Source:Fleming-schoolboys
G. T. Fleming. "Pittsburgh schoolboys who went to the war: Heroic part played by youthful pupils in the great struggle to preserve the Union is recalld [sic] at the approach of Memorial Day." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, May 25, 1913, sec. 5, p. 3. Newspapers.com 85622688.
BEGINNING tomorrow the annual exercises commemorating the soldier dead of the Civil War, preparatory to the general observance on Memorial Day, take place in the public schools of Pittsburgh and vicinity under the direction of the Grand Army of the Republic and other patriotic societies. Gray-haired men in uniform with flags and martial strains, and stories of camp and field will stir the youthful hearts again, who will respond with the well loved songs and the old familiar recitations and that ever thrilling classic, Lincoln's Gettysburg address. Perhaps some speakers who help out the veterans in these most enjoyable exercises will tell something of school days while the soldiers were at the front fighting the battles of the Union, and how the folks at home felt while the father or brother was in danger in the line of duty. These were indeed the days that "tried men's souls."
Under date May 28, 1904, George W. Dithridge of New York, one of the first pupils of the old Pittsburgh Central High School and an alumnus of the class of 1860, in a letter to a fellow alumnus nicely voiced the sentiments that carry one back to the war days, in the following letter. The preliminary movements that led to the placing of the bronze memorial tablet in the Fifth Avenue Building had just begun and the letter is in touch with that movement. Mr. Dithridge said, among other things:
An Old Scholar's Memories.
"Yet, as much as you and your classmates may have enjoyed your high school years, you scarcely realize what fun you missed by not having been born early enough to have gone through those school days of 1855–1860. Work—lots of it, and under many disadvantages. But fun! The fountain never ceased boiling and it scarcely ceased sizzling during the hours of profoundest slumber. I am sure many of us kept up our joviality right through our sleep and had our good times over again.
"Then what a privilege it was to live through the five stirring years preceding and leading up to the Civil War and to be delivered right out of the comparative seclusion of school life into the very midst of the great struggle, was something to stir the very fountains of life to their lowest depths. The mingling of the merry side of life with the shadows, which were already beginning to darken the sunny landscape of our lives was one of rare occurrence, and this favored country has never seen its like since. I well remember with what a strange sensation I first recognized that there were young men around me, just beginning their business careers, who had no recollections whatever of the events of the Civil War. But now, so rapidly does time wing his ceaseless flight, there are prattlers all about me whose grandfathers were too young in 1861 to have any personal recollections of that dramatic period. The years 1860–1865 inclusive are a most interesting epoch in high school life and should be portrayed by someone with sufficient love for the task and patience to mine for the material."
And this was written in 1904 and since, a fourth generation is well along toward mature years. Let it be noted, also, that when the struggle for our national existence came, the shadow of a great grief darkened the loyal, loving household of the Dithridge family and the gayety and joyousness of the ante-bellum high school days stood forth in bold contrast with the somber and grievous war days. George W. Dithridge found occasion to write a wartime poem that found space in Harper's Weekly under the caption "The Nameless Grave." When loving hands on Memorial Day place garlands and flowers on the graves of the soldier dead of the old high school, one will be missed, for it was never known, and somewhere on fame's eternal camping ground is spread the silent tent of William C. Dithridge, a younger brother of George, who perished at Second Bull Run, who left his desk and books in his "B" or junior year, barely 17, to enlist in the Pittsburgh Zouave Cadets, which became Company A of the Fifth Regiment of Gen. Daniel E. Sickles' Excelsior Brigade, in line the Seventy-fourth New York Volunteers.
Remains Never Recovered.
No tidings of his fate ever reached the Dithridge home. Efforts by their congressman, Gen. J. K. Moorhead, and the sorrowful father were futile, and the hope that young Dithridge might be found a prisoner in one of the Confederate prisons was dissipated. Between the day of the battle in which he perished and the burial of the Union dead a week elapsed, with the field in possession of the victorious Confederates. When the newly enlisted One Hundred and Thirty-ninth Pennsylvania Volunteers under Col., later Judge, Frederick H. Collier, reached Washington, early in September, 1862, their first assignment to duty was to aid in burying the derelict dead on the field of Bull Run, where they lay. No bodies were recognizable by form or feature, but fragments of Pittsburgh papers, torn and dirty, were found, and a trampled envelope addressed to William C. Dithridge showed unmistakably where the Pittsburgh companies in Sickles' command had fought in that desperate struggle, and somewhere near young Dithridge had fallen, "dead on the field of honor."
