Captain W.F. Osborne, Officer in Command of Dictator

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In a previous post, I show a picture of the artillery officers examining the Dictator in the summer of 1864. All of the officers in the photograph were identified, in the book, “The photographic History of the Civil War,” except one. Since the Captain Osborne, who was in command of the Dictator was not among those identified, I guessed that the unidentified officer might be him.

I did a little more investigation and was surprised to find that after the war, Captain Osborne became a significant figure in the community of Derby, Connecticut. One of his great achievements was the establishment Derby Neck Library. The establishment of this library included a donation from non other than Andrew Carnegie. Captain Osborne must have been some kind of mover and shaker in order to solicit a donation from such a significant figure.

Captain Osborne’s daughter, Mrs. Frances Osborne Kellogg, took over the family business when he died in 1907. She expanded the successful businesses and accumulated additional property. She had no children, and outlived her husband. When she died, she arranged that the 350 acre property was given to the state, and it has become Osbornedale State Park. The house they both lived in is open to tours. Captain Osborne’s obituary makes for some interesting reading. It can be found at the Derby Historical Society Website

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The kind people at the park answered an inquiry of mine and provided a picture of Captain Osborne taken later in life. I have used a photo editing application to put the photo they sent me with an enlargement of the original photo of the officers at the dictator.

Captain Osborne?
Captain Osborne?

I can’t say for sure whether the two individuals are the same, but I would say that there is a good resemblance. What are your thoughts?

One last thing, Derby, Connecticut, is really close to Milford, Connecticut, where the SCELBI computer was developed. In fact, at one point, Terri Wadsworth taught at Derby High School. Sometimes, it’s a really small world.

SCELBI 8B Front Panel and Chassis Source

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Peter Miller is in process of building a reproduction SCELBI 8B and came up with good solutions for the chassis and front panel. Be aware that the following files are ONLY for the SCELBI 8B. The SCELBI 8H had slightly different backplane dimensions and the front panel lettering is different.

Peter Miller's Chassis
Peter Miller’s Chassis

The front panel was purchased from Front Panel Express using this design file. Unlike the original chassis, David choose to get the lettering engraved.

The chassis was fabricated by protocase using this design file. Note that some additional drilling will be required to complete this chassis.

Voting in the National Elections in 1864

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It is well known among Civil War historians, that some states allowed soldiers to cast votes from the field in the election of 1864. These were California, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. When possible, soldiers from other states, might be sent home to vote. In fact, Lincoln sent a letter to Sherman dated September 19th, 1864, asking if he could safely send Indiana soldiers home to vote in the election which was scheduled for the 11th October. Indiana was a particularly important state to Lincoln because of the large number of southern sympathizers in the southern part of that state.

What I haven’t seen mention of, is how the many civilian contractors supporting the efforts of the army dealt with the same issue. I found this note in the National Archives which gives a little hint of what had to be a difficult issue.

Construction Workers Ask to go Home to Vote
Construction Workers Ask to go Home to Vote

October 31st, 1864

To Brig. Genl Rufus Ingalls

Chief Q.M. Armies Before Richmond

General,

I have to state for your information that one hundred and twenty four (124) of our carpenter force have this day asked for leave of absence for the period of eight (8) days for this date for the purpose of going to their several homes to vote at the coming “Presidential Election”.

I therefor respectfully refer the matter for your consideration and for my own part not wishing to detain the men from exercising their rights as voters yet I think the public service is greatly in want of every man we have upon work now in hand or in contemplation.

I have the honor Genl. to be very respectfully your Ob. Ser.

J__ Morgan

___ Eng. U.S.M.RR.

You should know that the fall of 1864, was a period when a large amount of construction was going on at City Point. Grant had realized that he wasn’t likely to break through to Petersburg until the next year’s campaigning season and the armies were preparing to settle in for a siege that would most likely last through the winter.

Like so many things in the archives, you only find one part of an exchange, which results in a little mystery. I don’t know exactly who Morgan was. A number of similar messages I’ve found related to the USMRR at City Point are from C. L. McAlpine, who was an engineer in charge of repairs. Perhaps more significantly, I’m also unsure about how General Ingalls responded to this message.

More on the Dictator

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I had established in a previous post that the dictator was first moved to position in front of Petersburg on July 8th, 1864, and was used against the Chesterfield battery. On August 25th, 1864, the construction corps was tasked with building a platform for it. So what happened between July 8th and August 25th.

On July 12th, the platform car that the Dictator was mounted on broke after only 5 shots. Note that a time bomb blew up an ammunition barge at City Point on the 9th which caused a tremendous amount of damage. The lack of ammo or transportation may account for some of the delay between moving the Dictator up to the front on the 8th and only five shots having been fired by July 12th.

Dictator Truck Broken

The report of the fate of Lieut. Hall shows just how hazardous duty at the front was. I’m thinking that is an image of the Dictator on that flat car.

Dictator on Flat Car
Dictator on Flat Car

The platform car must have been repaired as the Battle of the Crater was fought on July 30th, 1864 and the Dictator was used to attempt to suppress the Chesterfield battery during that battle. This is part of the report of that battle by Col. Abbot of the 1st Connecticut Artillery.


