US Civil War

Late Prewar Years: 1859-1861

Nobody can understand the US Civil War without understanding key events that led up to it. I’m going to start with Harper’s Ferry.

Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia is a creepy little town, in a deep valley where the Shenandoah River flows into the much wider Potomac. The railroad from Washington comes through a long mountain tunnel on the Maryland side, crosses the river, and splits in two directions. The layout has changed just a little since 1859. The Amtrak station sits about where the guardhouse once stood for a federal arsenal.

John Brown had an ambitious plan. A life-long enemy of slavery, he wanted to seize weapons from the federal arsenal, distribute them to slaves in the area, and lead a massive slave uprising. He had been involved in antislavery violence before (in Kansas), but nothing of this magnitude.

He and his small band of followers had the element of surprise on their side, and had some initial success before being forced to take refuge in the arsenal’s large guardhouse, which had thick walls. An armed standoff ensued, lasting more than a day.

After federal reinforcements arrived, Colonel Robert E. Lee delivered a surrender ultimatum to the building’s front door.

(Can you believe the irony?!)

Both the trial and execution were held nearby. Understanding the profound historical significance of the moment, a professor at nearby Virginia Military Institute (VMI) brought his class up there to witness those events. He would later be known as Stonewall Jackson.

John Brown was soon dead and buried, but the national debate over slavery had been elevated to a much higher level of intensity, where it would remain until the matter was fully resolved in 1865. Southerners became absolutely terrified of slave uprisings.

To this day, Americans seem to have mixed feelings about John Brown. No white American has ever taken bolder action to end black slavery, but paintings and personal descriptions of Brown make him seem like a man who may have had some deep emotional problems, and many found him to be too violent for their liking. He is rarely honored as a hero by anyone.

The arsenal’s guardhouse has been relocated to a spot near the old ferry landing. Otherwise, except for a few tourists, time has forgotten Harper’s Ferry.

Well before 1859, Southerners were worried about the future. They knew their economic system would collapse if plantations had to pay their workers. Some states had vulnerable rice plantations or tobacco plantation, but cotton was the cornerstone of the Southern economy. It was all based on free labor.

Northerners had little need for slaves in their young but growing industrial economy, and liberal Northern churches had turned public opinion strongly against the institution. New states being added to the US on the western frontier had little interest in slavery, having no plans to get into large-scale agriculture. The South feared a shift in the balance of power in Congress, which could eventually allow a simple majority vote to make slavery illegal. There was considerable pressure put on Kansas, as a potential swing vote. Activists from both sides of the issue sent organizers to Kansas.

The average Southerner owned no slaves, but was politically powerless, and somewhat indoctrinated by their leaders, which clouded their morals. Even among plantation owners, there were some who disliked the institution of slavery, but could not see a viable alternative, and worried about what might become of millions of blacks suddenly released into a free economy with no education or job skills. That concern was shared at all levels of the economy. No abolitionist leaders were presenting any practical, orderly transitions plans.

Once Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, the situation degenerated rapidly. It only took four days for South Carolina to take its first step in the direction of leaving the US. Before the end of the year, SC began taking possession of federal facilities. The admission of Kansas to the union as a free state in early 1861 would have shifted the balance of power in Washington, but most of the Deep South states had already seceded by then, making Kansas technically irrelevant.

North Carolina became the first Southern state to initially vote against secession, to be followed by Arkansas and Virginia. NC had a lot of Quakers at that time, and the Quaker Church had been working hard for decades to end slavery, nationwide.

Soon after being sworn in, Lincoln ordered federal troop into Baltimore to prevent the Maryland legislature from meeting to possibly vote the state out of the Union, which would have cut Washington off from the Northeast. A few shots were fired in downtown Baltimore, the first of the Civil War, but it was not a major event.

April 12, 1861, the war officially began when South Carolina fired on the US Army at Fort Sumter, on a small island in Charleston harbor. The fort surrendered the next day.

