Category: 1863 - This Game Of Games

The 1863 Page Is Up

9/7/2014

I've added a new page that includes all of the 1863 Civil War posts. Also, I've included some thoughts about the 1863 data and its significance.

I'm gently feeling my way towards some general conclusions, based upon all of the data we have now from Civil War-era St. Louis, and you'll find some of that at the new page. These are just initial thoughts and I hope that I'll be able to pull it together into something that resembles coherence. You never know.

We are quickly nearing the end of this series and I think we'll be finished with 1864 in the next ten days or so. My plan was to continue on to 1865 but I don't really consider that to be a war year. The war ends just as the season begins and I absolutely want to talk about that. There was a lot going on as the Empire Club took the field for their anniversary game in 1865 and I find it rather interesting. So we'll talk about that and call it a wrap.

At the moment I've gone through the 1865 material that I have in my notes and the most interesting thing there is the whole Championship of the West thing. It's great stuff and I think it will be neat to see that material presented in a coherent manner (as compared to how I normally do things).
After that, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I'm still working on a long piece about the Cyclone Thesis and I may finish it one day and put it up. I'm going through 1866-1870 St. Louis for another project and may present some of the more significant stuff that I find. I have a lot of stuff from Missouri from that era and I know that I have something about a trip the Charleston Base Ball Club took to Hickman, Kentucky, in 1869 that I think you may like. Plus, I have a ton of random stuff that I can put up.

Who knows? All I know at the moment is I'm going to try and wrap up the Civil War thing, post some conclusions, put up some stuff about Alex Crosman's Civil War experience, and do the Championship of the West. From there, anything's possible.

St. Louis Baseball and the Civil War: A Return To Historical Norms In 1863

9/3/2014

Union troops on the St. Louis riverfront during the Civil War

The 1863 baseball season in St. Louis ended, as far as our source material is concerned, with a match between the Hope and Eclipse Clubs. This game, in many ways, symbolizes the state of St. Louis baseball more than two full years into the Civil War. If the 1861 season saw a consolidation of the growth of the game that had been established during the antebellum era and 1862 saw the negative impact of the war on the growth of the game, the 1863 season represents a renewal of that growth, as symbolized by several new clubs that took the field for the first time in 1863, including the Hope, Eclipse, and Independent Clubs. It is entirely possible that 1863 was the busiest baseball season that St. Louis had yet seen, with more clubs playing the game than ever before. At the very least, the 1863 season represents a return to the normal level of baseball activity that was seen in 1860 and 1861.

There is no doubt that the data is incomplete and we don't have all of the references to baseball in 1863 that exist in the contemporary source material. I absolutely believe that to be true and I accept that. But it's the nature of historical inquiry to deal with the facts that we have and hope that more information will surface at some point. In this series of posts on St. Louis Civil War baseball, I'm dealing with references that I've found in the Missouri Republican and all analysis and conclusions are based on that data, as well as my own understanding of the war and baseball during the era. With that said, let's look at the data and compare it to the early war years.

We find 20 references to baseball in the Republican in 1863. In 1861, we found twenty-seven and, in 1862, only seven. Obviously, there was a sharp decline in baseball coverage during the 1862 season, which suggests a decline in baseball activity or, at the very least, a decline in interest in the game. However, in 1863, we have a sharp increase in references to the game. While we don't have as many references as in 1861, the 1863 references were more than we found in the 1860 Daily Bulletin, as well as in the 1862 Republican. I think that this shows a growth in interest in the game from 1862 to 1863, as well as a general growth in baseball activity during the same period.

The Republican has references to twelve specific clubs in 1863, as well as a picked nine. Seven senior clubs, four junior clubs, a second nine, and the picked nine were mentioned. We have eight references to clubs in 1860, ten in 1861, and eight in 1862. We see, in 1863, more active clubs than at any point in the history of St. Louis baseball, up to that point. This is a significant find. Even if we only look at senior clubs, the number of clubs active in 1863 is similar to the number active in 1860 and 1861, when there were seven and eight active senior clubs, respectively. In 1862, we're only aware of four active senior clubs. So, at the very least, we see a rebound in the number of active clubs back to the level that was the historical norm prior to 1862. If we include the active junior clubs and the second nine, there were more active clubs in 1863 than in any previous year. This has to be seen as a sign of the health of the game in St. Louis in 1863 and of an increase in baseball activity.