Battle of the Crater Report

I wonder how accurate that report from the deserter was. On July 31st, the day after the Battle of the Crater, the 13″ mortar was ordered back to City Point. Why it was ordered back is not known.

Dictator Ordered Back To City Point
Dictator Ordered Back To City Point

Finally, as was shown in the previous blog post, a dedicated platform was ordered to be built on August 25th. This must be an image of the Dictator relocated to the new platform.

Rear View of Dictator on Platform
Rear View of Dictator on Platform

Here is another view of the Dictator on the platform, along with some officers.

Dictator on Platform
Dictator on Platform

Most of the officers on the platform are identified in the caption of the same image that is included in the book, “The photographic History of the Civil War.”

Officers with Dictator
Officers with Dictator

With the binoculars, is Brigader General H.L. Hunt, chief of artillery for the Army of Potomac. To his right is Colonel H.L. Abbott, commander of the 1st Connecticut, which operated all the Union siege artillery during the siege of Petersburg, including the Dictator.

In the rear row, from left to right is, Captain F.A. Pratt, Captain E.C. Dow (just behind Colonel Abbott), an unidentified captain, Major T.S. Trumbull (just behind and to General Hunt’s left) and unidentified person who appears to be a civilian.

Major Trumbull commanded all of the siege artillery in front of Petersburg until September 1st, when poor health forced him to relinquish command. Soon after that, he passed away. I think he has a gaunt look about him in this image, so perhaps he was already failing when this image was taken. Captain Pratt commanded company M of the 1st Connecticut and Captain Dow commanded company F. These companies manned several positions along the siege lines at this time.

I am investigating the identity of the unidentified captain, who perhaps could be Captain W.F. Osborne, commander of company G and the Dictator. Captains Dow, Osborne and Pratt were discharged in October or November, 1864, all having served since May, 1861.

Sometime in late summer or early fall, the Dictator was moved back to City Point and I don’t believe that it was used again.

Just How Bad Did Things Go For the German U-Boats in 1943

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Sometimes I’ll do some thinking about a topic and try to apply some math to the problem. In this case, it was in regards to the losses suffered by the German U-Boat arm in World War II. A number of sources list the killed at about 75% and another 5% captured out of a total of something like 40,900 men.

The extensive uboat.net site has listed the top 50 German Submarine commanders of World War II. I thought I would do some analysis of the fates of those top 50 commanders and see how they fared in comparison to the general loss rate.

The following table counts the number of these commanders that for one reason or another ended their front line service in each year, from 1940 through to the end of the war. The result is interesting.

Fates of the top 50 U-Boat Commanders

The blank column counts those that were still active at or near the end of the war. The loss to death or capture ratio was 50%, much better than the often reported overall rate of 80%. I suspect the reason is that many of these commanders were transferred to staff or training positions before they were killed. A few points can be gleaned from these stats.

  1. Of the 30 sub commanders that were still in the front lines in January, 1943, 16 were killed and 2 captured by the end of that year. It appears that the U-Boats were badly beaten in 1943. No military force can sustain a loss rate like that and continue to operate effectively, at least without a period of rest and reorganization.
  2. Also, by the end of 1943, all but three of these commanders were no longer actively commanding submarines in war patrols. You must wonder if all of these transfers were an effort to rest fatigued commanders or an attempt to spread the expertise of these men around through the training and staff positions that they recieved.
  3. Of the three that still commanded front line boats after 1943, one was transferred to a training command in January, 1944 and the two others ended up operating in the Indian Ocean, presumably a much safer environment for U-Boats.

A follow on project might be to compare the fates of these top 50 commanders to the entire list of U-boat commanders, which I think, can be derived from the data on uboat.net.

Old Apple ][ Replica Poster Image

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I just ran across this old image that was used to make a poster for the first VCF that I had an exhibit at. Based on the date on the files, it looks like the poster was designed in 2008.

Apple ][ replica poster
Apple ][ replica poster

The main thing that struck me is that I can’t believe what I was thinking, selling those kits for only $349! You can’t imagine how much effort it took to gather together all the parts and then assemble kits. Eventually I gave up on the kit idea and just sold bare boards. All told, I think I sold something like 16 boards and kits and kept a couple of boards for myself. I made a little money on the project, but if you counted up the hours and calculated an hourly pay rate, it had to be way below than minimum wage.

You don’t find many electronics kits manufacturers these days. I think the main reason is that it is now actually cheaper to build an electronic item than package a kit.

I am sometimes surprised at how little money that some people ask for bare reproduction PCBs. Sometimes, I see people asking less money than what I paid for those PCBs. I suppose if you really dig around, you may be able to find a fab house in Asia that will make a PCB for almost nothing, but my investigations always showed that for larger PCBs and small runs, the most popular offshore fab houses, really weren’t that much cheaper than domestic ones. Thus, I always have my PCBs made here in the USA.

MCM6571 Character Generator found for Digital Group Video Card

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Quest Components had them and I was able to pick up a few for $8.00 each. I was able undo the work-around hack for the “A” part and the board works perfectly without mods with the non-A part. Quest has both the “A” part and a “P” part, so if you decide to order from them, be sure to order the “P” part.