I can't remember whose documentary series it was but just a few months ago they started the episode on Gettysburg with a mention of Harrison and Longstreet.
Unfortunately, thanks to "progress", Oak Grove was torn down in the 1990's to make room for an assisted living facility. The Broders Family Cemetery is still located on the "property" and is sandwiched between Best Buy and Forestdale Elementary School in Springfield, Virginia.
Is this the "Harrison" who starred in the beginning of the movie Gettysburg? I'm pretty sure it has to be, you rarely hear him mentioned,so much so that I thought he was a made up character for the movie!!! Thanks for another great upload! Mark, Northern Ireland
@@StevieGPT Thanks for clearing that up for me, I knew it had to be but I started to self doubt myself, I have a fair size library of Civil War books but can never remember hearing him mentioned in any of them,or perhaps I've just read the wrong ones!!!! I do tend to read books on the whole war from 61/65 rather than on specific battles, that might be another reason why I've missed his name in books.
This is a good lecture on an interesting subject though the speakers speech defects can be a little difficult to follow. Probably best to put the closed captions on though I'm not trying to sound insulting. It is what it is.
The speaker shows you three photographs over the course of his presentation: one taken from Longstreet's 1895 autobiography, a second taken from Harrison's family records, and a third taken from an unknown source. Of the three the photograph showing a barrel-chested man wearing a black coat is, in fact, an image of Harrison. The other two are not. Harrison was a steamboat captain on the Yazoo River when the war commenced. He joined a Mississippi cavalry regiment and served for a time with Van Dorn. In 1862 he appeared in Virginia, in Suffolk County acting as a spy for D.H. Hill, was captured by Union forces at New Bern, was released, and ended up, being paid by Longstreet with Confederate gold, somehow passing the Union Army at Frederick and arriving at General Lee's tent sometime on or about June 28. After the war he went to Montana, engaged in mining, then appeared in Cincinnati as a detective, was fired, and disappeared. His remains are buried in Covington KY.
The relevant question is, Which image is, in fact, an image of Harrison. Sometime during 1861 Harrison met Laura Broders, whose family owned a farm called Oak Grove, in Fairfax County. Harrison married her and then, sometime in 1864, abandoned her, leaving her with a child, and went west. Laura Broders' daugher, Irene, wrote a note in her lifetime of ninety plus years, the record doesn't tell us when, that "I have a picture of my father in Confederate Uniform." Irene is referring to the image of the guy with the pistol in his hand. Irene's daughter's son says that, during his childhood the picture was displayed on the family mantle. He asked his mother, "Who is that?" and he says she said, "It is your great grandfather." Laura Broders' granddaughter, Marian, wrote on the back of the image of the man in the black coat: "This is a photo of Henry Harrison on the day he married Laura Broders."There is no record, beyond this, which tells us when the two photographs were made, or where, or why. In the trial court, where the objective truth of history can be best exposed, A telling us B told her that B saw X is not ordinarily admissible as _evidence_ that, in fact, X happened. Assuming it is correct for the fact-finder to say that the color of the young soldier's eyes is probably a shade of light blue, we have three images that might be images of the same man, taken at different ages: the man shown in the first image is between the age of 20 and 30; the man in the second between the age of 40 and 50; the man in the third between the age of 50 and 60. The forehead, nose, mouth, and use of a mustache seem approximately the same taking into account the plain difference in age of the man in each image. However, if, in fact, the color of the eyes of the soldier is hazel-like then, plainly, he is not the same man shown in the latter two photographs. The judgment call is for the viewer to make. If the soldier in the photograph is, in fact, Henry T. Harrison, there are certainly peculiar features of the photograph that make the identification difficult to believe. First, when compared to the several thousand tintype photographs of Civil War soldiers that can be viewed at the Library of Congress website, this photograph is clearly unique, a stand alone image without a parallel in the Library's database. It seems more like a professional portrait of a character than a picture of a young man gone to war wearing his uniform. Second, there are features of the uniform the man is wearing that seem odd and out of place. Third, there is the gimmick of the piece of paper with numbers written on it, as if in secret code. Fourth, there is the matter of the timing of the taking of the photograph, where and when and by whom. Finally, the objective evidence shows that it is highly unlikely Harrison employed himself at any time in his life before 1864 as an actor. The point being: is this a real image or I wish it were image? The first conflict between the known undisputed facts and the photograph, is that the photograph shows a man in the uniform of a Confederate infantry officer, a second Lieutenant, which Harrison was not. Harrison was a private for six months, then discharged. The second conflict is the matter of the dress of the uniform: the buttons as well as their placement seem odd; the presence of the great coat and the manner in which it is casually draped over the man's shoulders. The third is