We find, in the Republican, references to twelve games played in 1863 and, more specifically, references to eight matches games played between two distinct clubs. In 1860, we have references to eight games; in 1861, we have references to fifteen games; and, in 1862, we have references to five games. If we only include the number of games played between two distinct clubs in 1861, there were only seven known match games played that year. So, again, we see a significant increase in the number of matches games played in 1863 when compared to 1862 and a return to the historical norms established in 1860 and 1861.

The Republican, in 1863, mentions three different places where baseball games were played: Gamble Lawn, Lafayette Park, and the Laclede Grounds. In both 1860 and 1861, we have references to three different baseball grounds while, in 1862, we only have references to Gamble Lawn. Again, this is a rebound from 1862 and return to the number seen in 1860 and 1861. It is important to note that Lafayette Park was once again being used as a baseball grounds after having been occupied by Union troops in August of 1861. While it is unknown, it is entirely possible that the increase in the number of places available to play baseball resulted in an increase in the number of clubs and games played. If you want to play baseball, you have to have somewhere to play.

Obviously, we're seeing growth from 1862 to 1863. We have more references to the game, more clubs, more games played, and more baseball grounds in use. We're also seeing, at the very least, a return to the levels of baseball activity that were seen in 1860 and 1861, before the war negatively impacted baseball activity in 1862. In some instances, such as the number of active clubs, we're seeing levels of baseball activity that St. Louis had never experienced in the past.

I think what we're seeing here is the fact that St. Louis baseball was weathering the storm of the Civil War. The game must have been very popular in the city and it must have placed deep roots during the antebellum era. You had a war raging, a significant percentage of the male population was off fighting that war, the city was under martial law, and a number of citizens of St. Louis were actively working against its government. But, at the same time, the number of baseball clubs in St. Louis was growing. We saw, in 1862, what I believe was clear evidence of the war negatively impacting the game in St. Louis, with an obvious decrease in the amount of baseball activity when compared to previous season. But, in 1863, we see the game recover from the impact of the war and continue its growth and evolution in St. Louis. The game could have died in St. Louis in 1862 and 1863 but it didn't. It survived and continued on, growing and increasing in popularity. I think that is both remarkable and significant.

One thing that we should consider is the fact that Missouri was rather quiet in 1863. The Battle of Pea Ridge, in March of 1862, drove the regular Confederate army out of Missouri and Sterling Price's Raid didn't take place until 1864. You had Quantrill operating in the western part of the state, as well as the boat burners and the mail ring operating in St. Louis, but maybe things had settled down enough were baseball had the room or the breathing space to continue its earlier growth. The reintroduction of Lafayette Park as a baseball ground may be evidence of that. I'm not altogether certain but I think it's something that must be considered.

Regardless, I think it's absolutely certain that there was an increase in baseball activity in St. Louis between 1862 and 1863. It appears that the game had returned to the level of activity that was seen in 1860 and 1861. St. Louis baseball was surviving the Civil War and was going to be in a position, during the post-war era, to experience a tremendous growth in popularity. The baseball fever of the post-war era would not have been possible if it wasn't for clubs like the Hope and the Eclipse, who carried on during some of the darkest days of our nation's history.

St. Louis Baseball and the Civil War: Our Chronic Impending Disaster

9/2/2014

A match of base ball was played on Sunday afternoon, September 27th, between two newly organized clubs of this city - Hope and Eclipse - which was a decided victory of the former. Umpire, David Coyle; Scorers, J. Fountain and J.H. Teahen...

-Missouri Republican, September 28, 1863

So we have two new clubs here - the Hope and the Eclipse - and the Hope would survive the war and be one of the more prominent clubs in the post-war amateur era. This is a significant sign of the health and growth of the game in St. Louis during the war years. As I've stated before, the war certainly stunted the growth of the game in St. Louis but it absolutely did not kill it. In the middle of war, amid all of the difficulties that the war brought, clubs were still being formed and the game was still being played.