Hence, on this coming memorial Day, while the firew surviving comrades and kindred of William C. Dithridge gather around the graves of their comrades, in memory only will they place flowers upon his, and with closed eyes and solemn mien, in memory also, "drink, standing, and in silence."
Edward Dithridge, the father of George W. and William C. Dithridge, was the owner of the old Fort Pitt glass works, a chimney house in its later years that occupied the site of Epiphany Roman Catholic Church, and the adjoining synagogue at Franklin and Washington streets, now Epiphany street. When William C. Dithridge fell, he was second sergeant and in command of his company and of his classmates and chums in the high school. Three served with him in that company, Charles S. Preston, David M. Watt and John A. Robertson, Watt succeeding Preston as captain of the company when Preston was killed at Wapping Heights, Va., after Gettysburg. Capt. Watt became well known in railroad circles as superintendent of the West Penn division of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and Mr. Robertson, from his long connection with the firm of George A. Kelly & Co. of Pittsburgh.
Naturally the boys of the high school, being older, were more eligible for enlistment than those in the ward schools, yet there were many instances of the larger boys in the elementary schools going to the war, especially in the last years, by reason of the fact that "men" were becoming scarce. War in its intensity then had fully and literally typified Gen. Sherman's famous definition, but the boys of the land never faltered. If you see a veteran on Friday next whose hair is untinged with white and whose step is still springy, you will find on inquiry that when he wore the blue he was only a boy—"a mere boy," as the saying goes.
Defense Measure Close School.
At times school duties in the war days were interrupted by more pressing and onerous ones. Old diaries record that "on this day school was closed because the principal and professors were working their time on the fortifications of the city." This happened more than once, and the professors' soft hands as often showed blisters and their faces the tanning that Old Sol had given them while in performance of their arduous manual labor. Some of these entrenchments are still visible on the hills of the Schenley Farms district and a fort on Marshall avenue, North Side.
Strains of martial music—and these were almost daily heard—broke up many a recitation. What kind of a boy could recite when fife and drums were doing their best to remind you of the girls, a thousand or more men in blue marching by, were leaving behind? The thrill of glory had the multiplication table, Virgil, Caesar and dear old Euclid buried miles deep, and it took hours really for the overwrought scholars to come back to the routine of the schoolroom.
Especially thrilling were the early days of the war. The High School was then in its first quarters at what is now 508 and 510 Smithfield street, then as now the main thoroughfare from the river to the old depot on Liberty street, about where now Grant street enters, and the street was daily filled with enthusiastic marchers, either going to or escorting some command to the front. For not only Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania soldiers marched by the schools, but Ohio, Michigan and other Western troops, and with the same thrill and the same effect on study.
An early diary record reads: "April 24—(1861) Recitations were interrupted by one-half hour to allow us to see the Thirteenth Pennsylvania, under Col. Rowley, march by on their way to the front. The 10 o'clock recitations for today will be recited tomorrow."
But not always lively music interrupted study. To [sic] often the strains of a dirge brought a hush in the school room and all knew that some hero was being borne to his last resting place and there were cases when the High School classes were dismissed on the occasion of the funeral of some slain High School soldier boy, as witness the record:
"(May, 1862)—Last week Lieut. Alfred Lindsay's remains were brought home. On the day of his funeral school was dismissed and the pupils and professors took part in the funeral procession and marched to the Allegheny Cemetery. The remains were interred in a remote section, with neither habitation of the living nor of the dead visible. After the coffin had been lowered and the solemn last words and prayer spoken the provost guard fired three volleys over the grave. The hills re-echoed. The cloudy sky, the winds sighing in the tall oaks, added a somberness and a requiem to a scene never to be forgotten. After the ceremonies the pupils were marched back to school and dismissed."
The above is from an old Alumni Annual and written by Mrs. Julia M. D. Schenck, class of 1864. Lieut. Lindsay's home was on Scott street, so it can be readily seen the pupils had somewhat of a march in their last tribute to a fallen schoolmate and loved one.
War Cut Down Attendance.
