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JAMES Z. McCHESNEY: 17th VIRGINIA CAVALRY BATTALION; 11th VA CAV; 14th VA CAV: GETTYSBURG, HAGERSTOWN, BRANDY STATION; SEVERELY WOUNDED BY SABER; ALMOST A SECOND LIEUTENANT

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This is one of three portraits we recently acquired showing the three sons of the McChesney family of Rockbridge County, Virginia, who served in the Confederate army and which we are offering separately. This is James Zechariah McChesney, who saw service as VMI cadet the first half of 1862 and in August 1862 by enlisted in the army, joining an older brother’s cavalry company, and serving until March 31, 1865. He was the youngest of the three brothers, born in 1843, several months after the death of his father. A cropped copy of this image is shown in his CWData entry credited to the Confederate Veteran Magazine, confirming the identification. A portion of the original paper backing on one edge of the frame has the identification “Col. McChesney” in period ink, slightly rubbed, the rank referring to his rank in the United Confederate Veterans, one from which he advanced to Brigadier General before his death in 1922. (This was later incorrectly transcribed by someone who read the “Mc” as “Wm” and identified him on a card taped to the back as, “Col. Wm. McChesney” in ink and handwriting that looks to date to the 1940s or later. We have left that card in place.)

This a period photographic enlargement of an image showing McChesney in a single-breasted frock coat, wearing a waistbelt and holding up his saber with sword knot and one saber sling showing, and with his pistol on the table next to him. The earlier image was likely a tintype for which McChesney had moved his saber to have it appear correctly on his left side, since the tintype process laterally reverses an image, but he could not avoid the saber thus showing the guard branches of the saber or his coat having the buttons on the wrong side. These details were preserved in this positive copy enlargement that was then colored, matted and framed like the images of his brothers in oval frames, and all likely hung together in the same family home and certainly come out together. At one point they were in the collection of Bill Turner, well known Virginia Civil War collector and dealer.

The condition is excellent, with some wear to the frame but only a few very small spots of foxing to the image. The reverse of the card mount of the image shows the photographer’s notes for the colors desired: “hair very dark brown,” “eyes hazel,” etc., as well as uniform details: “uniform gray / CSA on belt / all trimmings yellow.” The instructions on the belt plate were necessary to have the letters read correctly, if plate bore them in the first place.  The colors have softened slightly over the years, but are still very good and were delicately applied.

We note also that he seems to have a single rank bar on either side of his collar, indicating the rank of a second lieutenant. His records, summarized below, do not include a promotion to this rank, but indicate service as a cavalry private throughout the war. Confederate records are notoriously fragmentary, of course, and what appear to be bars might also in fact be decorative blind buttonholes, like those showing up on US army enlisted mounted jackets. We do, however, have an interesting alternative. Our ace research team has turned up a letter sent by McChesney to the office of the Confederate Adjutant and Inspector General dated 10/12/63 reporting “as a cadet” in accordance with General Orders #132 of 10/5/63 and asking to be assigned to a camp of instruction. It looks very much like he mistook his status as a former VMI cadet for the official rank of Cadet in the Confederate regular army, which was modelled on the US Army’s commissioning of West Point cadets as brevet 2^nd Lieutenants until a vacancy opened up for a regular appointment in the army. The order to which he responded was a reminder of an 1862 G.O. ordering cadets to report to that office and warning that failure to do so would result in them being dropped from the army rolls. It seems likely then that the young McChesney suddenly thought he qualified as a brevet 2^nd Lieutenant and rushed out to get the appropriate insignia and have his picture taken while waiting for a response to his letter. The CS A&IG office must have been puzzled- a pencil note indicates he was not a CSA cadet. Members of the company, if they realized McChesney’s mistake (delusion may be too harsh a word) may have gone along with the joke, if they did not instigate it. It may have taken some time to live down when he realized he was still a private, and something he was not anxious to include in any biography or reminiscence.

Like his brothers, McChesney attended Washington College, and we find him in the student body for 1860-61. His military record has been made difficult by the intrusion into some sources of the records of a Samuel J. McChesney, a private and ordnance sergeant in the 1^st VA Cavalry. His entry in the VA regimental history series for the 14^th VA Cavalry is more accurate. According to that, he attended VMI from January to July, 1862, and was with the cadet corps when they were called out to serve in Jackson’s McDowell campaign in May 1862. Some of his papers are at West Virginia University and reportedly include a June 10, 1862, letter to his mother making an impassioned case for joining the army, which would fit the timing of his enlistment in the 17^th Battalion of Virginia Cavalry that August. He is cited in some sources as joining Company E of that unit, but this seems to be an error for Company F, commanded by his older brother Alexander, whose portrait we offer separately. This fits with his subsequent service in Co. F of the 11^th Virginia Cavalry as of Feb. 5, 1863: this was the same company after the expansion of the battalion and its redesignation as the 11^th VA Cavalry Regiment. By that time Alexander McChesney had left the service, but it also fits with a statement in J.Z. McChesney’s file for service in the 11^th that he had been enlisted at Winchester by “Capt. McChesney.”

His compiled military service records for his time in the 11^th indicates he transferred to Co. C of the 14^th VA cavalry on 6/13/63 and the regimental history of that unit credits him with being present at Gettysburg, Hagerstown, and Brandy Station. Following his CMSR file it also lists him as present with the company and regiment from Feb. 29 to Aug. 31, 1864, and being absent sick in hospital from Sept. 25 to December 31, noting that he was hospitalized for Typhoid, but seems to have returned to duty and is noted as wounded in action sometime in early 1865 with “a fearful saber cut.” It also notes him as “retired 3/31/65.” The wounding and “retirement” seem based on his obituary in the Confederate Veteran, “invalided by a severe saber wound, he retired from service March 31, 1865.”

(We note that CW Data also says he had been wounded earlier and hospitalized on 9/23/63, furloughed for thirty days, and had returned by 11/15/63, but this is confusion with S.J. McChesney of the 1^st VA Cavalry. They seem to have followed the 14^th VA regimental history, however, in noting he left the service on 3/31/65, but imply it was not because of his wound, but because his “jaw sloughed off due to typhoid fever,” (!) so there are some details yet to straighten out. None of the sources give his precise method of discharge. CWData also says that he left the 14^th VA Cavalry on 3/13/65 by transfer “into the Veteran Reserve Corps,” by which they would mean the Confederate regular army “Invalid Corps,” but we are not sure where they are getting that information from. The regimental history, however, says he was “paroled at Staunton 5/65.”)

In later life McChesney was merchant and life insurance agent. As noted, he rose high in the ranks of the U.C.V. Lastly we note that all three brothers are listed in the regimental history of the 14^th VA Cavalry, even Robert, who was killed early in the war, but whose  company later officially became part of that regiment. This is a strong portrait of a Confederate cavalryman with some very active service and a member of Virginia family certainly committed to the Confederacy.  [sr][ph:m]

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