Delta Kappa Epsilon - University of Alabama

Sighs of Psi 5 FROM THE HISTORIAN The Battle of Cold Harbor, 1864 And The Story Behind "Brothers in DKE" C old Harbor, Virginia, June 7, 1864. The armies of Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant face each from behind heavily fortified and entrenched lines, at some points only 50 yards or so from each other. They've been in these entrenched positions for about a week, during which some of the most intense carnage of the American Civil War has taken place, particularly on June 3rd, four days earlier. At 4:30 a.m. on the morn- ing of June 3rd, a "grand assault" by the entire Union army was supposed to have overrun the Southern lines, routing Lee's army and clearing the road to the Confederate capitol of Richmond, about ten miles away, bring- ing the long and protracted war to a swift end. Grant's "grand assault" was a miserable failure, resulting in anywhere from 3500 to 4000 casualties. 1 Grant stated in his memoirs "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made… No advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained." Lee's ca- sualties were a comparatively modest 1500 men. Since the start of the war in 1861, a succession of Union com- manders had tried and failed to do what Grant was attempting to do—defeat the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia on its own turf and capture Richmond. At Manassas, the Shenandoah Valley, the Seven Days' Battles, Second Manassas, Fredericks- burg and Chancellorsville, Southern armies had sent the invading Yankees back to Washington in retreat, to lick their wounds, re- group, and prepare to fight again another day. In March 1864, Abraham Lincoln placed General Grant in com- mand of all of the Federal armies, in the hope of finally bringing the war to an end on Union terms. Grant's "Overland Campaign" began in May of 1864, and his first clash with Lee, at the Battle of the Wilderness, was considered another bloody defeat for the North. However, instead of then retreating to Washington like his predecessors, Grant, to the surprise and dismay of his opponents, advanced. In a subsequent series of bloody clashes, particularly at Spotsylvania Court House and along the North Anna River, Grant sought to turn Lee's flank and get to Richmond. Finally, in late May, the two armies began to concentrate near an obscure place known as Cold Harbor. 2 After Grant's failed attack of June 3rd, the fighting didn't end, but rather settled into a constant, round-the-clock barrage of sharpshooting, dueling artillery, skirmishing and smaller offen- sive efforts by both sides to alter the stalemate. Near sundown on June 7th, a two-hour truce went into effect between the oppos- ing armies, for the purpose of recovering the wounded from the battlefield and burying the dead. Near the extreme right of the Union army's seven-mile long line, serving as part of the Federal 9th Army Corps, was a 21 year-old 2nd Lieutenant in Company E, 21st Maine Infantry. His name was Edwin Searle Rogers, and he hailed from the small town of Patten, Maine. Prior to enlisting in the army earlier in 1864, Rogers had been a student at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he had been a member of the Theta Chapter of DKE, Class of 1865. At some point during the fighting at Cold Harbor, he was hit by a Rebel bullet, sustaining a wound which ultimately took his life. In June 1897, a poem was published in the DKE Quarterly that would soon reach iconic status within the entire DKE fraternity, all across North America. Entitled "Brothers in DKE", the poem was written by John Clair Minot, another member, of a later generation, of the Theta DKE chapter, Class of 1896. It tells the tale, in verse, of the mortal wounding of Brother Rogers, and of his being found and tended to shortly before his death by a Confederate soldier who was a member of the Psi Alabama chapter of DKE. The exact identity of this Psi Deke, while perhaps once known to Edwin Rogers' family and others, was apparently lost by the time "Broth- ers in DKE" was published over thirty years later, and that identity has remained a mystery ever since. A reading (or re-reading) of "Brothers in DKE," which appears on page nine, below, is recommended before pro- ceeding further. In the almost 120 years since it was first published, "Broth- ers in DKE" has become a cornerstone of the lore and tradition of DKE International. The poem continues to be utilized to in- troduce new members to the history, traditions and ideals of the fraternity, and is fondly remembered and re-read by count- less fraternity alumni long after they have moved on from col- lege life. It is unknown exactly what impact Minot's poem may have had upon the men of Psi at the time of its publica- tion. While surely the poem and its underlying story came to their attention, existing Psi chapter records date only back to 1936, and there is no mention in existing Psi records of Minot's poem, or of any research as to the identity of the Psi brother in the poem. In 2004, several Psi alumni decided to try and solve this mystery and identify the Psi brother who nobly tended to the dying Rogers, who, for ease of reference, will be hereafter referred to as "The Unknown Psi." This fellow Psi deserved recognition for his deed, which had become such a hallmark of everything DKE is supposed to stand for, and who bet- ter to solve this mystery than the men who hail from the same chapter as this Confederate hero himself? This initial Psi effort was undertaken primarily by Brothers Black Chaffe '83, John McNeil '79 and Agee Broughton '80. 3 It was hoped that iden- tifying the Unknown Psi would be a relatively straightforward process of determining which Psi Deke or Dekes fought at Cold Harbor opposite Edwin Rogers and the 31st Maine Infantry. A number of Psi brethren were identified as possible candidates, but the process turned out to be substantially more complicated than expected, and the effort was inconclusive. Other efforts had also been made to identify The Unknown Psi, particularly by Brother Rufus Ward, Chi Mississippi '72; and by Brother Grant Burn- yeat, Phi Alpha British Colombia '65, who, in addition to chair- ing the History and Archives Committee of DKE International, is also the foremost living authority on the history of all things DKE. These efforts, while also productive, were also ultimately inconclusive. 4 I inherited this mission when I was asked to serve as Psi Alumni Historian in late summer of 2010. My initial efforts focused on first identifying all Psi alumni who had served in the Confederate armies. We identified 54 members of the antebellum Psi chapter who had served the Confederate cause. 5 Through process of elimination, this list of 54 men was eventually narrowed down to seven seemingly vi- Edwin S. Rogers, wearing what appears to be his DKE pin on his lapel. This photo was taken in 1864, just a few months prior to his death. Photo courtesy of Maine State Archives. (Continued on page 6) John Clair Minot, author of "Brothers in DKE."

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