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DONATED CIVIL WAR MEDAL JOINED BY CANE IN EXHIBIT

May 4, 2009 12:36 am

BY CLINT SCHEMMER

The great-grandson of the Union soldier considered the most wounded man to survive the Civil War came to Chancellorsville to pass along his family's most cherished possession.

Steve Chase traveled from his Texas home yesterday to give Pvt. John F. Chase's Medal of Honor to the National Park Service just as he'd promised months ago.

That was special enough, as all four dozen onlookers at the Park Service's Chancellorsville Visitor Center appeared to appreciate. But then came a last-minute surprise.

John Hennessy, chief historian of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, revealed that another artifact relating to Pvt. Chase had just surfaced: an old wooden cane.

The cane is finely etched--like a piece of scrimshaw--with a portrait of Chase, an image of the monument to the 5th Maine Battery on the Gettysburg battlefield, and the inscription "Cannonier, J.F. Chase, 5th Maine Batt." At one end, near the handle, are the words "Culp's Hill."

Curator Janice Frye, wearing white gloves, brought the artifact to the front of the visitor center's auditorium for Steve Chase and his wife, Nancy Kay, to see for the first time. They clearly were intrigued.

"This is like the cherry on top of the sundae," Chase said.

Hennessy said the cane may have been made for John Chase, given his considerable postwar fame. Souvenir canes were popular with Civil War veterans.

Chase said he figures that his great-grandfather probably acquired the keepsake at a veterans reunion at Gettysburg long after the war.

Hennessy learned of the artifact's existence late Friday and immediately called its owner, Spotsylvania resident Jan VanLandingham. She told him, "Why, I have a cane "

That morning, when VanLandingham had read a Free Lance-Star article about Pvt. Chase, she realized the 19th-century walking stick, mingled with others in her foyer's umbrella jar, probably had some link to the Medal of Honor recipient.

She and her sister had come upon the cane in the early 1970s while helping clear out her uncle's moving-and-storage warehouse in St. Petersburg, Fla.--where Chase moved from Maine long after the war and lived until his death in 1914.

In the mid-1990s, after visiting her sister in St. Petersburg, VanLandingham brought the cane back home to Virginia with her. A friend turned up an account of Chase's near-mortal wounding in the Battle of Gettysburg, his painful recovery and his colorful life after the war.

"But until I read the newspaper article, I hadn't made the Chancellorsville connection," said VanLandingham, a retired teacher.

HANDFUL OF HEROES

Chase, a native of Chelsea, Maine, said to be one of the state's first residents to enlist, received the U.S. military's highest honor "for conspicuous gallantry" in the Battle of Chancellorsville.

"In war, most men do their duty," Hennessy told those attending yesterday's ceremony. "Duty, by itself, often requires immense courage, determination and devotion. A few men ascend beyond duty to perform nobly. And then, a handful become heroes.

"John Chase was a private in the 5th Maine Battery. And at Chancellorsville 146 years ago today, on May 3rd, 1863, he became a hero."

On that day, as Confederate attackers overwhelmed the Union army's position at the Chancellorsville crossroads (today's Elys Ford Road and State Route 3), Chase and Cpl. J.H. Lebroke kept firing the last of their battery's cannons despite intense enemy fire. The other guns' caissons had been blown up. Nearly all of the unit's officers and horses had been killed or wounded or had fled.

To prevent their cannon's capture, Lebroke and Chase dragged it toward the rear, eventually aided by reinforcements from the 116th Pennsylvania Volunteers, part of the Irish Brigade.

Lebroke received the Medal of Honor shortly after the battle. Chase was awarded his medal in late 1888.

Hennessy called what the two men did that morning "a phenomenal story."

Out of the tens of millions of men and women who have served their country over 200-plus years, he noted, a mere 3,446 have been awarded the nation's highest military decoration.

WOUNDED AT GETTYSBURG

Chase's fame, however, came from what happened to him two months later at Gettysburg, as his battery was helping defend Culp's Hill against Confederate artillery. On July 2, a shell prematurely burst as it exited his cannon's muzzle.

Chase suffered at least 48 shrapnel wounds. Left for dead, he lay on the field for days until someone chanced to realize that he was still alive.

Chase lost his right arm and left eye, and one of his lungs was severely damaged. But he went on to live another 51 years, marry and raise a family, patent 47 inventions and help develop Gulfport, Fla., on St. Petersburg's southwest side.

NOW, FOR ALL TO SEE

Park Superintendent Russ Smith gratefully accepted the Chase medal for the park's collection of historic artifacts.

"Because of your generous gift," Smith told the family, "we know that our visitors will get a more personal view of the battle and have a better understanding of not just lines and tactics, but of personal sacrifice and courage."

The medal, together with the cane and portraits of Pvt. Chase, immediately went on display yesterday in a special case at the entrance to the visitor center's museum.

Then, after driving a short way to the Chancellor House ruins, park historian Greg Mertz led the Chases and 19 other hardy souls into the rain to tread where the Maine private and his comrade acted with such bravery.

At tour's end, as he and his wife walked back toward a waiting car, Steve Chase said quietly, "This day has been the high point of my life."

tinyurl.com/johnfchase tinyurl.com/chaseculps nps.gov/frsp

Clint Schemmer: 540/368-5029
Email: cschemmer@freelancestar.com