APPOMATTOX PAROLE OF CORPORAL HENRY KOPMAN, LOUISIANA GUARD ARTILLERY, APRIL 1861 TO APRIL 1865

APPOMATTOX PAROLE OF CORPORAL HENRY KOPMAN, LOUISIANA GUARD ARTILLERY, APRIL 1861 TO APRIL 1865

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This is a great Appomattox parole filled out for Corporal Henry Kopman of Green’s Battery in Stark’s Battalion of Artillery, a battery also known at the Louisiana Guard Artillery in which Kopman served from April 1861 to April 1865, and which lost two of its four wartime Captains killed in action. Records show he was absent only for a brief hospital stay in late 1862, a furlough in early 1863, and later time as a prisoner of war, captured at Rappahannock Station in November 1863, but paroled, exchanged and returned to service in early May 1864. Not only did this parole belong to a soldier with substantial service, in its function as a pass through federal lines and permit to use federal transportation and draw rations, the stamps and notations on it chronicle his journey home to New Orleans in 1865.

This comes from the collection of researcher, scholar and author Greg Coco, whose article on Appomattox paroles (CW Times) will be an essential introduction to their production, use and significance of Appomattox paroles. In addition, Kopman’s wartime gold badge exists and is the subject of an article North South Trader 3.1 (Nov-Dec 1975,) which also illustrates a period CDV of him in civilian clothes, which we illustrate. (It may be the CDV whose reverse with photographer’s backmark and Kopman’s signature is illustrated by Turner in Even More Confederate Faces, p. 13.)

The parole is accompanied by Coco’s voluminous research file and is in very good condition, showing some folds and stains that are more evident of the back than the front. It is made out to “Corpl. Henry Kopman” of “Green’s Battery,” named for their fourth and final Captain, who took over during the Gettysburg Campaign after his predecessor had been killed at Winchester in June 1863. Starting in late 1863 or early 1864 the battery was in Stark’s battalion, who signs Kopman’s parole at bottom right as “Lt. Col. Comd’g Batt.”

The parole is also a chronology of Kopman’s journey home. The face bears a large red ink stamp dated April 22, 1865, from the Quartermaster’s Office in New York City that transportation had been furnished to him from New York to New Orleans. The back shows that he had earlier reported to the Office of the Provost Marshal of the 8th Corps in Baltimore on April 18, signed by a Captain and Assistant Provost Marshal, and that after arriving at New Orleans he had reported on May 8 to the office of the Provost Marshal for the Parish of New Orleans, where a Captain of the 16th Indiana, the Assistant Provost Marshal, had signed off on it.

Born in Austria in 1837 Henry Kopman had been brought to the US by his parents about 1839 and at the beginning of the war was a clerk for a cotton factor in New Orleans, apparently specializing in weighing cotton, an occupation he pursued after his return from the war, later becoming President and Secretary of the Free on Board Weighers Association, something essential in determining the values and liabilities in shipping. The 1860 census shows him to have been well off, with real estate valued at $15,000, a personal estate valued at $1,500, and the owner of one slave. He was socially and politically active- member of a cricket club and secretary of the Breckinridge and Lane Club in 1860.

Kopman enrolled at New Orleans in Company B of the 1st Louisiana Volunteers on April 26, 1861, and mustered in as a private for one year’s service on April 28. The company was detached from that regiment in July 1861, to act as an independent field artillery company by a General Order from Richmond and adopted the title, “Louisiana Guard Artillery.” (This supplies an approximate date for the elegant badge pictured in NST, clearly modeled on those used by the elite Washington Artillery of New Orleans.) Kopman was promoted to Corporal in time for the Sept.-Oct. 1861 muster roll. The battery was posted first in southeastern Virginia (newspapers mention them posted at Norfolk) and northeastern North Carolina, but it joined the main army in Virginia and Jackson’s forces in time to fight at Cedar Mountain in August 1862, Second Manassas, and then Antietam (with 1 killed and 8 wounded, manning one 10-pd Parrott and two 3-in Ordnance Rifles,) and Fredericksburg, where it served on the right flank, losing its Captain killed in action. Kopman was listed as hospitalized in Richmond with fever in late November and under treatment on Dec. 5, so it is unclear when he returned to duty, but he is present again on the Jan-Feb 1863 muster roll, having unsuccessfully applied in the meantime for a position in the CS Treasury Department. He received a furlough from March 7 to April 26, which puts him back on duty in time for service at Chancellorsville in May, and then under Ewell at Winchester on June 15, where its next captain was also killed, and Gettysburg (with two 10-pd Parrots and two 3-inch Rifles) where it fought on the first day’s field, firing from the north side of Rock Creek, and then was ordered to join Hampton’s cavalry with a section of Parrott guns, fighting with the cavalry on July 2 and July 3, losing 2 killed and 5 wounded, having fired 161 rounds. (It is unclear if all four guns went to join or Hampton or just one section consisting of the two Parrotts.)

In the Fall the battery saw service in the Bristoe Campaign and in November was part of the ill-fated garrison of the Confederate redoubt at Rappahannock Station, where they lost all four guns and 41 officers and men taken prisoner, including Kopman, in the successful Union assault. Kopman remained a prisoner in Federal hands until he was released on parole to Confederate authorities on March 10 to await exchange. This came through in May, with the NST article illustrating his order to return to his unit dated May 4, 1864. He then rejoined those who had escaped capture at Rappahannock Station and had been assigned to the Richmond defenses.

In August 1864 the commander of the Richmond artillery defenses proposed including the battery in a mobile horse artillery unit of three batteries to harass Union communications on the James River, but it is unclear if that came to pass. He says they had been serving dismounted and would require horses and also expresses the need for four 1-pd Parrott guns, implying they had been assigned to man heavy guns in Richmond defenses since the debacle at Rappahannock Station. This proposed mounted assignment, however, may account for Bergeron’s statement, in his Guide to Louisiana Confederate Military Units, that “some of the men served as cavalry in the closing stages of the war.” They were more likely armed as infantry for the evacuation of Richmond and march to Appomattox where they surrendered 17 men as part of Stark’s artillery battalion. After his parole at Appomattox, before reaching Baltimore and New York to head home, Kopman was hospitalized again for fever at Burkesville on April 14, 1865, but it cannot have been for long, since he was in Baltimore on April 18.

He returned to the cotton weighing business in New Orleans after reaching home. He married about 1866. The 1880 census finds him with a wife and three children, ages 3 to 13. He died in New Orleans in August 1911. An obituary memorialized him as a “Soldier, citizen and sportsman of New Orleans.”

This is a very strong example of an Appomattox parole pass. Please see our photos and Coco’s excellent article on them in CW Times 45.2 (March/April 2006.) In addition to his service record, the transportation and Provost Marshal notations on this are especially evocative – a southern soldier’s odyssey home from war, so to speak.   [sr][ph:L]

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