The week before this match was played, the Battle of Chickamauga was fought. I mention this merely as an excuse to post this:

And for those who are confused about the subtitle of this post, it's a lyric from the above-posted Uncle Tupelo song.

St. Louis Baseball and the Civil War: Extremis Malis Extrema Remedia

9/1/2014

Commercial Base Ball Club. - The Regular Monthly Meeting of the Club will be held THIS AFTERNOON, at 5 o'clock, at the office of A.W. Howe, Esq.

J.W. Donaldson, Secretary.

-Missouri Republican, September 15, 1863

I wrote awhile back about the fact that the Commercials are a bit overlooked when it comes to the pioneer clubs of St. Louis. One of the reasons for that is the fact that we really didn't know how prominent and active they were during the Civil War years. It wouldn't surprise me, when all is said, done, and posted, that there were more references to the Commercial Club in the Republican from 1861 through 1865 than there were to any other club. They very well may have been the most active St. Louis baseball club of the war years and that's extremely significant.

On the day this notice appeared in the Republican, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in the United States under authority granted to him by Congress under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. That's an oversimplification of what happened but this is just a simple baseball blog and I'm just a simple baseball historian. But these things happened during the Civil War. St. Louis was under martial law throughout the war. Hapeas corpus got suspended. Two days before this notice appeared, the boat-burners were active in St. Louis, burning four steamers and a barge. Desperate times call for desperate measures and these were desperate times.

The Post Boy was one of the steamers set on fire in September 1863

I found a book called Fifty Years on the Mississippi, written by E.W. Gould, and the above image of the Post Boy comes from that book. In the book, Gould publishes a letter he received in 1889 from L.M. Chipley, which mentions the boat-burnings of September 1863:

The Post Boy was in the government service during the war and was selected as dispatch boat for the fleet at Vicksburg during the siege, and also dispatch boat of the fleet at the siege and capture of Arkansas Post, and served in some capacity on White River at Clarendon and Duvolls Bluff and returned to St. Louis in the fall of 1863 and was destroyed by fire along with steamers Jesse K. Bell, Hiawatha and last, but not least, the Steamer Imperial, the queen of all, and the fastest and finest steamboat that ever run in the St. Louis and New Orleans trade.

Chipley had served on the Post Boy and Gould had built both the Post Boy and the Imperial. It's an interesting book and if you're interested in the history of steamboats and the Mississippi steamboat trade, I'd recommend you take a look at it. I would also recommend Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, which is easily my favorite book by Mr. Clemens.

The Imperial arrives in New Orleans - July 8, 1863

I could go on and on about steamboats and boat-burners but I'll leave you with this thought. In the midst of all of this chaos - martial law, the suspension of habeas corpus, attacks on steamboats, Quantrill's attack on Lawrence in August, the general madness of war - the Commercials just wanted to play baseball. The fact that they were able to do that, in the middle of the Civil War, is almost a miracle and speaks to the character and nature of the men that made up that club.

St. Louis Baseball and the Civil War: Another Gap In The Records

8/29/2014

A match game of base ball was played yesterday, on Gamble Lawn, between the Commercial and Empire clubs, which resulted in the success of the latter by 18 runs.

-Missouri Republican, September 3, 1863

And we have another large gap in the records. Even after going back and rechecking the Republican, we find no references to baseball in August 1863 and very little in July of that year. This is similar to the gap in the records for 1862, when there was nothing from the beginning of June until the middle of September. I think there are three possible explanations.

Obviously, the Republican's coverage was not comprehensive. I'm not really sure what their editorial policy was regarding which games they would report on and which they wouldn't. It's extremely likely that the information about the games they were reporting on came from the clubs themselves and if the clubs were not supplying information, the Republicans had nothing to run. The games played during club days were not getting reported and I don't think that all of the match games were getting reported. I think that there was substantially more baseball activities going on than was being reported on in the Republican but I can't really prove that and I don't know to what extent it's true. I know the Republican is missing games but I can only deal with the information I have. All I can really say is that it's a possible explanation for the gap in the record.

