Perspective & the Tale of Mr. Crocker (part I)

     There is a certain power to having the opportunity to stand in a location at which one knows an important event or individual occupied in the past.  This feeling is often times referred to in the National Park Service as "power of place."  As simple as this may sound, it is that power a visitor feels when he or she stands in that spot that brings them to the battlefield.  They are drawn into past events in this manner, and most importantly, they then attach themselves with a stewardly interest to that spot or location.  When this inspired appreciation of "place" overwhelms the visitor, it is then evident that they not only understand the history of that location, but are ready to take a step further in their understanding.  They are now ready to consider narrative into their appreciation.

     There is no better way, it seems, to learn of something other than the opportunity to question someone who experienced it.  Obviously, such questioning is now impossible for Civil War historians.  However, the rich collections of individuals' narratives offer enthusiasts the privilege to discern eyewitness' emotions and experiences from paper and ink.  With the revolutionary push for education during what would become the antebellum years, more Americans than ever had the ability to read and write.  This thirst for literacy would not only advance the education expectations of the United States at the time, but also worked to prepare Americans to record what would become the bloodiest war the nation would enter.  One such narrative provides the perspective of a student who gained his all in Pennsylvania, but contained the heart of a Virginian nonetheless.  This is the tale of James F. Crocker.

     For many Americans of the antebellum period, collegiate education was also becoming even more popular.  Various educational institutions at which young men could master advanced studies in medicine and law, for instance, attracted pupils from across the nation.  Pennsylvania College, founded in 1832 just north of the small crossroads town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was a similar institution.  Having offered advanced studies in the humanities, some young men sought out Pennsylvania College as a place at which to prepare for careers in law.  James Francis Crocker, a native of Portsmouth, Virginia, was among the students studying at Pennsylvania College.  Crocker, a bright student, entered into the college in the class of 1850, and throughout his time there, would rise to the top of his class.  Though he found himself far from home at Pennsylvania College, Crocker felt welcomed in Gettysburg.  He not only knew the professorial staff at the college, but also was well acquainted with and on friendly terms with the townsfolk.  For James Crocker, his time as a student at Pennsylvania College would help him to develop a special admiration for Gettysburg.  Crocker was a successful student who's academic aptitude propelled him to become valedictorian of the Pennsylvania College Class of 1850.  However, his spoken farewells to south-central Pennsylvania as well as his departure from campus would not be the last glimpse Crocker would have of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  If fact, Crocker, in many ways, predicts in his address foreboding conflict.  In a reminiscence pamphlet first printed in 1904, he called to mind his feelings during the troubled pre-war nation:

James F. Crocker of the 9th Virginia Infantry, also called the 

'Portsmouth Rifles,' having been mustered out of the locale

of the same name.  Crocker, a former student at Pennsylvania

College, soon finds that his military service to his home state

will bring him back to his old college town.  (Photo:  Early 

Photography at Gettysburg, Frassanito.)

I had the honor to be the valedictorian of my class.  In preparing my address I took notice of the great excitement then prevailing on account of the discussion in Congress of the bill to admit California as a state into the Union.  Great sectional feeling was aroused through this long protracted discussion in the Senate.  One Senator dared use the word “disunion” with a threat.  The very word sent a thrill of horror over the land.  I recall my own feeling of horror.  In my address to my classmates I alluded to this sectional feeling, deprecating it, and exclaimed,     “Who knows, unless patriotism should triumph over sectional feeling but what we, classmates, might in some future day meet in hostile battle array."

    Crocker knew well that his classmates came from various states in the country.  True to his understanding of contemporary politics at the time, he also realized that if war were to break out between the formerly United States, he, a southerner, would undoubtedly be pitched in some way against his former classmates, friends and acquaintances.  Nonetheless, Crocker returned home to Portsmouth after his graduation and worked and studied to begin a promising law career.  However, the long term period of practicing law that Crocker probably had planned and wanted would have to wait.
      The year is 1861.  Eleven years prior, Crocker was quite correct in identifying the mood of the nation at the time.  When war broke out that year over the question of the expansion of slavery, Virginia was soon incorporated in a new and self-proclaimed nation:  the Confederate States of America.  Crocker, patriotic to his state, was eager to join in the southern war effort, enlisted in the 9th Virginia Infantry Regiment in a company of men from Portsmouth the day the regiment was formed.  They adopted the name "the Portsmouth Rifles."  Of course, well known in Portsmouth as a scholar, Crocker not long after became the adjunct for the regiment.  The duties of an adjunct were to assist the commanding officer in matters of correspondence.  Given Crocker’s achievements in the world of academia, he was a natural choice and a good fit for the position.
       Nonetheless, as war mounted, and soon both Union and Confederate forces were deeply committed to the fight and their gruelingly determined causes.  The news of bloodshed shattered through towns and cities, and the country was on edge.  For southerners, it was not merely news of bloodshed that startled them, but rather the crack of musketry from within their fields.  The war effort tracked its way through the south, and most frequently through Virginia.  In an attempt to bring the war into the north and to alleviate the Virginia countryside, Confederate General Robert E. Lee was determined to move north and to win a victory on Union soil.  The Crocker and the other Portsmouth Rifles would make this journey north, over the Mason-Dixon Line, and eventually arrive in the area of a small, south-central Pennsylvania crossroads town. Crocker had returned to Gettysburg.


Sources:

• James F. Crocker, Prison Reminiscences (Portsmouth, Virginia: W.A. Fiske, Printer and Bookbinder, 1906).  Gettysburg College Special Collections. 

• William A. Frassanito, Early Photography at Gettysburg (University of California: Thomas Publications, 1995).