SBU Prof Co-Pens Civil War Article

Chris Mackowski, an associate professor of journalism and mass communication at St. Bonaventure University, has published an article in a Civil War history journal.

“From Foxcroft to Fredericksburg: Captain Sewell Gray of the Sixth Maine Infantry” appears in this year’s volume of Fredericksburg History & Biography, an annual journal published by the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust. This year’s volume — volume seven — was released in mid-December.

Mackowski co-authored the article with Kristopher D. White, a historian who works at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, which encompasses four major Civil War battlefields in central Virginia. Mackowski works at the park one weekend a month as a battlefield guide and interpreter.

Their article focuses on an officer, Sewell Gray of Foxcroft, Maine, who served with the Sixth Maine Infantry. Mackowski and White based their article on Gray’s diary, which recently came to light.

“Sabbath and a lovelier day never overtook a soldier,” Gray wrote in his diary on May 3, 1863. Hours later, he was killed while his regiment stormed a heavily fortified Confederate position known as Marye’s Heights in Fredericksburg. However, Gray’s unit, the Sixth Maine, successfully captured the position, although their success was short-lived. The Federal advance was halted just a few hours later after the Battle at Salem Church. The action was one of several engagements related to the Battle of Chancellorsville.

“After Gray’s death, his diary had been recovered by someone in his regiment, and it was passed down through his family. His great-great-grandnephew has it today,” Mackowski says. “He was kind enough to provide a transcript, which Kris and I then used as the basis for the article. We did additional research to flesh out Gray’s story even further. He was an interesting guy to get to know.”

Mackowski’s father lives in the area in Maine where members of Gray’s regiment were recruited into service.

“I spent part of my life growing up and going to school in the same towns where some of Gray’s comrades came from,” Mackowski says. “It was important to me to do justice to Captain Gray’s story because of that connection.”

The article by Mackowski and White appears alongside articles by noted Civil War historians Eric Mink, Donald Pfanz, Noel Harrison and Russell P. Smith.