the quality of the cloth of the uniform. It is expensive material and, given its condition, it has plainly not seen actual service. The fourth is the revolver. It does not have, as it should, a sight. Is it a prop in a photographer's studio, or is it a weapon the young man actually carried on his person in the field? Finally, there is the business about the paper and the numbers; is this a prop? Does it have a purpose? What is the message conveyed? Is it a child's message, or a man's? Substituting letters for numbers, based on A being 1 and E being 5, the "secret" message to the viewer is, "My Love." My love what? The man has a revolver without a sight laying in his lap, with his index finger seemingly pointing to the message. It is his revolver that he loves? Is he telling his sweetheart, Laura, that he loves war more than her, so its good by and so long? This is certainly not the message he seemed to convey in his letter to her, sent from Camp Van Dorn on November 5, 1861. And why would Henry T. Harrison, the spy and scout who was discharged from Confederate Army service, in November 1861, and who spent the rest of the war in civilian clothes behind enemy lines, spend the money the uniform plainly cost? He knew when he bought it that he would never wear it. To suggest he bought the uniform and assigned himself the rank of an officer, to impress his sweetheart, seems silliness in the extreme. So, was Harrison a serious man or a silly man? Is it probable, then, that Laura, long after Harrison was gone, had received the photograph as a prop to show her daughters a romantic image of their father? A father neither of them had ever seen? Your guess is as good as mine. Of course, if, in fact, the man in the first and second photographs is the same man, then Laura Broders' granddaughter, Marian, was an untrustworthy historian, or Laura's daughter, Irene, was. Because the man in the second photograph is plainly not the same age as the man in the first photograph-by a decade. So, if the two photographs are of the same man, then either Laura or her daughter received the second photograph after the war was over. Which brings us to the photograph Longstreet produced in his autobiography in 1895. No record has been found among Longstreet's known paper depositories that tells us when and how Longstreet got his hands on the subject photograph. Longstreet's chief of staff, Moxley Sorrel, wrote a manuscript of memoirs that was published after his death. In it he adds to the Harrison lore, claiming that another aide of Longstreet's, Latrobe, had seen Harrison in Baltimore after the war, when exactly he does not say. Of course it is possible that somehow Longstreet made contact with Harrison, or Harrison with him, and out of the contact came the photograph. Though, like the rest, Longstreet is not a trustworthy narrator; would he be so bold as to intentionally lead his readers, and the historians, into the false belief the man in the photograph is Harrison? The book publisher's business records are now in the hands of the Philadelphia Historical Society. The Society reports that, among the memorandums dealing with the publisher's communications with Longstreet, no reference can be found to the photograph and no negative of it exists in the records. I received much in contribution from the persons listed below, some of whom contributed a great deal of their time to search through obscure files.First among these, is Colleen Puterbaugh, Research Librarian of the Robert O. Hall Research Center at the Surratt House Museum, followed by Sue Levy of the Fairfax Historial Society and Jody Foley of the Montana Historical Society, Robert L. Webb, an historian for the Primitive Baptist Church, and Robert Kulesher, Laura Broders and Henry T. Harrison's great, grandson. @@greatlakestraveller9703
@@joeryanstrialbook2005 I did a little more follow-up research: "The first conflict between the known undisputed facts and the photograph, is that the photograph shows a man in the uniform of a Confederate infantry officer, a second Lieutenant, which Harrison was not". Are you sure of that? In the above lecture at 4:51 Ranger Smith mentions that Harrison was listed as a 2nd Lt. on a return post from Mississippi (where Harrison had enlisted), and James O. Hall in his Feb. 1986 article in Civil War Times mentioned that same item. Hall said it is not definite proof that the 2nd Lt in question is our Harrison, but it did seemed likely that he was, based on the circumstances. The whole business of a medical discharge may have been simply a ruse, to get Harrison into the role of an undercover scout (spy, in other words) To me it seems very plausible that Harrison had this photo made for his future wife-to-be Laura Broders, especially given the message he was holding.The uniform may have been brand new at that point. As for the revolver, it's a little hard for me to tell for sure about the sight on the revolver (or lack of), especially with a crack on the photo nearby. However I just recently saw an image of Lewis Paine's revolver that he had with him when he tried to assassinate William Seward on April 14, 1865, and it didn't have a sight on it either. That may have been done to make the weapon easier to draw (ie not get caught on clothing if you were in civilian clothes) and the sight might not have been needed anyway if it was used in "close-range" combat. If Harrison's descendants were incorrect about his age in the photos, it wouldn't really be a shock to me after so many decades had gone by (it's also not impossible that photos handed down were incorrectly identified as Harrison, but if Harrison isn't the guy in the photos, then who was he and how did the family get them?)
