Captain O.E. BABCOCK AND CAPTAIN O.M. POE AT FORT SANDERS March 1864 Original in the Library of Congress Photographed by George Barnard In March of 1864, Poe and Babcock thoroughly documented the site of the Battle of Fort Sanders with Knoxville solidly in Union hands. In front of the fort they planned and built, the two engineers pose for George Barnard’s camera. This and other Barnard photographs give a rare visual history of the scarred and battered military fortifications and the town of Knoxville in 1864.
In 1863, Captain Orville Elias Babcock was an aspiring young engineer from Vermont. An 1861 West Point graduate, his skills included pontoon bridge building, lawful material procurement, and a general resourcefulness which impressed his fellow officers including Captain Orlando Poe.
Babcock was a combatant, as were all engineers. He was one of the officers who advanced to the enemy skirmish line with a flag of truce after the assault so that the wounded could be treated, the dead retrieved and the many prisoners exchanged.
Capt. Babcock assumed Poe’s position as head of the Engineering Corps of the Army of the Ohio when Poe left. In March 1864, Babcock became an aide de camp to Gen. U.S. Grant, who eventually promoted him to general, citing his service in Knoxville, among other accomplishments.
On April 9, 1865, Gen. Babcock was the officer who escorted Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee to the McLean House at Appomattox, Virginia and waited with him there for Grant to arrive. Babcock was among those at the signing of the surrender.
Up Next – Sanders: A Hero Immortalized
PRESENTATION SWORD AND SCABBARD, 1863
Steel, gilded brass, copper, horn; nickel-plated steel, gilded brass
Gift of Leslie Pierson, 1974
The Ames Manufacturing Co., Chicopee, Massachusetts made the officer’s sword. Babcock very likely wore this sword at the formal surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. The Babcock family preserved the beautiful memento until its donation to the Museum. On the etched blade appear the words E PLURIBUS UNUM, Latin for “out of many, one” the motto of the United States.
The inscription on the back of the guard reads:
O. E. Babcock
Corps of Engineers
from his brother C. W. Babcock
Feb. 1863.