Within two months, all the Confederate border states had left the Union (Virginia, Arkansas, NC, and Tennessee). The Maryland legislature did meet during this time, and voted to remain in the Union. West Virginia separated from Virginia in order to remain in the Union, but did not fully organize a state government until 1863.

The US Army was very small at that time, so both sides had a lot of work to do. In those early days, there were a lot of volunteers on both sides, but there was a shortage of experienced officers to train and lead them. Robert E. Lee was heavily recruited by both sides. The new volunteers expected a short war. Some were allowed to sign up for only 90 days! Each side thought the other would give up quickly.

The Southern strategy definitely counted on a short war. Its industrial capacity was very limited, and did not include a single cannon factory. They saw no reason why the North would have the patience to wage a long war when all they had to do to end it was let the South go their own way. They also expected Europe to push for a peaceful resolution, to prevent disruption of the cotton trade. So, the South had no long-term plan to stand on its own.

The US Army quickly captured Robert E. Lee’s home in Arlington, Virginia, on a high hill overlooking downtown Washington, DC. That property eventually became Arlington Cemetery. Throughout the South, the Confederates took control of federal properties, generally without shots being fired. Other than a few minor actions of this kind, neither army was ready to make a serious move until the summer of that year.

Next time: Early Battles, 1861-1862

 

Early Battles: 1861-1862

For two fast-growing armies, getting enough weapons and ammunition was a serious problem, but leadership was a bigger problem. The US Army had been greatly downsized after the Mexican-American war ended in 1848, so neither side had a lot of men with recent combat experience.

Initially, President Lincoln put General Winfield Scott in charge of the US Army in Washington, but it soon became clear that this was going to be a temporary arrangement. Scott was the only living American who had ever been in charge of a large army in a war, so his experience would be valuable in creating plans and strategies and overseeing training activities, but he was much too old to be a battlefield general, living outdoors.

CSA President Jefferson Davis followed a similar pattern, keeping highly trusted Robert E. Lee with him in Richmond as an adviser. They met on a daily basis.

Irvin McDowell was selected to lead the US Army on its first incursion into Virginia. He encountered CSA General P.T.G. Beauregard at Manassas, on July 21, 1861. That was the First Battle of Bull Run. Stonewall Jackson played a key role in making it a Southern victory. Naïve onlookers from Washington found out that the Civil War was going to be no place for casual spectators. Suddenly, a lot of people started to realize that this could be a long, serious war.

President Lincoln immediately gave McDowell the hook, as the top guy. This was the beginning of long years of frustration for the President as he tried in vain to find the right guy to lead in the field. George McClellan would be his second choice. McClellan spent the fall and winter focusing on training, ignoring pressure from Lincoln to attack.

The Confederates converted some factories in Richmond and Atlanta for producing weapons of all kinds.

The US forces rushed to set up a naval blockade of the South and shut off all routes for foreign imports (weapons) and exports (cotton for cash). Once the blockade was up and running, Wilmington, NC was one of the few major ports that remained productive for the South.

For experienced professional soldiers and officers who loved the military, most of 1861 was better than a paid vacation. There was some drilling and marching during the day, but nights were for hanging out with the guys, drinking, playing cards, singing songs, and telling jokes around the campfire. It was a life that they loved.

For the second US effort to move toward the Confederate capital of Richmond, McClellan made use of Chesapeake Bay in the spring of 1862 to move a large force by water and approach Richmond from the southeast, while McDowell guarded Washington with a smaller force. Stonewall Jackson kept quite a few Union troops tied up in western Virginia for a while, away from the main action, before he joined Johnston in facing McClellan. Everyone was quite impressed with Jackson’s rapid string of victories in the Shenandoah Valley.

Meanwhile, General Ulysses Grant was also making quite a name for himself further west, operating mostly up and down the east side of the Mississippi River, south of the Ohio River. Winfield Scott’s strategy to attack the Confederacy from opposite sides was going better on the western front.