@@greatlakestraveller9703 Yes, I am sure, as any experienced trial lawyer can be. Trial lawyers focus on objective facts, not wishful thinking. There is no dispute among family members that the man in the middle image was understood to be, in fact, Laura Broders' husband. That man plainly is not the same man shown in the romantic image. By the way, setting aside Hennessy and Krick, NPR rangers have no credibility in the silly stories they tell. Harrison was a private in the 12th Miss Reg for a short time. Before enlistment he had been a river boat captain on the Yazoo, his father an Ohio steam boat captain with his home at Cincinnati. Harrison surfaced some years after the war in Cincinnati and died there. Before his death he had applied for a pension. The application, signed with his name, does not claim he was an officer in the Confederate Army. His remains are buried in Covington Ky. The headstone identifies his war time status as a member of Co. I, 12th Miss Reg. The problem with civil war historians up to the present is their sloppiness in _fact-finding._ Had Harrison actually been commissioned an officer in the Confederate Army there would be an official record of the fact, and Harrison would certainly have asserted the fact in his application for a pension.
f you liked Bill Fairclough’s epic fact based spy novel Beyond Enkription in The Burlington Files series or The Courier, the Cumberbatch film about Greville Wynne, you should love Dan Fesperman's Winter Work and vice versa. Just like Ben Macintyre’s The Spy and the Traitor about KGB Colonel Oleg Gordievsky, these are all “must reads or must views” for espionage cognoscenti.
@@joeryanstrialbook2005 sorry but I commented on this more than a year ago so I have no idea what any of the connotations were. LOL 463 me unless he's one of those endurance athletes, who do some amazing stuff.
The park ranger is offering mostly fiction in his presentation. What is clear is that Harrison did, in fact, show up at Lee's HQ and did report "Hooker's" presence in the Middletown Valley, with three corps facing Turner's Gap, and one corps moving northward toward Emittsburg. How Harrison was able to get from Fairfax County to Chambersburg no one can say. The likelihood that a military age man traveling alone could walk _through_ the Union corps, as they moved across the Potomac and westward into the MIddletown Valley seems slim. To get from the Middletown Valley to Chambersburg in the time frame he did, means that he obtained a horse and rode it through the mountain to Chambersburg. Harrison was certainly not the only "scout" that reported the Union army's movement westward and then northward during the days June 25 to June 28, 1862. @@bookaufman9643
I can't remember whose documentary series it was but just a few months ago they started the episode on Gettysburg with a mention of Harrison and Longstreet.
Unfortunately, thanks to "progress", Oak Grove was torn down in the 1990's to make room for an assisted living facility. The Broders Family Cemetery is still located on the "property" and is sandwiched between Best Buy and Forestdale Elementary School in Springfield, Virginia.
Is this the "Harrison" who starred in the beginning of the movie Gettysburg? I'm pretty sure it has to be, you rarely hear him mentioned,so much so that I thought he was a made up character for the movie!!! Thanks for another great upload! Mark, Northern Ireland
Same person. Harrison is mentioned in several serious Gettysburg books.