Another possible explanation is the weather. If you don't know, it's hot in St. Louis in July and August. It can get really hot in the late summer and, on top of that, there's humidity. Heat and humidity is a popular topic of conversation in St. Louis this time of year. It can just become unbearable and you certainly don't want to be out playing baseball when it's 95 degrees with 90 percent humidity. I can't remember where I read it but there is a reference somewhere about how the ball clubs dealt with the heat in St. Louis. From what I remember, the source stated that, during the pioneer era, the clubs tended not to play during the hottest part of the summer. And that makes a lot of sense. Front-load and back-load your schedule so that you don't have to play during the hottest part of the summer.

So between the Republican's spotty coverage and clubs shutting it down during the hottest part of the year, it does make sense that we don't see a lot of baseball references in the source material in July and August. I'm certainly not saying that there was no baseball going on but I kind of understand why I can't find anything in the Republican.

But that's the third possible explanation for the record gap - the information is there but I haven't found it. I do not claim to be perfect. I make errors. Lots and lots of errors. I like to think that that's part of my charm rather than some kind of flaw in my character but it's true. Now having owned up to my fallible nature, I will say that I've been through this material quite a few times. Like I said the other day, just going through my notes I knew something was missing. I know the material well and as well as anyone. But I also know that my search through the material was not and can not be perfect. There has to be stuff that I've missed and always will be. And that's just a possibility that could explain why I don't have a lot of stuff for the later summer months during the Civil War.

I think I'm going to have to take a closer look at this. 1862 could have been a fluke but if it's happening in 1862 and 1863 then we may be looking at a pattern. We'll see. It's an interesting question and once I finish going through all of the Civil War material I think I'll be in a better position to address it. Right now, I just want to point out that we see this gap in the record in the later summer months in both 1862 and 1863 and there are all kind of interesting possibilities for why we're seeing it.

St. Louis Baseball and the Civil War: The Rematch

8/28/2014

The second match between the married and single men of the Commercial Base Ball Club, will take place Saturday afternoon, on their grounds in Lafayette Park. The play to commence at half-past four o'clock.

-Missouri Republican, July 11, 1863

The single members of the Commercial Club had defeated their married brethren on June 27 and the married men wanted a rematch. This was the rematch.

The First Battle of Fort Wagner was fought on July 10 and 11, 1863. If you've seen the movie Glory, you're familiar with the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, which took place a week later, and the role of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment in that battle.

St. Louis Baseball and the Civil War: The Infinite Dead

8/27/2014

Base Ball. - There will be an interesting game of Base Ball during the afternoon of the 4th, on the grounds of the Commercial Club, in Lafayette Park. We understand the game is to be composed of representatives from the various Clubs of the city, and will undoubtedly be an exciting one.

-Missouri Republican, July 3, 1863

I wrote about this game last Fourth of July (and the one before that and the one before that) so I don't have much to say. I'll just direct you to the Fourth of July post and let you read that.

To give you a sense of how I'm feeling about the Civil War and that particular Fourth of July, I'm going to quote Whitman, at length.

Little Round Top

On July 7, 1863, Whitman wrote the following to his mother about Gettysburg:

O what a sight must have been presented by the field of action—I think the killed & wounded there on both sides were as many as eighteen or twenty thousand—in one place, four or five acres, there were a thousand dead, at daybreak on Saturday morning—Mother, one's heart grows sick of war, after all, when you see what it really is—every once in a while I feel so horrified & disgusted—it seems to me like a great slaughter-house & the men mutually butchering each other—then I feel how impossible it appears, again, to retire from this contest, until we have carried our points—(it is cruel to be so tossed from pillar to post in one's judgment).

