When my great-great-grandfather traveled from Herkimer County to Virginia to serve in the Civil War in 1861, he was outfitted in Union blues with a Springfield rifle. The gun sat hidden and overlooked in a corner of my grandparents’ summer kitchen for several years, perhaps 40. Its next destination was my Uncle Paul’s home in Whitesboro for many years. Last month, the rifle crossed the country in my cousin’s RV and took up residence on the mantel of another cousin’s home along Flathead Lake in western Montana.
The Civil War artifact spans 165 years and a nation, but has another illuminating power — it renews connections among my 49 Maxwell first cousins and unifies family ties across five generations.
“Receiving the rifle is something that I didn’t really see happening, living in Montana and so far away from Upstate New York,’’ said cousin Tom Maxwell. “Naturally, when cousin Ro delivered the rifle, I almost couldn’t believe it. I was very happy, excited and amazed.’’
The story of the rifle reads like a walk through the history of immigration, the Civil War, the Great Depression and our modern, mobile society.
James Maxwell, born in Ireland in 1840, was working as a farm laborer in the Middleville-Newport corridor just north of Utica when the Confederates started the Civil War with the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. Nine days later, Maxwell joined Company G of the 34th New York Regiment.
Maxwell, at 5 feet, 7 inches, was barely taller than his gun. The 55-inch, 10-pound muzzleloaded rifle was considered state-of-the art equipment. Soldiers had carried smoothbore muskets that were accurate up to 100 yards, but the grooves inside the barrel of a Springfield imparted spin on the bullets, improving accuracy to 500 yards.
Confederates were carrying the same rifles too. Technology had made the war more lethal, which Maxwell learned May 31, 1862, at the Battle of Fair Oaks, also known as Seven Pines, in Virginia’s Henrico County.
Union General George McClellan’s troops were advancing toward Richmond, Virginia, in what became an unsuccessful attempt to capture the Confederate capital, known to historians as the Peninsula Campaign.
The Union troops encountered the forces of Confederate General Joe Johnston, just south of the Chickahominy River. Of the 11,500 casualties over two days, almost 1,800 men were killed. Maxwell took a bullet through the arm. Initially listed as missing in action, he was transported to a Union hospital camp in Point Lookout, Maryland, and was discharged from service the following July.
Cousin “Tommy Montana’’ confirmed this information during a trip to the National Archives in Washington. Family members had told him that you could almost see through James Maxwell’s left bicep where the bullet left a hole.
“Collecting the military records from the Civil War of a family member,’’ cousin Tom said, “as well as what is believed to be a great-great-great grandfather’s rifle, that’s an amazing connection to American history. How could I not be interested?’’
Family records show James Maxwell returned to Newport, with his rifle, to farm life. He married Mary O’Connor, also an Irish immigrant, and raised six children, including my great-grandfather, Joseph Maxwell. His son, Bernard James, married Nora Caroline Stock, and they raised 12 children, including my mother, Eileen, during the lean years of the Great Depression.
I recall playing in the summer kitchen of my grandparents’ home in the early 1960s when my mother visited her childhood home in Middleville. Within a couple of years, the summer kitchen was demolished and the gun was rediscovered. The baby of my mother’s family, Paul, took possession of the gun.
Cousin Tom, now 78, was raised in Seattle, achieved the rank of captain in 27 years with the fire department, then retired and moved with his wife Barbara to Montana. He traveled to New York for family picnics in summer and deer hunts in the fall. In turn, he hosted Uncle Paul and cousin Joe Maxwell for weeklong elk-hunting trips in Washington state. Over these visits, he learned of the rifle and the family lore.
When Paul Maxwell decided to pass the treasure to the next generation, he picked hunting buddy Tommy Montana. Enter another cousin, Rosemary Murphy FitzSimons.
By coincidence, she and her husband, Jim, had purchased James Maxwell’s 1886 home and made several updates over the years. The parlor, in which James Maxwell was waked in 1922, had been converted into her bedroom. She delivered the Springfield rifle this summer during a pilgrimage through the Western States.
Tom has plans to repair and restore the dysfunctional rifle. The stock was damaged and the barrel still is separating despite a years-old botched repair job. He has a plan with a local gunsmith to repair it.
Rosemary FitzSimons has a plan too. She hopes the 1861 Springfield is passed to her son, Chris, who lives two doors away, just two doors from his great-great-great-great grandfather’s home.
Tommy Montana and Ro Fitz will be preserving a 165-year-old treasure and a trove of family memories.
Morristown native Jim Holleran is a retired teacher and sports editor from Rochester. Reach him at jimholleran29@gmail.com or view past columns under “Reflections of River Rat’’ at https://hollerangetsitwrite.com/blog/
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