@@StevieGPT Thanks for clearing that up for me, I knew it had to be but I started to self doubt myself, I have a fair size library of Civil War books but can never remember hearing him mentioned in any of them,or perhaps I've just read the wrong ones!!!! I do tend to read books on the whole war from 61/65 rather than on specific battles, that might be another reason why I've missed his name in books.
Harrison definitely had some adventures
I made my way all the way through a picket line .Hazardous to!!!
He's probably riding up North somewhere getting his name in the papers. He ain't causing nothing but a little fuss.
"Get this man a tent. And a........... cigar."
Video starts at 4:10
I have passed by that cemetery for years and never realize he was buried there. I’ll have to make a stop and pay my respects next time I’m in the area
This is a good lecture on an interesting subject though the speakers speech defects can be a little difficult to follow. Probably best to put the closed captions on though I'm not trying to sound insulting. It is what it is.
Then why point it out? It's quite obvious. I doubt your comments benefited anyone. Lol some things just don't need to be said
Karlton! 🙌🙌🙌
Thanks
great topic, thank you
Can you turn up the volume a lil
The speaker shows you three photographs over the course of his presentation: one taken from Longstreet's 1895 autobiography, a second taken from Harrison's family records, and a third taken from an unknown source. Of the three the photograph showing a barrel-chested man wearing a black coat is, in fact, an image of Harrison. The other two are not. Harrison was a steamboat captain on the Yazoo River when the war commenced. He joined a Mississippi cavalry regiment and served for a time with Van Dorn. In 1862 he appeared in Virginia, in Suffolk County acting as a spy for D.H. Hill, was captured by Union forces at New Bern, was released, and ended up, being paid by Longstreet with Confederate gold, somehow passing the Union Army at Frederick and arriving at General Lee's tent sometime on or about June 28. After the war he went to Montana, engaged in mining, then appeared in Cincinnati as a detective, was fired, and disappeared. His remains are buried in Covington KY.
Just out of curiosity, what was your source of information regarding the images/purported images of Harrison?
The relevant question is, Which image is, in fact, an image of Harrison. Sometime during 1861 Harrison met Laura Broders, whose family owned a farm called Oak Grove, in Fairfax County. Harrison married her and then, sometime in 1864, abandoned her, leaving her with a child, and went west. Laura Broders' daugher, Irene, wrote a note in her lifetime of ninety plus years, the record doesn't tell us when, that "I have a picture of my father in Confederate Uniform." Irene is referring to the image of the guy with the pistol in his hand. Irene's daughter's son says that, during his childhood the picture was displayed on the family mantle. He asked his mother, "Who is that?" and he says she said, "It is your great grandfather." Laura Broders' granddaughter, Marian, wrote on the back of the image of the man in the black coat: "This is a photo of Henry Harrison on the day he married Laura Broders."There is no record, beyond this, which tells us when the two photographs were made, or where, or why. In the trial court, where the objective truth of history can be best exposed, A telling us B told her that B saw X is not ordinarily admissible as _evidence_ that, in fact, X happened.
Assuming it is correct for the fact-finder to say that the color of the young soldier's eyes is probably a shade of light blue, we have three images that might be images of the same man, taken at different ages: the man shown in the first image is between the age of 20 and 30; the man in the second between the age of 40 and 50; the man in the third between the age of 50 and 60. The forehead, nose, mouth, and use of a mustache seem approximately the same taking into account the plain difference in age of the man in each image. However, if, in fact, the color of the eyes of the soldier is hazel-like then, plainly, he is not the same man shown in the latter two photographs. The judgment call is for the viewer to make.
If the soldier in the photograph is, in fact, Henry T. Harrison, there are certainly peculiar features of the photograph that make the identification difficult to believe. First, when compared to the several thousand tintype photographs of Civil War soldiers that can be viewed at the Library of Congress website, this photograph is clearly unique, a stand alone image without a parallel in the Library's database. It seems more like a professional portrait of a character than a picture of a young man gone to war wearing his uniform. Second, there are features of the uniform the man is wearing that seem odd and out of place. Third, there is the gimmick of the piece of paper with numbers written on it, as if in secret code. Fourth, there is the matter of the timing of the taking of the photograph, where and when and by whom. Finally, the objective evidence shows that it is highly unlikely Harrison employed himself at any time in his life before 1864 as an actor.