Then we have The Million Dead, Too, Summ'd Up, which is probably the most extraordinary thing ever written about the war:

THE DEAD in this war—there they lie, strewing the fields and woods and valleys and battle-fields of the south—Virginia, the Peninsula—Malvern hill and Fair Oaks—the banks of the Chickahominy—the terraces of Fredericksburgh—Antietam bridge—the grisly ravines of Manassas—the bloody promenade of the Wilderness—the varieties of the strayed dead, (the estimate of the War department is 25,000 national soldiers kill’d in battle and never buried at all, 5,000 drown’d—15,000 inhumed by strangers, or on the march in haste, in hitherto unfound localities—2,000 graves cover’d by sand and mud by Mississippi freshets, 3,000 carried away by caving-in of banks, &c.,)—Gettysburgh, the West, Southwest—Vicksburgh—Chattanooga—the trenches of Petersburgh—the numberless battles, camps, hospitals everywhere—the crop reap’d by the mighty reapers, typhoid, dysentery, inflammations—and blackest and loathesomest of all, the dead and living burial-pits, the prison-pens of Andersonville, Salisbury, Belle-Isle, &c., (not Dante’s pictured hell and all its woes, its degradations, filthy torments, excell’d those prisons)—the dead, the dead, the dead--our dead—or South or North, ours all, (all, all, all, finally dear to me)—or East or West—Atlantic coast or Mississippi valley—somewhere they crawl’d to die, alone, in bushes, low gullies, or on the sides of hills—(there, in secluded spots, their skeletons, bleach’d bones, tufts of hair, buttons, fragments of clothing, are occasionally found yet)—our young men once so handsome and so joyous, taken from us—the son from the mother, the husband from the wife, the dear friend from the dear friend—the clusters of camp graves, in Georgia, the Carolinas, and in Tennessee—the single graves left in the woods or by the road-side, (hundreds, thousands, obliterated)—the corpses floated down the rivers, and caught and lodged, (dozens, scores, floated down the upper Potomac, after the cavalry engagements, the pursuit of Lee, following Gettysburgh)—some lie at the bottom of the sea—the general million, and the special cemeteries in almost all the States—the infinite dead—(the land entire saturated, perfumed with their impalpable ashes’ exhalation in Nature’s chemistry distill’d, and shall be so forever, in every future grain of wheat and ear of corn, and every flower that grows, and every breath we draw)—not only Northern dead leavening Southern soil—thousands, aye tens of thousands, of Southerners, crumble to-day in Northern earth.

And everywhere among these countless graves—everywhere in the many soldier Cemeteries of the Nation, (there are now, I believe, over seventy of them)—as at the time in the vast trenches, the depositories of slain, Northern and Southern, after the great battles—not only where the scathing trail passed those years, but radiating since in all the peaceful quarters of the land—we see, and ages yet may see, on monuments and gravestones, singly or in masses, to thousands or tens of thousands, the significant word Unknown.

(In some of the cemeteries nearly all the dead are unknown. At Salisbury, N. C., for instance, the known are only 85, while the unknown are 12,027, and 11,700 of these are buried in trenches. A national monument has been put up here, by order of Congress, to mark the spot—but what visible, material monument can ever fittingly commemorate that spot?)

To lighten the mood, let me recommend a nice piece John Thorn wrote, entitled Whitman, Melville, and Baseball. "The game of ball is glorious."

St. Louis Baseball and the Civil War: For The Purpose Of Securing Their Clothing

8/26/2014

Mr. Dailey presented a petition from members of the Commercial Base Ball Club, asking the passage of an ordinance granting them permission to erect a building at Lafayette Park for the purpose of securing their clothing while playing base ball. Referred to special committee of three.

-Missouri Republican, June 13, 1863

The Chair announced the Committee on the petition of members of the Commercial Base Ball Club, introduced at the last meeting, asking permission to erect a building at Lafayette Park - Messrs. Breyer, Rust and Plant.

-Missouri Republican, June 17, 1863

The Special Committee to whom was referred the petition of the Commercial Base Ball Club praying the privilege of erecting a building at Lafayette Park, reported the same back and recommended that it be referred to the Board of Improvements of Lafayette Park. Report adopted.

-Missouri Republican, June 27, 1863

The other day I was putting together posts for this week and I basically ran through all of the 1863 material. I felt that I was missing something - that I didn't have everything in my notes from 1863 that I should have. I often feel this way and it has a lot to do with the fact that my notes are a mess. I've been doing this for a decade and I have a large baseball folder with lots and lots and lots of subfolders and subfolders in subfolders. One day, I may find the time and energy to organize everything but that day isn't today.

