Notes & Queries

Notes & Queries EDITED BY BOYD B. STUTLER 517 Main Street Charleston, West Virginia this department is designed as an open forum for researchers into Civil War themes and for readers of Civil War History in general. It is open for questions on and discussions of phases of the Great Conflict and its personnel. Also, we welcome notes on newly discovered, little known, or sidelights of the war. Contributions are invited; address Notes and Queries Editor. QUERIES No. 53—Confederate General Shot at Long Range: I am trying to authenticate an incident reported in a book by Charles Winthrop Sawyer tided Our Rifles in which it is said a Captain John Metcalf 3d, of the Federal army, supposedly shot and killed a Confederate general by the name of Lainhart at a distance of over a mile with the use of a specially constructed telescopic rifle sight. The event is reportedly to bave occurred on a hill known as Blood Top. Although all known lists of battles and leaders of the Civil War, lists of field officers , regiments, and battalions in the Confederate army, 1861-1865, and Confederate müitary histories have been checked, I fail to find any mention of Captain John Metcalf 3d, General Lainhart, or a battle site known as Blood Top. The records I have checked on the author indicate that he has a good reputation for accuracy in his writings, and I have a feeling that it is a true report. But I need some proof. Query: Can any reader identify the officers mentioned, and the place, or cite some work where the information can be had? Robert M. Debevec No. 54—New Stars on Civil War Fhgs: Three states were admitted into the Federal Union from 1861 through 1864: Kansas, admitted January 29, 1861; West Virginia, June 20, 1863; 205 206BOYD B. stutler Nevada, October 31, 1864, each one requiring the insertion of a new star in the blue field of the national flag. Query: Were any official proclamations issued fixing the arrangement of the stars to represent these Civil War states? President-elect Lincoln raised the Kansas-starred flag at Philadelphia on February 22, 1861, while enroute to Washington to assume the presidency. When were the flags with stars to represent West Virginia and Nevada first officially used? DeIf Norona No. 55—Soldier Newspapers in the Civil War: According to notes compüed by the late Colonel Earle Lutz, of Richmond , Virginia, more than three hundred camp and field newspapers were published, some in only one number, by Union and Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. These were ephemeral "unconsidered trifles" and it seems that no systematic effort was made to preserve files; as a consequence a great many ofthe papers, perhaps more than half the number, are known only by references in letters, regimental histories, and items in contemporary newspapers. The 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry published a paper, The Ohio Seventh, July 4, 1861, in an abandoned secession newspaper plant at Weston, (W. ) Virginia, and is said to have issued another paper called The Buzzard later in the war. Query: Can any reader furnish information about The Buzzard, place of issue, and at least approximate dates? Boyd B. Stutler ANSWERS No. 51—Bibliography of Civil War Ephemera: Mr. C. E. Dornbusch, of the New York Public Library staff, replies in detaü to the query posed by DeIf Norona (December, 1958), about the availabüity of a bibliography of Civil War publications issued in the Northern States. Mr. Dornbusch has undertaken a complete revision and extension of the Bibliography of State Participation in the Civil War, 1861-1865 under a grant from the Emily E. F. Skeel fund, and after August 1 will give full time to the work; mention of this project was made in the March, 1959, number. He writes: "I am revising BSPCW and continuing it down to the present, to include both the Blue and the Gray. The canons for inclusion are any printed piece tiiat contributes to the history of a Civil War unit and die life of a soldier in its ranks. The citations will be arranged in chronological order. I am now engaged in establishing a control file...