The point being: is this a real image or I wish it were image? The first conflict between the known undisputed facts and the photograph, is that the photograph shows a man in the uniform of a Confederate infantry officer, a second Lieutenant, which Harrison was not. Harrison was a private for six months, then discharged. The second conflict is the matter of the dress of the uniform: the buttons as well as their placement seem odd; the presence of the great coat and the manner in which it is casually draped over the man's shoulders. The third is the quality of the cloth of the uniform. It is expensive material and, given its condition, it has plainly not seen actual service. The fourth is the revolver. It does not have, as it should, a sight. Is it a prop in a photographer's studio, or is it a weapon the young man actually carried on his person in the field? Finally, there is the business about the paper and the numbers; is this a prop? Does it have a purpose? What is the message conveyed? Is it a child's message, or a man's?
Substituting letters for numbers, based on A being 1 and E being 5, the "secret" message to the viewer is, "My Love." My love what? The man has a revolver without a sight laying in his lap, with his index finger seemingly pointing to the message. It is his revolver that he loves? Is he telling his sweetheart, Laura, that he loves war more than her, so its good by and so long? This is certainly not the message he seemed to convey in his letter to her, sent from Camp Van Dorn on November 5, 1861.
And why would Henry T. Harrison, the spy and scout who was discharged from Confederate Army service, in November 1861, and who spent the rest of the war in civilian clothes behind enemy lines, spend the money the uniform plainly cost? He knew when he bought it that he would never wear it. To suggest he bought the uniform and assigned himself the rank of an officer, to impress his sweetheart, seems silliness in the extreme. So, was Harrison a serious man or a silly man? Is it probable, then, that Laura, long after Harrison was gone, had received the photograph as a prop to show her daughters a romantic image of their father? A father neither of them had ever seen? Your guess is as good as mine.
Of course, if, in fact, the man in the first and second photographs is the same man, then Laura Broders' granddaughter, Marian, was an untrustworthy historian, or Laura's daughter, Irene, was. Because the man in the second photograph is plainly not the same age as the man in the first photograph-by a decade. So, if the two photographs are of the same man, then either Laura or her daughter received the second photograph after the war was over.
Which brings us to the photograph Longstreet produced in his autobiography in 1895. No record has been found among Longstreet's known paper depositories that tells us when and how Longstreet got his hands on the subject photograph. Longstreet's chief of staff, Moxley Sorrel, wrote a manuscript of memoirs that was published after his death. In it he adds to the Harrison lore, claiming that another aide of Longstreet's, Latrobe, had seen Harrison in Baltimore after the war, when exactly he does not say. Of course it is possible that somehow Longstreet made contact with Harrison, or Harrison with him, and out of the contact came the photograph. Though, like the rest, Longstreet is not a trustworthy narrator; would he be so bold as to intentionally lead his readers, and the historians, into the false belief the man in the photograph is Harrison? The book publisher's business records are now in the hands of the Philadelphia Historical Society. The Society reports that, among the memorandums dealing with the publisher's communications with Longstreet, no reference can be found to the photograph and no negative of it exists in the records.
I received much in contribution from the persons listed below, some of whom contributed a great deal of their time to search through obscure files.First among these, is Colleen Puterbaugh, Research Librarian of the Robert O. Hall Research Center at the Surratt House Museum, followed by Sue Levy of the Fairfax Historial Society and Jody Foley of the Montana Historical Society, Robert L. Webb, an historian for the Primitive Baptist Church, and Robert Kulesher, Laura Broders and Henry T. Harrison's great, grandson. @@greatlakestraveller9703
@@joeryanstrialbook2005Great- thanks for the follow-up!
@@joeryanstrialbook2005 I did a little more follow-up research:
"The first conflict between the known undisputed facts and the photograph, is that the photograph shows a man in the uniform of a Confederate infantry officer, a second Lieutenant, which Harrison was not".
