Civil War Bayonet

Real-life Civil War love story to be brought to stage

Editor’s note: This is another in an occasional series on Vermont in the Civil War.

MIDDLEBURY — In between dodging Rebel bullets and bayonets during the bloody Civil War battles of Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg and Cedar Creek, George Howe of Shoreham somehow found time to tenderly court the love of his life, Lorette Wolcott, through letters sent home.

“Dear Lorette, you take a different view of my being a soldier for life than I thought you would,” Howe, a soldier with the 11th Regiment, Vermont Volunteers, wrote to Wolcott on Jan. 17, 1864.

“You talk as though I’ll never see Shoreham again. Thank you for ‘the kiss’ and here are lots in return. I suppose it is the only way you will let me kiss you now, as I cannot spare any mistakes. Remember me to all the good people.”

Howe’s tender words, and those reciprocated by his future wife, have reposed for more than a century within the considerable archives of the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History.

But those words — and others written by more than a half-dozen Addison County residents whose lives were affected by the great war between the states — will soon be given voice anew. The words form the script of a new play, titled “Remember me to all Good Folks,” that will be staged at the Town Hall Theater on Sept. 9 and 10.

Sheldon Museum Executive Director Jan Albers started thinking early this year about using the museum’s Civil War archive as fodder for a play. What better way to bring the material into public view than via the stage, during what is the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War?

“The thing that I love about history is its stories, and the stories really happened — they are real,” Albers said. “You’ve got all the drama of fiction and theater, but the stories are real. Playwrights are trying to create in fiction something that feels like fact. But if you’ve got fact, it adds a whole other dimension. These are real people who lived here, and this is what it would have felt like if you had been alive. This is what people were talking about; this is what people were writing about if you had been alive in this part of Vermont during the Civil War.”

Museum Education Coordinator Sue Peden — a Civil War re-enactor — dutifully plucked the right material from the archives.

Civil War "Dahlgren" short navy bowie knife bayonet

The first Knife Bladed bayonet is considered to be the Model 1861 for the Plymouth / Whitneyville rifle. It is perhaps better known by its nickname the Dahlgren Bowie Bayonet, named for it inventor Admiral John A. Dahlgren. Many articles have been written about the Dahlgren bayonet but what is most intriguing are the actual letters from the Admiral himself regarding its design and use. As we know the basic use of a bayonet is mounted to the end of a rifle or musket. To Dahlgren's thinking this is not the proper use of his newly invented arm. It should be known that Admiral Dahlgren was in command of several Navy ships and knew first hand what close quarters fighting was about. With this in mind perhaps we can relate to the admirals thought when he wrote that the bayonet was best used in the hand not mounted on the end of the rifle it was designed for. It is also interesting to note that the 1861 rifle already had a sword bayonet designed for it at the time of Dahlgren's invention of the new bayonet. In Dahlgren's own words he called it the "most useless thing in the world except at the end of a musket." Perhaps this explains why most Dahlgren bayonets do NOT fit the Model 1861 rifle. They were meant to but they were also designed to be used as a close quarters fighting weapon in a sailors or marines hand. The Admiral invented a bayonet because a knife would not be sanctioned by the Ordnance Board. But being the clever fellow he was the bayonet did not really have to fit the rifle either.

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