August 17, 1861: Birth of the Army of the Potomac
On August 17, 1861 the Union military departments of the Shenandoah, Washington, and Northeastern Virginia were merged, and the Army of the Potomac formed, the hard luck Army that experienced defeat after defeat until its great victory at Gettysburg, endured the meat grinder Overland Campaign of 1864 , carried out the siege of Petersburg of 1864-65 and ultimately triumphed with the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomatox. Stephen Vincent Benet in his epic poem John Brown’s Body pays tribute to the Army:
Continue reading
Get Off the Track!
Something for the weekend. Get Off The Track! by the Hutchinson Family Singers, a family group of singers who were very popular in the North during the 1840′s, 1850′s and 1860′s. They were fiery abolitionists and this song became the anthem of the crusade against slavery in the US. Continue reading
Search for the Jeff Davis
I recently wrote about William Tillman and his encounter with the Confederate privateer Jeff Davis, and that post may be read here. The above video clip is from a film on the search for the sunken Jeff Davis. Continue reading
William Tillman: Hero of the Union
One hundred and fifty years ago, while war raged on land in America, a lesser known struggle was also being waged on the high seas. Confederate privateers were beginning a campaign which would decimate the United States merchant fleet by the end of the Civil War.
William Tillman, a free black, was cook and steward aboard the S. J. Waring. Sailing out of Sandy Hook, New Jersey, the Waring was bound for Montevideo, Uruguay with a mixed cargo. Three days out from Sandy Hook, at latitude 38 degrees, longitude 69 degrees, the Waring was captured by the rebel privateer Jeff Davis. The Captain of the Waring was taken aboard the Jeff Davis. A prize crew was put aboard the Waring. The Confederates advised Tillman that they were sailing the Waring to Charleston where she would be sold as a prize of war and Tillman would be sold as a slave.
Tillman continued to perform the duties of cook and steward and had the run of the ship. Although the Confederates kept a careful guard on the Waring’s captured white crew and passengers, they paid little attention to Tillman. That was a mistake. Tillman decided that he would retake the ship, or die in the attempt, preferring to die rather than being sold as a slave. Continue reading
The Irish Volunteer
Something for the weekend. The Irish Volunteer. A mainstay of the Union armies in the eastern theater during the Civil War were Irish Americans who volunteered in huge numbers to fight. This song was popular among the men who fought so gallantly on many a field for their adopted nation. Continue reading
July 28, 1861: Death of Sullivan Ballou
Thirty-two years old in 1861, Sullivan Ballou was already well-established in life. Married with two sons, he was a member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, and had served as speaker of that body. When Lincoln called for volunteers, he did not hesitate, and enlisted as a Major with the Second Rhode Island infantry. At the battle of Bull Run he received what would prove to be a mortal wound. His right leg was amputated and he succumbed to his wounds on July 28, 1861. Before the battle of Bull Run he wrote to his wife a timeless letter of love and hope for the future beyond the grave: Continue reading
July 21, 1861: First Battle of Bull Run
History is unkind to defeated generals. All most of us recall about Irvin McDowell is that he commanded the Union army at First Bull Run, First Manassas south of the Mason-Dixon line, and was beaten by the Confederates. He had a long and illustrious career in the Army both before and after Bull Run, but none of that matters. He is the defeated general at Bull Run, and after History places that stamp on him, nothing else really matters. In John Brown’s Body, his epic poem on the Civil War, Stephen Vincent Benet has a few words on McDowell that I believe should be remembered. Continue reading
Matthew Brady, Father Thomas H. Mooney, Dagger John and the Fighting 69th
The above photo is one of the archetypal Matthew Brady photographs of the Civil War. Whenever religion in the Civil War is mentioned in a history, odds are you will see this picture. It was taken on June 1, 1861 in the camp of the 69th New York, later to be christened The Fighting 69th by no less an authority on fighting than Robert E. Lee, and it depicts Mass being said by Father Thomas H. Mooney, the first chaplain of The Fighting 69th.
