Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Chaplain's 1863 Civil War Diary Gettysburg 28th VA COPY

On January 31st, 2007, I sold this original Civil War Diary. During the auction I received emails from several people that either had relatives in the VA division or wanted a copy but they could not afford the winning bid price of $6,600.00.

I scanned the entire diary at 600 DPI from cover to cover including the outside covers. I am selling two views of this diary, single page scan and double page scan on 2 CDs. They both are included in the price. I have not transcribed the diary. I am only selling the scanned images of the original diary. The one picture on this ebay listing is downsized from the original scanned image. I provided a link above so you can see the full size image. Single page scans are between 2.5 & 5 megabytes. Double paged scans vary from 4.5 to 9 megabytes. The images are in a Windows jpeg format. The images are very large which makes the text easy to read.


This diary was purchased by a wealthy family in New York decades ago. To my knowledge this diary has never been transcribed or copied. The son of the wealthy family that owned the diary died in 1989 and the diary was in my possession for almost 18 years. The chaplain's name is Peter Tinsley, he died in 1908 and is buried in Virginia (according to the purchaser of the diary)

Original Information copied from my Auction on January 31st 2007.....

This is an original 1863 Civil War Diary that came from a multimillion dollar estate 17 years ago. The owner was a son of a very wealthy New York family.

Diary belonged to: Chaplain of 28th Va Regiment, Garnetts Brigade, Picketts Divison.

Start Date: Tuesday, June 16, 1863

End Date: Thursday, December, 31, 1863

Battle: Gettysburg

Pages: 144

Size: 6" x 3 7/8 x 1/2"

Fore edge art: all 3 sides

Pocket on back cover

This is a very important Civil War diary because of the Chaplain's first hand account of the Gettysburg battle. According to this diary, the Chaplain would stay with the field surgeons and await the wounded. He included many important details like dates, time, miles marched, description of scenery, smell of the battlefield, description of wounds on soldiers, names of Forts, Generals, Majors, Captains, Colonels, Doctors (male & female), amounts of artillery, figures of dead, Yankees etc. The Chaplain mentions General Kemper many times. The Chaplain's entry for July 3rd 1863 starts on page 13 and ends on page 25. All 144 pages are filled with this exception: pages 114 & 115 are blank.

a small sample of the many names and places mentioned:

General Kemper

Garnett

Armistead

Black Horse Tavern

Bream's Mill (Bream's Tavern)

From GOOGLE:

Located on the north side of the Fairfield Rd. (Route 116) at the intersection with Black Horse Tavern Road. Also known as Breams' Tavern, this building is listed on the National Register of Historical Places. Francis Bream purchased the farm and tavern in 1843. The buildings and surrounding land was used extensively as a Confederate field hospital during and after the battle, including Pickett's division.

http://www.horsesoldier.com/catalog/c0068.html

Chaffins Farm

Fort McHenry

Fort Monroe

Fort Norfolk

A. P. Hill

General Heath

Robert E. Lee

General Ewell

General Tyler

General Sedgwick

GENERAL WARREN

Captain Rankin (Yankee Officer)

Major Wilson

Some excertps:

Page 21: Our artillery opens a terrific fire upon the enemy about 1 o'clock doing great damage to their artillery and infantry - silencing some guns

Page 24: The scene at our field hospital stand is horrid beyond description & by far the worst I have ever seen

Page 25: Col'n Garnett?, shot in arm and face and badly mutilated but not mortally wounded

Page 31: Gen'l Sedgwick visits Gen'l Kemper, I also see Gen'l Warren, chief of engineers. They promise to send me & others cal? supplies immediately.

Page 35: (P.M.) I call to see Gen'l Kemper He is restless? & nervous but suppose to be better. I do not perform? religious services on him in his present condition, being entirely satisfied with what he told me when I first visited him.

Page 39: We meet many (she doctors) who amuse us very much.

Page 41: the battlefield, horrid with the stench of dead horses

Page 41: By the way, the Yankees are fond of drinking with our Drs & delight to propose a toast "The Union"

Page 47: Spend the day visiting the wounded

2 CDs for $29.00 via Paypal