography, 1:161). For more on Otis Howard’s brigade at Bull Run, see Ethan Rafuse, A Single Grand Victory: The First Campaign and Battle of Manassas (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 2002), 183–89. Otis would eventually formally relinquish command of the 3rd Maine in September 1861. In his letter to the regiment, he entreated the men to stand firm in their fight against the Confederacy, remarking, “It is his duty and yours to face the enemy. By the help of God the enemy must be conquered. Forget not, then, daily to ask confidently for that help from on high” (Charles Henry True and William Edwards Seaver Whitman, Maine in the War for the Union [Lewiston , ME: Nelson Dingley Jr. & Co. Publishers, 1865], 64). 11. Charles Henry Howard to Professor George Little, December 3, 1886, CHHC. 12. The battle of Fair Oaks saw both Otis and Charles Howard wounded—Otis in the arm and Charles in the thigh. Otis’s wounds ultimately required the amputation of his right arm while Charles managed to keep his limb. Yet despite these wounds, it was Charles’s life that was thought to be in greater danger when the pair returned to Maine in the days after the battle. Despite the wounds, both brothers returned to the army in time for the battle of Antietam in September 1862. Charles received a second wounding just three months later at the battle of Fredericksburg when a piece of an errant shell caught him in the calf as he was delivering a critical message for his brother by traveling through an area rife with sharpshooters (Otis McGraw Howard, General Charles H. Howard, 20–23; Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography, 1:246–48, 250–52). Otis credits his brother with playing a crucial role...
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