Born in Manchester, England, and ordained in 1853 in New York City, Father Mooney had been pastor of Saint Brigid’s in New york City, as well as being the chaplain of the 69th New York. Archbishop Hughes of New York City, known universally by friend and foe as “Dagger John”, warned Father Mooney about the large number of Fenians, a precursor of the Irish Republican Army, who had enlisted in the regiment:
“They are incompetent to be admitted to the Sacraments of the Church during life and of Christian burial after death, unless they shall in the meantime renounce such obligations as have been just referred to. In regard to the whole subject, you will please to exercise all the discretion and all the charity that religion affords: but speak to the men and tell each one (not all at one time) that he is jeopardizing his soul if he perseveres in this uncatholic species of combination.”
The Church in Ireland and America had a mostly negative view of the Fenians due to an overall opposition to revolutionary movements in Europe by Pope Pius IX and because the Fenians called for a separation of Church and State In Ireland.
The 69th was one of the first Union regiments to go to Washington in 1861 in response to Lincoln’s call for volunteers. Father Mooney went with it, and quickly proved extremely popular with the men and officers of the regiment. He founded a temperance society in the regiment, held daily Masses and confessions, and was tireless in reminding wayward soldiers in the regiment that this was a great opportunity for them to return to the Faith. A correspondent for the New York Times reported on the high esteem in which Father Mooney was held:
Father Mooney’s career as a chaplain was cut short by “Dagger John”. On June 13, 1861 the 69th was helping to emplace a rifled cannon in Fort Corcoran, named after Colonel Corcoran the commander of the 69th, near Washington. Everyone was in high spirits. Father Mooney was called upon to bless the cannon. Instead, he decided to baptize the cannon. Continue reading
Abe Lincoln In Illinois: A Review
Thomas Wolfe once famously wrote “you can’t go home again” and I guess that sometimes applies to films. When I was a boy and a teenager I loved the film Abe Lincoln in Illinois. Released in 1940, the film was an adaptation of Robert E. Sherwood’s broadway play. Raymond Massey gave a stunning performance as Abraham Lincoln which has remained with me, although I have not seen the film, other than Youtube excerpts, in probably 35 years. Recently I learned that the film had been released on DVD. Purchasing it, I watched it last Friday evening.
The film was certainly as powerful as I remembered it. Raymond Massey gave an eerily on target performance as Abraham Lincoln and Gene Lockhart was magnificent as Lincoln’s great antagonist, Stephen A. Douglas. However, in the intervening decades I had learned quite a bit about Lincoln and his time and several aspects of the film I found grating:
1. Historical howlers: Every Hollywood “historical” epic tends to commit sins against the historical record, but Abe Lincoln in Illinois had some egregious ones:
a. Jack Armstrong, one of Lincoln’s earliest New Salem friends, is shown as offering to throw a tomato at Stephen A. Douglas during one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858. I assume it was his ghost since Armstrong died in 1854.
b. John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry which occurred in 1859 is shown as taking place before the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas Senate race.
c. Lincoln is shown as receiving a military bodyguard immediately after being elected. No such protection was afforded the president-elect by President Buchanan, even though Lincoln was deluged with death threats.
d. In an affecting scene, the citizens of Springfield begin singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic as Lincoln heads off to Washington in February of 1861. The song wouldn’t be written until November of that year and not published until 1862.
2. Ann Rutledge-The film spends a great deal of time depicting the romance between Lincoln and Ann Rutledge. There is virtually no historical support for this charming old fable.
3. Lincoln the Reluctant-Lincoln is shown as a very reluctant politician. Rubbish! Lincoln loved politics and was an enthusiastic participant throughout his life.
4. Mary the Shrew-Mary Todd Lincoln is depicted in the film as a shrew who drives an ambitiousless Lincoln forward to fulfill his destiny very much against his will. Lincoln had quite enough ambition on his own. By most accounts the Lincolns had a loving marriage, with the usual ups and downs familiar to most married couples who stay together through good and bad times. Continue reading
Top Ten Civil War Movies For The Fourth of July
Any understanding of this nation has to be based, and I mean really based, on an understanding of the Civil War. I believe that firmly. It defined us. The Revolution did what it did. Our involvement in European wars, beginning with the First World War, did what it did. But the Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things. And it is very necessary, if you are going to understand the American character in the twentieth century, to learn about this enormous catastrophe of the mid-nineteenth century. It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.