While McClellan was making very slow progress toward Richmond, CSA’s General Johnston was wounded, and Robert E. Lee took over for him. Lee’s direct field command of the Army of Northern Virginia would last until the end of the war. One of the first things he did was have his cavalry under General Jeb Stuart ride a complete circle around McClellan to assess that army from all sides.

On many nights that the two armies were camped close together, it was not uncommon for small groups to ride over to the other side, under white flag of truce, and socialize with the enemy. It was often guys who knew each other from before the war, either from West Point or from civilian life. For many officers, this was just a professional job to them. They had no problem with hanging out with people at night and trying hard to kill them the next day. They were just following orders and doing their duty, because of lines drawn on maps by politicians.

After initial slow progress against Lee, McClellan simply held his position for quite a while, until Lincoln ordered him back to Washington in August. His patience had run out.

John Pope got to try his luck next. He ended up about where he started, after Second Bull Run.

Politically, the purpose of Lee’s first invasion of the North was to make Northerners think the war wasn’t worth fighting, so the South should be allowed to go their own way without any further bloodshed. That had actually been the South’s strategy for the entire war, but it didn’t seem to be working as long as it was being fought entirely in the South. Jefferson Davis had hope that Northern thinking would change if people started reading news reports of war on their doorstep, where it could suddenly start to affect them in a more personal way. They might start thinking the price of war was getting too high. There was nothing up north that Davis wanted to capture or control. He just wanted to change the game.

Lee crossed into Maryland and divided his army into three parts, with plans to bring them all back together for an attack on some Northern city such as Philadelphia. McClellan caught up with Lee before he could get across Maryland, forcing the battle of Antietam, at Sharpsburg, Maryland. More than 23,000 men died that day, the highest single day death toll in American history. Lee had to retreat back into Virginia. McClellan did not pursue.

Immediately after this battle, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in all US states and territories.

Ambrose Burnside immediately replaced McClellan, and tried to get his army to Richmond before Lee could, from western Maryland. The two armies met instead in Fredericksburg, VA. Burnside lost, and was replaced in early 1863.

Next time: 1863 / Gettysburg

 

1863

Throughout the previous year, there had been a gradual transition in the type of men volunteering for service on both sides, as the early waves of enthusiasm and romanticism were displaced by those with a more sober patriotic bent. Now in 1863, recruiters were more likely to encounter fresh men who were pissed off about seeing friends, neighbors, and relatives come home in pine boxes. They wanted to join up and kick some ass to get revenge on behalf of the dead.

Joe Hooker was the next Union guy to walk through Lincoln’s revolving door of command. His first significant action was the battle of Chancellorsville, which he lost, due to being outmaneuvered by Stonewall Jackson. However, Jackson was killed by friendly fire. Hooker’s first battle as commanding officer was also his last, having failed to impress Lincoln.

As spring turned to summer, the only good news for the North was that Grant seemed on the verge of capturing Vicksburg, Mississippi, an important river port, after a long siege and bombardment. The Union already held the port of New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

Lee then decided it was a good time for a second attempt at invading the North, for the same reasons as he had attempted it before. This time, he was able to cross Maryland and enter Pennsylvania without significant opposition.

Of all the soldiers of both sides who romanticized war to an absurd degree, there was probably no one worse than Jeb Stuart. He was an excellent cavalry officer, maybe the best of them all, but he constantly lived with his head in the clouds. Everything he did had a strong element of showmanship.

After having literally ridden a full circle around McClellan’s army the previous year, Stuart decided this would be the perfect way to humiliate, disrespect, and frustrate General George Meade, the new Union commander. There were two serious problems with this plan. First, he didn’t clear it with Lee, who had other things he needed Stuart to do with his time and energy. Second, Meade’s army turned out to be much bigger than Stuart expected, spread out and moving fast, so it was a very long ride.

This left Lee in a horrendous situation. A nineteenth century infantry always needed mounted cavalry to scout the area in all directions and keep them informed, but this role was much more vital during an invasion of enemy territory. Lee only had a small cavalry reserve with him, and heard nothing from Stuart for days, while Stuart was on the opposite side of the Union army. Lee’s only information about Meade’s location and movement came from a spy working for one of his corps commanders, James Longstreet. Lee generally disapproved of using spies for any purpose, but he was left without other options.

