Civil War Baseball: The Opening Image

The most widely cited details about this game originate not from contemporary sources but from A.G. Mills' recollections published fifty years later in Albert Spalding's America's National Game (1911). The contemporary source — The New South newspaper, December 27, 1862 — tells a simpler story. Emerging Civil War

At the Provost Marshal's Quarters there were absurd and laughable sports among the men, and a ball match between the 'Van Brunt' and 'Frazer' Base ball clubs...

— The New South, Port Royal, SC, December 27, 1862 FanGraphs

The teams were named for officers of the 47th New York Volunteer Infantry: Colonel James L. Frazer and Major George B. Van Brunt. The Frazer club won. No score was recorded.

The 40,000 Spectator Claim

This figure appears exclusively in Mills' 1911 account, not in any contemporary source. Baseball historian Peter Morris has called this number "preposterous." However, military records confirm 28,000 Union troops were stationed at Hilton Head at peak capacity, with an additional 9,000 freed slaves and approximately 1,000 civilian workers on the island — making a large crowd plausible, if not 40,000.

The Salisbury Prison Game — Superior Documentation

The July 4, 1862 baseball game at Salisbury Confederate Prison in North Carolina has superior documentary evidence to Hilton Head — multiple primary sources and one of American history's earliest color depictions of baseball. SABR

Celebrated with music, reading of the Declaration of Independence, and sack and foot races in the afternoon, and also a baseball game.

— Dr. Charles Carroll Gray, Union Army physician, POW

And to-day the great game of baseball came off between the Orleanists and Tuscaloosans with apparently as much enjoyment to the Rebs as the Yanks, for they came in hundreds to see the sport, and I have seen more smiles to-day on their oblong faces than since I came to Rebeldom.

— William J. Crossley, 2nd Rhode Island

The game ended tied 11-11. Confederate guards watched alongside Union prisoners. Professor Giles W. Shurtleff of Oberlin College later recalled a dramatic play where a Union player had to cross the "deadline" to catch a fly ball, trusting that the guard on duty that day wouldn't shoot.

Baseball appeared in military camps within months of Fort Sumter. New York and New England regiments — where organized baseball clubs had flourished since the 1840s — served as primary vectors. US History Scene

The parade ground has been a busy place for a week or so past, ball-playing having become a mania in camp. Officers and men forget, for a time, the differences in rank and indulge in the invigorating sport with a schoolboy's ardor.

— Private Alpheris B. Parker, 10th Massachusetts Protoball

Colonel Mason Whiting Tyler reported by 1863 that baseball was "all the rage now in the Army of the Potomac... [the camps are] alive with ball players."

New York Rules vs. Massachusetts Rules

The New York (Knickerbocker) Rules became dominant during the war, displacing the older Massachusetts rules. The key differences:

Equipment Improvisations

When proper materials were unavailable, soldiers created balls from walnut cores wrapped in yarn, with leather covers sewn from multiple scraps. Bats were fashioned from tree branches, fence posts, barrel staves, wagon wheel spokes, and axe handles. Some soldiers flattened wagon tongues to create flat striking surfaces.

The popular narrative that Confederates learned baseball from Union prisoners is largely myth. SABR research has documented that baseball existed in every Southern state before the war. New Orleans alone had 22 baseball clubs pre-war — more than Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Pittsburgh, or Cincinnati. Emerging Civil War

A friendly match of base ball, played between Hayes' and Stafford's Second [Louisiana] Brigade... won by General Hayes' brigade.

— Richmond Examiner, April 2, 1864

Confederate units formed their own clubs and played matches during lulls in fighting, just as Union soldiers did. The war's role was less about introducing baseball to the South than about standardizing rules and creating a shared sporting culture across regional lines.

Morgan Gardner Bulkeley (1837-1922) holds a unique historical position as the only Civil War veteran in the Baseball Hall of Fame. However, his actual military service and baseball contributions warrant careful scrutiny. SABR

Military Service: Brief and Non-Combat

The "First President" Title Was Largely Ceremonial

Bulkeley became National League president through circumstance rather than baseball passion. On February 2, 1876, eight team presidents met in New York to form the new league. The driving force was William Hulbert of Chicago, not Bulkeley.

Bulkeley was not accorded this honor due to any strong ties within the baseball community. In truth, the new league was the brainchild of Chicagoan William Hulbert, but the highly provincial world of early professional ball dictated that naming an Easterner to the post would be the most propitious political move.

— SABR Biography

Bulkeley served one year only (1876), warned from the start he would not continue. He had greater interest in harness racing than baseball. Hulbert succeeded him and did the actual work of establishing the league.

Hall of Fame Induction Was Politically Motivated

Inducted: 1937 (Centennial Commission, NOT original 1936 class)

The original 1936 class included Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson — all selected by BBWAA writers. Bulkeley's 1937 selection by the Centennial Commission came when American League founder Ban Johnson was inducted; committee members felt the National League needed equivalent representation.

SABR notes this "was more of a 'political' decision than a baseball one."

A.G. Mills — the same man who played at Hilton Head in 1862 and later rose to National League president — chaired the Mills Commission that in 1907 falsely credited Abner Doubleday with inventing baseball. This connection between Civil War baseball and baseball's fraudulent origin story is historically significant.

The Myth Dismantled

THE CLAIM: Civil War General Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839.

THE TRUTH: This is entirely false. Doubleday was a first-year cadet at West Point in 1839, not in Cooperstown. His family had moved away from Cooperstown in 1837. His 67 surviving diaries never mention baseball. He never claimed any role in the game's invention. His New York Times obituary did not mention baseball.

The Source of the Myth

A single letter from Abner Graves, a 71-year-old Denver mining engineer, who claimed to have witnessed Doubleday invent the game as a "playmate." Graves was 5 years old in 1839; Doubleday was 20. The Mills Commission never interviewed Graves, never corresponded with him, and conducted no investigation.

Graves later shot and killed his wife and died in an insane asylum.

THE MOTIVATION: Albert Spalding, owner of A.G. Spalding & Brothers sporting goods company, wanted to establish baseball as purely American rather than evolved from English rounders.

Other Civil War Veterans in Baseball

Beyond Bulkeley and Mills, documented Civil War veterans include:

• Alfred J. Reach (Hall of Fame member, Mills Commission member)
• Otto Boetticher (artist who created the Salisbury lithograph)
• Approximately 40+ players who later played in Major Leagues

Harry Wright and Albert Spalding did NOT serve — Wright continued playing baseball in New York during the war, while Spalding (born 1850) was too young.

Tier 1: Essential Materials

Tier 2: Supporting Materials

Production Contacts

Documentary Thesis Supported

The research confirms the series thesis that baseball and military service have been intertwined since the Civil War era. The Christmas 1862 Hilton Head game — even with contested details about attendance — represents a documented instance of baseball's role in military life. Morgan G. Bulkeley, as the sole Civil War veteran in Cooperstown, provides a direct link between this era and the Hall of Fame, though with the important caveat that his service was brief and his baseball contributions were largely ceremonial.

The opening image can establish both the genuine connection between baseball and war, and the contested nature of baseball's origin stories — setting up four episodes of Hall of Famers whose military service is thoroughly documented.