Shelby Foote
Two years ago I compiled a list of the top ten movies for the Fourth of July which focused on films about the Revolutionary War. Go here to view that post. Last year I compiled a list of top ten patriotic movies for the Fourth, and that post may be viewed here. This year we will focus on the top ten Civil War films for the Fourth of July. I agree with historian Shelby Foote that it is impossible to understand the United States without understanding the Civil War, and it is “therefore fitting and proper” that over the Fourth Civil War movies come to mind.
10. Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)-We begin with a non-Civil War movie with the video clip at the beginning of this post. In 1908 English Bulter Charles Ruggles, well played by actor Charles Laughton, comes to work in the American West. It is a hilarious fish out of water comedy, as Ruggles, with his culture and British reserve comes face to face with the Wild West. While living in America, Ruggles becomes interested in American history, and becomes a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln. When he recites the Gettysburg Address, the impact on his listeners is obvious, and reminds us that for Americans the Civil War will never be a matter simply relegated to books or memory, but is something that still has a vast impact on us to this day.
9. Friendly Persuasion (1956)-Starring Gary Cooper as Jess Birdwell, the head of a Quaker family in southern Indiana during the Civil War, the film is a superb mix of drama and comedy as the Quakers have to determine whether to continue to embrace their pacifist beliefs or to take up arms against General John Hunt Morgan’s Confederate cavalry during his Great Raid of the North in June-July of 1863. When the oldest son of the Birdwell family, portrayed by Anthony Perkins in his pre-Psycho days, takes up arms, his mother, played by Dorothy McGuire is aghast, but Cooper, as Jess Birdwell, defends him. Although he remains true to his pacifist convictions, Birdwell understands that his son is acting in obedience to his conscience, and, as he tells his wife, “ A man’s life ain’t worth a hill of beans except he lives up to his own conscience.”
8. Major Dundee (1965)-Sam Pekinpah’s flawed, unfinished masterpiece, the film tells the fictional account of a mixed force of Union soldiers and Confederate prisoners who join forces to hunt and ultimately defeat an Apache raider, Sierra Charriba, in 1864-65. Charlton Heston gives an outstanding performance as Major Amos Dundee, a man battling his own personal demons of a failed military career, as he commands this Union-Confederate force through northern Mexico on the trail of the Apache, with fighting often threatening to break out between the Union and Confederate soldiers. Use of Confederate prisoners as Union soldiers in the West was not uncommon. Six Union infantry regiments of Confederate prisoners, called “Galvanized Yankees”, served in the West. The final section of the film involving a battle between Major Dundee’s force and French Lancers, the French occupying Mexico at the time, has always struck me as one of the best filmed combat sequences in any movie.
7. The Horse Soldiers (1959)-In 1959 John Ford and John Wayne, in the last of their “cavalry collaborations”, made The Horse Soldiers, a film based on Harold Sinclair’s novel of the same name published in 1956, which is a wonderful fictionalized account of Grierson’s Raid.
Perhaps the most daring and successful Union cavaly raid of the war, Colonel Benjamin Grierson, a former music teacher and band leader from Jacksonville, Illinois, who, after being bitten by a horse at a young age, hated horses, led from April 17-May 2, 1863 1700 Illinois and Iowa troopers through 600 miles of Confederate territory from southern Tennessee to the Union held Baton Rouge in Louisiana. Grierson and his men ripped up railroads, burned Confederate supplies and tied down many times their number of Confederate troops and succeeded in giving Grant a valuable diversion as he began his movement against Vicksburg.
John Wayne gives a fine, if surly, performance as Colonel Marlowe, the leader of the Union cavalry brigade. William Holden as a Union surgeon serves as a foil for Wayne. Constance Towers, as a captured Southern belle, supplies the obligatory Hollywood love interest.
Overall the film isn’t a bad treatment of the raid, and the period. I especially appreciated two scenes. John Wayne refers to his pre-war activities as “Before this present insanity” and Constance Towers gives the following impassioned speech:
Well, you Yankees and your holy principle about savin’ the Union. You’re plunderin’ pirates that’s what. Well, you think there’s no Confederate army where you’re goin’. You think our boys are asleep down here. Well, they’ll catch up to you and they’ll cut you to pieces you, you nameless, fatherless scum. I wish I could be there to see it.