Based on the spy’s information, Lee decided to turn his army to the east and have it concentrate at Gettysburg. An old paper map showed some hills there, which might be very useful. They would prepare for battle with Meade there. This was the kind of ultimate showdown he was looking for.

If you want to do something great, it’s important to be at the right place at the right time, but you also have to know what to do with the opportunity. For the only time in his life, US Cavalry General John Buford put all that together on a grand scale at Gettysburg. Stuart should have been there to deal with him, but he wasn’t. Buford looked over the situation and figured out what the strategy had to be for an American win at Gettysburg, and got busy making it happen. He delayed the lead Confederate units just long enough for General John Reynolds to get there with enough troops to secure the big hills around town. Once that happened, the ultimate outcome was almost inevitable.

On the second day, Lee attacked the big hills on both ends of Meade’s line, without success. On Little Round Top, Union Colonel J. Lawrence Chamberlain made quite a name for himself by running out of ammunition and defeating his enemy with a bayonet charge.

On the third day, Lee made what appears to be a desperation move. Was he overconfident? Maybe. Was he tired of war, and wanted to make sure Gettysburg was the final battle, win or lose? Could be. Did he think he was going to die soon and his army would be left without sufficient leadership? Some scholars believe that Lee may have suffered a mild heart attack that week. We do know that his health was not good while he was there. And he felt that Stonewall Jackson (lost at Chancellorsville) could not be adequately replaced. The Confederacy was running low on resources of all kinds. Maybe that time and place was their last good chance to accomplish something huge. If Meade’s army crumbled, Lee could chase him all the way to downtown Washington, and would not hesitate to do so.

Having tested both ends of Meade’s line the day before, Lee decided to hit the center, considered to be the strongest part, and the worst place to attack, according to standard military thinking. In Lee’s plan, the key to success would be largest artillery bombardment in the history of the world, up to that day. Every cannon in the Army of Northern Virginia was put into a single line, and aimed at a narrow section of the Union line. They had no idea before they tried this just how much smoke was going to accumulate. Soon, they couldn’t see anything in front of them. They just kept firing into the smoke, hoping for the best. Also, it had rained recently, so the trailer hitches of the cannons started sinking into the mud, digging deeper after every shot. This made the shells fly higher, over the heads of the federal troops, and the artillery crews had no clue. So, when they stopped firing for the Confederate infantry to charge, the smoke was still hiding a Union line that was still very much intact.

Worse yet, Union reinforcements started pouring in from three directions, and the Confederate lines attacking under General George Pickett were caught in the crossfire of two Union artillery batteries. Cannons from Little Round Top were taking out 20 men at a time, with one shot. Deep rows of men were directly ahead, taking turns firing from behind a stone fence. Pickett’s Charge was a total disaster.

That loss brought the three-day total for both sides to more than 50,000 casualties, the largest for any single battle in American history. A total of 160,000 men participated.

One bitter irony of the day; General Winfield S. Hancock was in charge of the Union center, a former West Point roommate and close personal friend of General Longstreet, who was commanding George Pickett. (Hancock later ran unsuccessfully for President of the US).

George Meade won big at Gettysburg, but he wasn’t feeling like much of a winner. Buford and Reynolds had set him up for success before he arrived in town on the first day, and the Confederates more or less defeated themselves after that. Facing serious disorganization and heavy casualties, Meade decided not to pursue Lee into Virginia.

The day after fighting at Gettysburg ended, Grant captured Vicksburg. That gave full control of the river to the Union, splitting off Texas and Arkansas from the rest of the Confederacy.

Grant’s final accomplishment of the year would be the capture of Chattanooga, TN, the last big milestone before Atlanta.

President Lincoln ordered Meade to attack Lee again in the fall. Meade made plans and preparations, but did not follow through with an attack. Outraged at his inaction, Lincoln decided that Meade was done. The largest and most important battle of the war was George Meade's first and last.