The war almost broke up the old high school. The attendance dropped gradually. If the boys were not in the army, they were at work supporting the family in the absence of the father in the service, which was none too easy in war times with coffee at 70 cents a pound, calico 40 cents per yard and flour as high as $16 per barrel. The enrollment of the war years at the high school shows this absence of male pupils plainly. On September 25, 1855, when the school opened, 114 pupils were enrolled. In February, 1856, 31 more were entered, the first rules calling for semi-annual admissions, a system recently readopted. The next year the attendance was better and the enrollment 180, the high mark until 1869, when 204 was recorded, including the Normal and Commercial departments established that year. The war years averaged 146, but the attendance in the three upper classes fell off materially, the average being maintained by the first year entrants. Previous to 1869, the high school course was academical only, and much higher than now. In fact, it was a young college. The graduates during the war years were few. With 3 in 1859 and 12 in 1860, a large class, the succeeding years were: 1861, 8 graduates; 1862, 5; 1863, 8; 1864, 6; 1865, 10. Of these 37 graduates, but 10 were boys, of whom four served in the army; one three years, the others shorter terms. The one boy on the Alumni roster for 1864, in fact, did not graduate at all, but enlisted a few weeks before commencement. Principal Philotus Dean gave him his diploma later. This was the late William G. Hubley, and there were others granted honorary diplomas on account of their enlistment before graduation.
In the classes graduated in 1866 and 1867, four and six respectively, there were six boys, then too young for enlistment. The small number of graduates and the greater proportion of girls shows the effect of the times upon the high school attendance.
Pittsburgh had then but nine wards and lay altogether between the rivers, the eastern boundaries being Miltenberger, Jumonville, DeVilliers, Kirkpatrick and the present Thirtieth street, and the census of 1860 gave us less than 50,000 inhabitants.
From year to year the newcomers in the Fifth Avenue High School Builidng [sic] gaze on the beautiful bronze tablet on the wall in the lower corridor, and its artistic beauty and sombre lines, its open pages and alluring lines, its wonderfully moulded war paraphernalia, typical of battle and service, always appeal and awaken deeper thoughts. The writer has seen groups of young pupils gazing upon the tablet in silent admiration, perhaps one reading for the others or all silently reading. As an object lesson in patriotism, the tablet is both unique and effective.
On this tablet are inscribed 63 names of high school pupils of the 254 boys who were enrolled from the time the school opened in 1855 to the end of the schol [sic] year in June, 1864. Of the 63 eleven were killed in action or died of wounds, two died of disease in the service, 10 were wounded in action, and one was a prisoner in Andersonville for a year. When the tablet was unveiled and the exercises incidental took place, March 31, 1907, it was a matter of editorial comment that so many had war commissions, 22 ranking from second lieutenant to lieutenant-colonel, the latter, William H. Riddle, brother-in-law of Thomas A. Scott, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. How completely loyal and capable the old high school scholars were is evidenced by the fact that of 57 boys entering on the opening day in 1855, and 18 in the February following, 28 entered the armies of the United States, 17 for three years, and of these 28, 15 were officrs [sic].
Military Telegraphers.
The old high school also furnished four operators for the United States Military Telegraph Corps: David Horner Bates, now of New York, author of "Lincoln in the Telegraph Office;" Benjamin H. Flack, Samuel C. Brown, and Samuel T. Paisley.
It was a unique and unprecedented occasion, this dedication of a public and enduring monument to the soldier dead of a public school, March 31, 1907. A goodly number of gray-haired men and women gathered and a throng of later generations of the soldiers of the school, a sprinkling of High school pupils of the day who took part in the musical exercises. Alex. C. Montgomery, who served in the One Hundred and Thirty-sixth and One Hundred and Ninety-third Pennsylvania Regiments, made the opening address. Capt. William T. Eatson of the Central Board of Education, followed. Stillness unparalleled in school affairs came upon the large audience, as the late Miss Nannie Mackrell, then principal of the Moorhead school and a High school alumnae, recited George W. Dithridge's poem, "The Nameless Grave," in memory of his brother William, the opening verses thus, all lines rhyming:
The low wind sighs o'er a Southern plain
That once was strewn with the battle slain,
And the moist earth drinks the fallen rain
That once was wet with a blood red stain!