Continue reading
Reveille in Washington
It is easy to forget that Washington in Lincoln’s day bore little relationship to the Washington of our day. In many ways the Washington of Lincoln’s time was still a small town, ill-prepared for the avalanche of rapid growth forced on it by the War. The classic account of Washington during the Civil War is Margaret Leech’s Reveille in Washington, published, ironically, in 1941, just as Washington was about to undergo another rapid period of expansion during World War II. Continue reading
O’, I’m a Good Old Rebel
Something for the weekend. O’, I’m a Good Old Rebel by Major James Randolph. This rendition is sung by Bobby Horton, who has fought a one man crusade to bring Civil War music to modern audiences. It is the most moving rendition I have heard of this song, with Horton conveying well the bitterness and despair felt by almost all Confederates after the conclusion of the War. The author served on the staff of General J.E.B. Stuart. The song has always been popular in the South and was a favorite of Queen Victoria’s son, the future Edward VII, who referred to it as “that fine American song with cuss words in it.” Continue reading
June 10, 1861: First Battle of the War: Big Bethel
The first battle of the Civil War, Big Bethel was a classic example of the hazards awaiting untrained troops attempting to take offensive action. The first of many defeats of Union Major General Benjamin Butler in the War, Big Bethel started off the War in the East with a humiliating little defeat for the Union, an ominous portent of things to come over the next four years.
Placed in charge of Fortress Monroe on the southern tip of the Virginia peninsula on May 23, 1861, Butler began operations to extend Union control into areas near Monroe. On the night of June 9-10, Butler ordered 3500 Union troops in two columns marching from Hampton and Newport News, to perform a night march, and launch a surprise attack on Confederate positions at Little Bethel and Big Bethel. Butler’s plan would have tasked the abilities of well-trained veteran troops, as a coordinated surprise attack by converging columns after a night march is the military equivalent of brain surgery. Expecting the raw troops he commanded to carry this out was simply absurd and an invitation to disaster.
The disaster ensued. A friendly fire incident between the two columns gave the Confederates ample warning of the attack. The 1200 Confederates easily beat off the piecemeal Union attacks. Union casualties were 18 killed and 51 wounded. Confederate losses were 1 killed and 7 wounded. The Confederate press made much of the victory, although it had little meaning other than as the first example of the gross military incompetence of Benjamin Butler that would hamper Union operations for almost the entire war. Here is Butler’s self-serving report of this fiasco: Continue reading
You May Be a Neo-Confederate If:
As faithful readers of this blog know, I am not a fan of Neo-Confederates. These are individuals who are still fighting the Civil War on behalf of the Confederacy. They are to be distinguished from those who honor the Confederates who fought an uphill gallant struggle for a cause they believed right. Here follow helpful tips on discerning who the Neo-Confederates are. If you believe most of these you are probably a Neo-Confederate:
1. You deny that the Civil War was caused by slavery in the face of statements by virtually all the civilian leaders of the secession movement and the Confederacy at the beginning of the War that secession was undertaken to protect slavery.
2. You claim that the Union was fighting because Northerners were greedy for tariffs on the South, thereby showing ignorance that at the time of the secession movement of 1860-61 tariffs were at a historic low for the Nineteenth Century, and that tariffs were a relative non-issue North and South.
3. Your favorite Civil War “historian” is Thomas Dilorenzo.
4. The first thing that comes into your mind when you hear “Abraham Lincoln” is “dictator”.
5. You are absolutely certain that the Constitution grants an explicit right to secede if it is held up to a light and has lemon juice smeared over it. Continue reading
Grover Cleveland and the Great Confederate Battle Flags Furor
During the Civil War, the flags carried by military units had intense emotional significance for the men who fought and died under them. The flags not only symbolized the nation or state, but also stood for the units that carried them and the men who bled in their defense. At the end of the War hundreds of captured Confederate battle flags were held by the Federal government and the victorious Union states. Objects of pride for the men who had fought for the Union, their treatment as war trophies by the victorious North was a sore point in the vanquished South.