Are you sure of that? In the above lecture at 4:51 Ranger Smith mentions that Harrison was listed as a 2nd Lt. on a return post from Mississippi (where Harrison had enlisted), and James O. Hall in his Feb. 1986 article in Civil War Times mentioned that same item. Hall said it is not definite proof that the 2nd Lt in question is our Harrison, but it did seemed likely that he was, based on the circumstances. The whole business of a medical discharge may have been simply a ruse, to get Harrison into the role of an undercover scout (spy, in other words)
To me it seems very plausible that Harrison had this photo made for his future wife-to-be Laura Broders, especially given the message he was holding.The uniform may have been brand new at that point. As for the revolver, it's a little hard for me to tell for sure about the sight on the revolver (or lack of), especially with a crack on the photo nearby. However I just recently saw an image of Lewis Paine's revolver that he had with him when he tried to assassinate William Seward on April 14, 1865, and it didn't have a sight on it either. That may have been done to make the weapon easier to draw (ie not get caught on clothing if you were in civilian clothes) and the sight might not have been needed anyway if it was used in "close-range" combat.
If Harrison's descendants were incorrect about his age in the photos, it wouldn't really be a shock to me after so many decades had gone by (it's also not impossible that photos handed down were incorrectly identified as Harrison, but if Harrison isn't the guy in the photos, then who was he and how did the family get them?)
@@greatlakestraveller9703 Yes, I am sure, as any experienced trial lawyer can be. Trial lawyers focus on objective facts, not wishful thinking. There is no dispute among family members that the man in the middle image was understood to be, in fact, Laura Broders' husband. That man plainly is not the same man shown in the romantic image. By the way, setting aside Hennessy and Krick, NPR rangers have no credibility in the silly stories they tell.
Harrison was a private in the 12th Miss Reg for a short time. Before enlistment he had been a river boat captain on the Yazoo, his father an Ohio steam boat captain with his home at Cincinnati. Harrison surfaced some years after the war in Cincinnati and died there. Before his death he had applied for a pension. The application, signed with his name, does not claim he was an officer in the Confederate Army. His remains are buried in Covington Ky. The headstone identifies his war time status as a member of Co. I, 12th Miss Reg.
The problem with civil war historians up to the present is their sloppiness in _fact-finding._ Had Harrison actually been commissioned an officer in the Confederate Army there would be an official record of the fact, and Harrison would certainly have asserted the fact in his application for a pension.
What accent is this? Is it Pennsylvania?
seriously ? he is not hard to understand
Yes
It's a speech impediment, not an accent.
They recently found out a lot on Harrison
I can only understand every other word. Audio problems?
Turned the entire southern army around - YOW
Harrison was real, and was an actor/friend of Lincolns assassin, Boothe.
f you liked Bill Fairclough’s epic fact based spy novel Beyond Enkription in The Burlington Files series or The Courier, the Cumberbatch film about Greville Wynne, you should love Dan Fesperman's Winter Work and vice versa. Just like Ben Macintyre’s The Spy and the Traitor about KGB Colonel Oleg Gordievsky, these are all “must reads or must views” for espionage cognoscenti.
A man can walk at 4 mph quite easily.
It's 63 miles through mountain to reach the vicinity of Chambersburg
@@joeryanstrialbook2005 sorry but I commented on this more than a year ago so I have no idea what any of the connotations were. LOL 463 me unless he's one of those endurance athletes, who do some amazing stuff.
The park ranger is offering mostly fiction in his presentation. What is clear is that Harrison did, in fact, show up at Lee's HQ and did report "Hooker's" presence in the Middletown Valley, with three corps facing Turner's Gap, and one corps moving northward toward Emittsburg. How Harrison was able to get from Fairfax County to Chambersburg no one can say. The likelihood that a military age man traveling alone could walk _through_ the Union corps, as they moved across the Potomac and westward into the MIddletown Valley seems slim. To get from the Middletown Valley to Chambersburg in the time frame he did, means that he obtained a horse and rode it through the mountain to Chambersburg. Harrison was certainly not the only "scout" that reported the Union army's movement westward and then northward during the days June 25 to June 28, 1862. @@bookaufman9643