My point here (and I really do have one) is that I'm not really that organized. I have a "Civil War" folder and in that folder is a document entitled "Daily Missouri Republican." I thought I had gone through everything from the Republican and put all of the baseball references in that document. But I was wrong. I knew I was missing at least one game. So I went back and checked the Republican and, sure enough, I was missing a few things.

So, in the interest of being thorough, we're taking a step back and covering the efforts of the Commercials to build a clubhouse in Lafayette Park. Now I have no idea whether this clubhouse was built or not. The Common Council kicked the proposal to the park's Board of Improvements and the Republican doesn't say anything else about it. But I do know I have a reference somewhere to a tent or structure in the park that was used by the players. I thought it was in the Tobias material but I checked that and couldn't find anything. If memory serves, I think the source mentioned that the structure was put up by the Cyclones but I wouldn't swear to it. But because there are so many errors in the secondary source material when it comes to the Civil War era, they may have been confusing the Commercials and the Cyclones. All I know for sure is that the Commercials wanted to build a clubhouse at Lafayette Park in the summer of 1863.

Also, it's important to point out that we now sufficient evidence to state that Lafayette Park was again being used as a baseball grounds by the beginning of June 1863.

So this bit about the Commercials and Lafayette Park is really the only thing that I missed from 1863, chronologically speaking, and we'll be back on track tomorrow. The other stuff I found was from September and I'm glad I went back to find that because I had nothing in my notes from the beginning of July to about late September in 1863. Now, however, I have to go back and recheck 1861 and 1862 to see if my note taking for those years was as bad as it was for 1863. And if it turns out that I find some more stuff, I'll post it after I wrap up 1863 and before I move on to 1864. And, honestly, I'm hoping I do find more stuff because it would be great to have more information about St. Louis baseball during the Civil War.

St. Louis Baseball and the Civil War: The Commercials Play A Muffin Game

8/25/2014

The match game between the married and single men of the Commercial Base Ball Club of the city came off Saturday, and resulted as follows: Married 21; Single, 29. As a matter of course, they demand satisfaction, and there will be another game two weeks from Saturday, at Lafayette Park.

-Missouri Republican, June 28, 1863

The day after the Commercials played their muffin game, George Meade took command of the Army of the Potomac. Three days later, he ran into Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg.

The Old Snapping Turtle

St. Louis Baseball and the Civil War: The Young Adam Wirth

8/22/2014

A very interesting game of base ball was played Saturday afternoon, on Gamble Lawn, between the Commercial, Junior, and Empire, Junior, Ball Clubs, which resulted in favor of the former.

-Missouri Republican, June 9, 1863

I have mentioned in the past that Tom Oran, over the course of his career, played for pretty much everybody. However, I think I failed to mention the other day, when we saw the first reference to him playing with the Commercial Juniors, that he had played with the Empire Juniors in 1862. The guy had no problem with jumping from club to club. It's one of the reasons we love him.

Anyway, this is, I believe, the first reference we have to Adam Wirth. Wirth was the longtime first baseman for the Empire Club and a mainstay on their great post-war championship clubs. He was, in my opinion, the best St. Louis baseball player of his generation. The fact that he served as an umpire for this game is some kind of evidence that he was playing baseball in St. Louis in 1863. It's not particularly strong evidence but there was a tradition of players serving as an umpire for matches their club wasn't involved in. So I would argue that Wirth was playing baseball in St. Louis by the early 1860s and I know that he was still playing with the Empires in 1876. That's a rather long career for a pioneer-era player and I think it speaks to the level of his talent. Great players have longer careers. Wirth, in 1863, was about 16 or 17 years old and at the beginning of a great career.

Also, on June 9, 1863, the Battle of Brandy Station was fought. Brandy Station was the largest cavalry battle ever fought in North America and you have to think that it's going to hold that distinction for some time. It's like Cy Young's 511 wins. Times change, nobody is going to win 512 big league games, and you're not going to have a cavalry battle that big again.

That's a lot of horses