In 1887 Grover Cleveland was President. The first Democrat elected to hold the office since the Civil War, Cleveland was also the only non-Civil War veteran to hold the office since the end of the War. During the War he had hired a substitute to fight in his stead, a perfectly legal, albeit unheroic, method of not having to fight one’s self in the conflict.
In 1887 the Secretary of War mentioned to Cleveland that the Adjutant General of the Army had suggested that the return of the battle flags to the Southern states would be a graceful gesture that would be appreciated in the South. No doubt thinking that after more than two decades wartime passions had subsided, Cleveland ordered the return of the captured flags to the Southern governors. This was a major blunder. Continue reading
General Longstreet, Catholic Convert, Husband of “The Fighting Lady”
Hattip to Pat McNamara for his post on Longstreet’s conversion which inspired this post.
Lee referred to James “Pete” Longstreet as his “Old War Horse”. One of the more talented corp commanders of the Confederacy, Longstreet’s memory was long blackened in the South after the War due to Longstreet becoming a Republican and working as surveyor of customs at the port of New Orleans in the Grant administration, and by the efforts of a coterie of former officers of the Army of Northern Virginia, led by Jubal Early, who blamed Longstreet for the defeat at Gettysburg. The vituperation that he received mattered little to Longstreet who throughout his life did what he thought was right no matter what other people might think. In 1874 he became adjutant general of the Louisiana militia. In an uprising of the White League he was wounded and taken prisoner in his own customs house. His captors gave the rebel yell. The wounded Longstreet looked at them with disdain and said, “I have heard the yell before.” Continue reading
April 25, 1861: Stephen A. Douglas: “Protect the Flag”
Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the great antagonist of Abraham Lincoln, gave many eloquent speeches in his career, but the finest one he delivered was at the end of that career on April 25, 1861 to a joint session of the General Assembly of the State of Illinois. In broken health, his coming death on June 3, 1861 already foreshadowed, he summoned the energy to help save his country. Always first and foremost a patriot, Douglas was intent on rallying members of his party to the cause of the Union. After one of the most vitriolic presidential contents in the history of the nation, it was an open question as to whether most members of the Party of Jackson would stand in support of the efforts of the Lincoln Administration to fight to preserve the Union. Douglas, putting country above party, helped ensure that they would.
Immediately after the election of Lincoln he made it clear that he would make every effort in his power to fight against secession. At the inaugural speech of Lincoln, he held the new President’s hat, giving a strong symbol of his support. Illinois was a key state for the Union in the upcoming conflict. Pro-Southern sentiment was strong among Illinois Democrats in the southern portion of the State, with even some talk that “Little Egypt”, as the extreme southern tip of Illinois is called, should secede from the rest of the state and join the Confederacy. To rally his supporters for the Union, and at the request of President Lincoln, Douglas returned to Illinois and on April 25, 1861 had his finest hour.
The speech he delivered that day has gone down in Illinois history as the “Protect the Flag” speech. It was received by both Republicans and Democrats with thunderous applause and cheers throughout. Although there would be much dissension in Illinois during the War, Douglas helped ensure that Illinois would be in the forefront of the war effort, with its quarter of a million troops, among whom was Ulysses S. Grant, who would ultimately fight under the Stars and Stripes being absolutely crucial to Union victory.
Here is the speech, interspersed with comments by me: Continue reading
Abraham Lincoln and the Rabbi
During the Civil War thousands of American Jews enlisted in the armed forces of both the Union and the Confederacy. In July of 1861 the United States Congress passed a bill which provided for the appointment of chaplains from any recognized Christian denominations. In a Pennsylvania regiment called the Cameron Dragoons, Rabbi Arnold Fischel was appointed chaplain. Ironically it was Simon Cameron, as Secretary of War, and for whom the regiment was named, who denied the appointment of Fischel as contrary to law.
However, Fischel didn’t give up and moved to Washington, ministered to wounded Jewish soldiers and lobbied the Lincoln administration to allow the appointment of Jewish chaplains. On December 11, 1861, the Rabbi met with the President . He described the meeting in this letter: Continue reading
Palm Sunday 1865
(In commemoration of the Civil War beginning 150 years ago on April 12, I am repeating this post from last year on Palm Sunday.)