Dark lowering clouds the heaven o'erspread
Whence the battle smoke has long since fled;
And where voiceless lay the fallen dead,
A nameless grave is seen instead.
An Affecting Occasion.
Miss Mackrell was a good reciter. Her clear enunciation and feeling tones were heard by all, and here and there, among the audience, anon an audible sob broke the stillness and then the tablet was unveiled by two veterans, classmates of 1860, Samuel W. Hill and Robert T. McKee, after which Veteran John W. Kerr, an honorary alumnus, delivered a touching address. He told of the heroic deaths of Capt. Samuel Taggart of Company I, One Hundred and Sixteenth Pennsylvania, previously of Company H, One Hundred and Twenty-third Pennsylvania, and valedictorian of the class of 1860, killed at Reams Station, Va., August 24, 1864; Maj. Frank B. Ward, killed at Stones River, December 29, 1862, gallantly leading the charge of the Fifteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry with his companion, Maj. Rosegarten, also killed there; of William C. Dithridge and Alfred C. Lindsay, Capt. "Charley" Preston, who missed Gettysburg because sorely wounded at Chancellorsville in Sickles' stubborn stand there and who had a most vivid presentment of his death as it actually occurred; Lieut. "Joe" Miller of Hampton's Battery, brother of Reuben Miller, Jr., mortally wounded in the terrible fighting on the evening of July 2, 1863, at Gettysburg, suffering until August 6, when death came, and of Capt. Charles Wesley Chapman of Company K; of Col., later Brevet Maj. Gen. Alexander Hays, Sixty-third Pennsylvania, killed at Pohick Church, almost in sight of Mt. Vernon, March 5, 1862, a detachment of the regiment under Lieut. Col. A. S. M. Morgan having been ambuscaded by a guerrilla band in the darkness of evening while returning from a scout; two others, Lieut. James M. Lysle and a private, also killed, and it is worthy of remark here, because his grave will be decorated for the first time this Memorial Day, that one man who was so terribly wounded on that occasion that his life was despaired of came home and passed his years here in our city until his peaceful death at his desk in the custom house in Pittsburgh last December—the late Maj. George B. Chalmers.
The death of Lieut. Lindsay was most pathetic; not in the charge or stern resolve and attempt to hold the line at all hazards, not as picket or in ambuscade, but in the quiet of an evening bivouac after a tiresome march. With his company, F of the One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Pennsylvania, commanded by Col. Thomas M. Bayne of Pittsburgh, the command had halted for supper while on the march to Chancellorsville, April 30, 1863. The men were preparing their suppers in groups, as was the custom. At a distance the enemy could see these movements and some artillery officer, in the war spirit to kill, suddenly threw a few shells into the midst of the unsuspecting Union soldiers, killing a number of men and mortally wounding Lieut. Lindsay, who was but 20 years old.
Mr. Kerr told also of none the less heroic deaths by fever of two tried soldiers, Capt. George B. U. Martin of Company H, Twenty-eighth Pennsylvania and Lieut. Charles J. Long, quartermaster of the One Hundred and Thirty-ninth Pennsylvania, and in detail went over the long roll of the wounded of the High school's soldier roster.
Few War Students Survive.
But few of the old high school boys who went to the war survive. Among those who will take part in the beautiful ceremonies of our annual remembrance are to be named Robert D. McKee, of Post 259 Col. Samuel W. Hill, of Post 3; Lieut. Charles W. Gerwiz, of Post 128; Sergt. Thomas P. Henderson, of Oakmont; Sergt. John Reuton of Post 545; D. S. Salisbury, of Post 151; Lieut. Hugh H. Stephenson, of Oil City, and B. Frank Weyman, of Hampton's Battery, and Capt. Joseph Z. Culver, at Rochester, N. Y.
But what of the war days in the elementary schools? Space is lacking to tell how loyal, loving hearts ached, how the deft fingers of the larger girls helped in the almost daily occupation of picking apart the old linen necessary for the lint, then in use in the hospitals for staunching the flood of blood; how the teachers told us each morning the war news and read us war stories and the thrilling war novels of Charles Gardner Coffin and others; how someone, often in tremulous and awed voice, accounted for a neighbor boy or girl's absence: "Please, ma'm [sic], his father was killed day before yesterday;" how the pupils sang the war songs and how they went to the great sanitary fair on the commons, now the North Side parks.