“Always Ready”: The Charge of the 9th New York in History and Memory – Dr. James Broomall

This presentation was part of the 2024 Fall Conference held at Shepherd University.

The tattered silk flag of the 9th New York Volunteer Infantry, also known as Hawkins’ Zouaves, is emblazoned with the motto, “Toujours Pret,” or “Always Ready.” These words rung true on September 17, 1862. After crossing Snavely’s Ford in the late afternoon, the Zouaves joined the IX Corps’ assault on Confederates positioned along the Harpers Ferry Road and the heights beyond Sharpsburg. At the height of the attack, Captain Adolphe Libaire seized the colors and urged the Zouaves onward. “Up, damn you, and forward!” he yelled. Despite sustaining frightful causalities, the 9th New York, along with the other regiments of Fairchild’s Brigade, broke through the Rebel lines.

The Zouaves’ assault soon became legend. Edwin Forbes immortalized the charge in a popular and often-reproduced sketch, while Libaire was later awarded the medal of honor. Yet, many survivors questioned why their breakthrough had not brought greater success on the field. Many years later, one speaker noted that the tragic event had brought “unspeakable slaughter” with “no perceptible result.” The surprising contradiction between memory and realty forms the basis of this presentation, which will grapple both with the history of the 9th New York’s charge and how it came to be remembered.

James J. Broomall is an associate professor of History at Shepherd University. He serves as director of the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War and the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education. Before coming to Shepherd, Broomall most recently served as an assistant professor of History at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 2011 working under Professor William A. Link whose family, coincidentally, is from the Shepherdstown area. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro awarded his master’s degree in history and museum studies in 2006, and he earned his B.A. from the University of Delaware in 2001.

With an abiding passion for the Civil War-era, Professor Broomall has worked in diverse environments ranging from academic institutions to local museums, and developed courses, conferences, and programs of interpretation focusing on the experiences of civilians, soldiers, and slaves during the mid-Nineteenth Century. Broomall’s scholarship is dedicated to the Civil War-era. He most recently published Private Confederacies: The Emotional Worlds of Southern Men as Citizens and Soldiers as part of the University of North Carolina Press’s Civil War America series. Further, along with William A. Link, Broomall published an edited collection Rethinking American Emancipation: Legacies of Slavery and the Quest for Black Freedom (2016, Cambridge University Press). He has articles in Civil War History, Civil War Times, The Journal of the Civil War Era, and the edited volume, Creating Citizenship in the Nineteenth-Century South in addition to historiographical essays, book reviews, and online essays. Broomall has also recently completed for the National Park Service and the Organization of American Historians a study of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal during the American Civil War, which is being used for interpretative programs, online materials, and a brochure.

He currently resides in Shepherdstown with his wife Tish and their children Simon, Henry, and Addy.