I have always thought it appropriate that the national nightmare we call the Civil War ended during Holy Week 1865. Two remarkably decent men, Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, began the process of healing so desperately needed for America on Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865 at Appomattox. We take their decency for granted, but it is the exception and not the rule for the aftermath of civil wars in history. The usual course would have been unremitting vengeance by the victors, and sullen rage by the defeated, perhaps eventually breaking out in guerilla war. The end of the Civil War could so very easily have been the beginning of a cycle of unending war between north and south. Instead, both Grant and Lee acted to make certain as far as they could that the fratricidal war that had just concluded would not be repeated. All Americans owe those two men a large debt for their actions at Appomattox. Continue reading
April 12, 1861: And The War Came
Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.
Abraham Lincoln
One hundred and fifty years ago, at 4:30 AM on April 12, 1861, the Civil War began with the commencement of the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. This was the end of months of attempted negotiation regarding the removal of Federal troops from Fort Sumter. The bombardment was fierce, but casualty free. The 85 men under Major Robert Anderson defended the fort until April 13, 1861 at 1:00 PM when he agreed to surrender due to his men being hungry and exhausted, fires raging uncontrolled throughout the Fort and the military situation being completely hopeless. The surrender ceremonies were held the next day, with two Union soldiers being killed when a pile of cartridges exploded during the 100 gun salute to the Stars and Stripes that Major Anderson had insisted upon. Anderson and his men sailed to the North with Anderson carrying the Fort Sumter flag with him. Four years later to the day, Major General Robert Anderson raised the same flag over Union controlled Fort Sumter.
The firing on Fort Sumter sent both the North and the South into a war frenzy, leading to the secession of Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina. The battle lines were now drawn for the Civil War, a war which would kill some 620,000 Union and Confederate troops, and wound, often maimed for life, approximately an equal number.
How had it come to this? Why did the conflict over slavery end in war?
1. Talked out-For over forty years the North and the South had argued about slavery. I think there was zero appetite on both sides to continue a discussion that was obviously going nowhere.
2. Failure of compromise-In 1820 and 1850 grand compromises had been reached to resolve the slavery issue. They failed. People on both sides had reached the conclusion by the election of 1860 that no satisfactory compromise on the question of slavery was possible. Continue reading
Was the Victory of the Confederacy Inevitable?
(I wrote this for April 1, 2011 for the blog Almost Chosen People, and I thought that the various Civil War mavens who read The American Catholic might find this interesting.)
As we mark the 150th anniversary of the War Between the States there are many historical questions to ponder. However, one question rises to the fore as it always does when the War Between the States is discussed: Was Confederate victory inevitable?
Because of the ten following factors, I’d say that it was:
1. Abraham Lincoln- Few Presidents have ever been elected with no executive experience, but that was precisely the case with Lincoln. Although he could deliver a magnificent speech and was clearly a master of the English language, Lincoln quickly demonstrated that he was an amateur in running the government. His frequent sacking of generals led to instability in the Union Army command, the frequently hostile relations with Congress, including members of his own party, that hampered his policies, the corruption that marred the supply of the Army, these and many more features of his administration attested to the fact that Lincoln was an extremely talented man who simply was out of his depth. Perhaps the task was too large for any man to preserve the Union by force of arms, but certainly it was too great for Mr. Lincoln.
2. Supremacy of the Defence-General Robert E. Lee quickly realized that the old Napoleonic charges were impossible against fortified positions held by troops armed with rifled muskets. Although his troops initially meant the title derisively, Lee, the King of Spades, repeatedly used field fortifications, beginning in 1862, to nullify the Union manpower advantage on the battlefield.
3. Size of the Confederacy- The sheer size of the Confederacy, three times the size of France, ensured that the attempted Union conquest would be a massive undertaking, too massive as it turned out for the Union. If British seapower, beginning in 1862, see number 6 below, had not caused the lifting of the Union blockade, prevented the landing of Union troops along the coasts of the Confederacy and contested Union naval control of the Mississippi river, it is conceivable that the Union could have coped with the immensity of the Confederacy, but such was not the case.
