Bearss And Stripes Forever

Ed Bearss, of whom we've written about before, is a National Treasure.  Retired Chief Historian of the National Park Service and now its Historian Emeritus, at 94 Ed remains astoundingly active, on the road two hundred days a year giving lectures and leading battlefield tours here and in Europe.  Ed is a leading figure in much of the battlefield preservation and conservation that has occurred in the United States since the 1950s and was a featured commentator on the renowned PBS Civil War series of Ken Burns.

(Ed Bearss wearing shirt with logo, "I don't need an internet search engine. I know Ed Bearss".  Photo taken by THC at City Point, near Petersburg, VA 2015)

My first encounter with him was on a hot, humid July day in 2012 at Antietam where he marched us around The Cornfield, site of fierce back and forth combat on September 17, 1862, for three hours, barking at us to stay hydrated, though I noticed he never drank anything.  Three years later at The Crater outside Petersburg, Ed admonished us for our failure to keep up with him, warning "all stragglers will be shot!".  His distinctive declamatory speaking style led one writer in the Washington Post to liken listening to Ed to what it must have been like to hear a Homeric bard.

Because of my association with the Scottsdale Civil War Roundtable, last month I had the privilege of spending a day with Ed, a day I will always remember.  Ed appears at the Roundtable each year in January and each time he stays in town the next day and we plan an excursion for him.  Even in his 90s, Ed remains curious and wants to see and learn about new things so as you can imagine the challenge gets bigger every year to find something he has not yet visited.

This year one of our Board members suggested we consider the Museum of the Horse Soldier in Tucson.  The museum, which is only five years old, is devoted to the history of the men, horses, and equipment of the U.S. Cavalry.  One of our Board members put me in touch with John Langellier, a Western historian living in Tucson involved in the creation of the museum.  John, in turn, put me in touch with Rae Whitley, the young (at least by my standards!) museum director.  Rae was thrilled to hear that Ed Bearss was coming to visit and told us he'd be happy to give him a guided tour.

The four hours I spent with Ed driving back and forth to Tucson is something I will never forget.  We talked the entire time, with Ed doing most of it (no surprise to anyone who knows him!).  I asked  about the National Park Service, his career, working with LBJ down at his ranch, his war service, as well as his lengthy hospitalization and recovery from his war wounds.  I wish I had recorded it!
(Ed was the recipient of the 2017 Founder's Literature Award by the Pritzker Military Museum & Library)

Regarding his war service, Ed told me of growing up on a ranch in eastern Montana, not far from the Little Bighorn battlefield, during the Depression.  Ed enlisted in the Marines in April 1942 at the age of 18, inspired by the example of a distant cousin, Hiram Bears, a Marine who received the Medal of Honor for heroism during the Filipino Insurrection and the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions during the First World War.  After attending bootcamp in San Diego, Ed was shipped to the Pacific as part of the 1st Marine Division.  He saw his first action on Guadalcanal in November 1942, and subsequently also saw action on the Russell Islands.

His third island engagement was on New Britain.  On January 2, 1944 at Suicide Creek on Cape Gloucester on New Britain he was wounded five times by Japanese machine gun fire.  He was hit in the left heel, buttocks, right shoulder (which remains weak to this day), and twice in the left arm, with one bullet severing nerves to his hand, leaving it permanently useless, and a second shattering two inches of bone above his left elbow.  He was transported in open boat to Buna, on the north coast of New Guinea, which he told me was a very painful journey, and then airlifted to Port Moresby on the southern coast. 

It was the upper arm wound that was most serious causing doctors to evaluate whether to amputate.  They ultimately decided to try a bone graft, taking two inches of bone from his left shin (and leaving him with a limp), and grafting it into his left arm.  After the operation he was placed on intravenous penicillin for a month.  Recovery was slow, with surgeons going in every six weeks to clean out the grafted area, and he was not discharged until March 1946, twenty six months after his wounding.  Ed told me he'd never had any problems with the wound (though his left arm is disabled) until 2017, more than seventy years later, when a small piece of bone that had been left in scar tissue caused a serious infection.

While we were going back and forth to Tucson, Ed asked about my background and had many questions about Arizona and Phoenix.  It also turns out we are both baseball fans and, when younger, we both rooted for the Giants though today I'm a Red Sox guy and Ed follows the Washington Nationals.  I was astonished to find out that somehow a 9-year old boy living on a Montana ranch was in Chicago's Comiskey Park on July 6, 1933 to see Babe Ruth hit a home run in the first major league All-Star game.  And I learned that Ed ended up in Chicago because his grandmother, who had attended the 1893 Columbian Exposition in the Windy City, had saved up the money to attend the World's Fair which opened there on May 27, 1933.  His grandmother died that spring, but her savings allowed his family to attend the fair that summer, something they could not have afforded on their own.

He also told me his favorite president was Harry Truman, in part because he considered him the last president to lead a "normal" life before, during, and after he was in the White House.  He also spoke highly of Manual Lujan, Secretary of the Interior under George HW Bush.  Responding to my question about the current state of the park service, Ed didn't answer directly but mentioned that someone had scheduled a meeting for him with the current Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.  It was clear to me that Ed was, and remains, a savvy operator on dealing with politicians.

 (Ed Bearss & Ray Whitley)

The museum and tour were outstanding.  Along with Rae Whitley, we were joined by John Langellier  The museum is small and packed with exhibits.  I highly recommend it and you should have Rae or one of his docents give a guided tour.

(THC, Ed Bearss, Rae Whitley)

But more important than what I think is the opinion of Ed Bearss and he thought it superb, telling Rae it was one of the biggest surprises he'd had in a while - a museum he had not heard about with such wonderful and interesting material.  After putting Rae through his paces with lots of questions, he praised the museum director for the depth of his knowledge on cavalry history.  While the collection is smaller than those at U.S. military museums, Ed thought it was better curated and organized.

It was fun listening to Ed and Rae talk about McClellan saddles and the army's use of mules.  Did you know that a mule transported by the army from the U.S. to China during WW2 ended up being captured from Chinese Communist troops by American soldiers in Korea in 1951?  My favorite moment was when Rae asked Ed for background the display of the guidon of Battery D, First New York Artillery stationed in the Wheatfield on the second day of Gettysburg under the command of Captain George B Winslow, which led to a fascinating discussion between the two.  Although the Confederates overran the battery, the guidon was saved by a Union soldier from Massachusetts who took it home where it was kept in his family for almost 150 years before being sold.  There are stains on the guidon which recent testing confirmed are of human and equine blood.

(Ed & Rae discuss the guidon and action in the Wheatfield on July 2, 1863)

Looking forward to hosting Ed next year . . .