4. Lee-Jackson partnership-No command team in history proved more effective than the Lee-Jackson combination. Beginning at Chancellorsville, Lee and Jackson dealt the Union body blows at Gettysburg in 1863, and the Wilderness in 1864, almost a replica of the Chancellorsville victory a year before. No wonder that Lee was the second president of the Confederacy and Jackson the third.
5. Enlistment of black soldiers-After the victory at Gettysburg, Lee put his immense prestige behind the cause of enlisting black soldiers under the Confederate battle flag with the promise of freedom for themselves and their families. Resistance to this move was immense in the Confederacy, but with Lee behind it all resistance was overborne. The 100,000 black troops who fought for the South in 1864 were essential to the Confederate victory, and paved the way for the passage of the Gradual Emancipation Act of 1870, which President Robert E. Lee, just before his death, claimed to be his greatest victory. Continue reading
Hardtack: Civil War Taste Treat!
Something for the weekend. Ah, hardtack! A food that superb has to have a song about it, as indicated by the first of the above videos.
Hardtack, a very hard, thick cracker, was the soldier staff of life North and South during the Civil War. Prior to the War, hardtack had long served as a food staple for explorers, hunters and anyone else who needed a food source that was light and could last forever. Unfortunately, the hardtack often became infested with weevils. Soldiers who didn’t want the extra protein would often put the hardtack into water and skim the weevils off the top.
The hardness of hardtack was legendary and gave rise to many soldier jokes. This one was typical.
Private Jones: I bit into a piece of hardtack and hit something soft.
Private Green: A worm?
Private Jones: No, by glory, a ten-penny nail!
Things like hardtack remind us that it is definitely more amusing to read about the Civil War than it was to actually participate in it! Continue reading
Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address: A Plea For Union
I doubt if there has ever been a bleaker inaugural of a President than that which awaited Abraham Lincoln on March 4, 1861. Seven slave states of the deep South had already seceded from the Union, stretching from South Carolina to Texas. Secession movements were active in every other slave state except for Delaware. The nation was shattering in two, a process that James Buchanan had been impotent to stop. North and South, all Americans now were eagerly wondering how the new President would address this overwhelming crisis. Lincoln realized that this speech would be carefully read and he chose his words carefully as he set out the policy of his new administration:
Fellow-citizens of the United States:
In compliance with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take, in your presence, the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, to be taken by the President “before he enters on the execution of this office.”
I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement.
Lincoln gets right to the point. The secession crisis was all anyone in the country was thinking about, and there was no use pretending otherwise. Continue reading
The Horse Soldiers
In 1959 John Ford and John Wayne, in the last of their “cavalry collaborations”, made The Horse Soldiers, a film based on Harold Sinclair’s novel of the same name published in 1956, which is a wonderful fictionalized account of Grierson’s Raid.
Perhaps the most daring and successful Union cavaly raid of the war, Colonel Benjamin Grierson, a former music teacher and band leader from Jacksonville, Illinois, who, after being bitten by a horse at a young age, hated horses, led from April 17-May 2, 1863 1700 Illinois and Iowa troopers through 600 miles of Confederate territory from southern Tennessee to the Union held Baton Rouge in Louisiana. Grierson and his men ripped up railroads, burned Confederate supplies and tied down many times their number of Confederate troops and succeeded in giving Grant a valuable diversion as he began his movement against Vicksburg.
The video at the beginning of the post shows an interview done of Harold Sinclair during the making of the film. Go here to read a note by Sinclair at the beginning of his novel in which he describes the liberties taken in the novel from the historical events.
John Wayne gives a fine, if surly, performance as Colonel Marlowe, the leader of the Union cavalry brigade. William Holden as a Union surgeon serves as a foil for Wayne. Constance Towers, as a captured Southern belle, supplies the obligatory Hollywood love interest.
Overall the film isn’t a bad treatment of the raid, and the period. I especially appreciated two scenes. John Wayne refers to his pre-war activities as “Before this present insanity” and Constance Towers gives the following impassioned speech:
Well, you Yankees and your holy principle about savin’ the Union. You’re plunderin’ pirates that’s what. Well, you think there’s no Confederate army where you’re goin’. You think our boys are asleep down here. Well, they’ll catch up to you and they’ll cut you to pieces you, you nameless, fatherless scum. I wish I could be there to see it. Continue reading
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