You can imagine what Lincoln had to be asking himself. “Is there not one officer in the entire US Army who will fight as hard as Lee does?” Hmm… Was he overlooking someone? Umm… Could it be somebody out west? Name starts with a G, maybe?

Next time: End game, 1864-1865

 

An excellent post. I will read on later, but a couple of things I d like to say.

On the subject of John Brown "John Browns body lies moulering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on". I learned that song as a small child in england. Had absolutely no idea who or what it was all about as a kid.


I believe that one of the issues before the war to which you didnt make much reference, was over the extension of slavery into the new territories, rather than all out abolition. Correct me if Im wrong.

In the way of a general comment, Id just add that slavery in the south, and thus cheap cotton, suited the British rather well, since at that time Britain was textile king of the world, and the mills of Lancashire relied on imported cotton from India and America.
I think there was always a chance that Britain would side with the South. However, It was probably Lincolns shrewdness as a politician and war leader that made this impossible. Once emancipation was on the table, it would have been very difficult for GB to support the Confederacy, as we d abolished slavery decades before.

 

Little details of history can often be very interesting, in that they can be revealing.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that at Vicksburg, Grants terms were unconditional surrender. Cant remember if it was Grant himself, the press or some other, who said that the U.S in Grants initials stood for "unconditional surrender".
Which is, of course what Father Abe was after.

 

August 16, 1862. The battle of Lone Jack. And there's my grampa (with a few greats in front) --a confederate Colonel killed on that day. Grandson of Daniel Boone. (Watts-Hays letters --already had that on my comp)

Thanks Karen--read it all. I have a letter from past relatives that was sent to past relatives in Lemoore,Cal, during the civil war complaining about the Jayhawkers from Kansas crossing the border into Missouri and stealing, food, machinery, slaves, ruining crops,etc and worse.

Some of my family then crossed into Kansas to return the favors. One of my relatives rode into Kansas with Quantrill and on up to Utah---but he was a very bad man and that was the end of that.

(I guess whomever has followed my story can see the semi-fictionalized material I mentioned.)

Folks with my last name fought for the north.

The casualties in some of those battles are almost beyond belief. Crazy to advance in lines like they did and fire right into the mass of enemies. 23,000. 18,000. Some horrendous numbers.

 

These two issues were related in a complex way. Let me explain it a little more.

Southerners understood that most if not all territories were going to become states one day, with seats in both houses of Congress. If too many territories functioned without slaves, that could someday lead to a time when free states would hold a voting majority in Congress, and slavery could be abolished or highly restricted nation-wide by laws passed by a simple majority vote.

Southern states felt motivated to push slavery onto the territories, because most of the western areas had very little natural interest in it. The climate of those areas did not lend itself to large-scale plantation agriculture. They were also under pressure from abolitionists.

If the Constitution had clearly stated a right to own slaves, or left the decision up to each state, then the South would have had little reason to care what the western territories were doing with the issue.

Kansas ended up looking like it was going to become the swing vote on the matter, one way or the other. That's why things got so crazy in Kansas before the war.

Partly because we had so many people with English ancestry. A lot of our plantations had formal afternoon tea. Robert E. Lee was a member of the Church of England.

Some also called him United States Grant.

I've seen some really thick books written just about things that happened in Kansas during that wild time.

I don't think you could get people to do things like that anymore. We're not so trusting of authority.

 

Have you read -A TEAM OF RIVALS, by Doris Kearns Goodwin? I'm about half way through.

 

Very bad. The largest number the British ever lost was on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in WWI. Around 20,000 killed. About 420,000 over the course of the entire offensive.

Maybe those generals should have learned from the US civil war, which had been really the first mechanized industrial scale war in history. Frontal attacks by lines of men on well defended positions. In effect, Napoleonic tactics.

I hope you are right. But I doubt there will be another such war. The technology has moved on. Although I beleive that the casualty figures during the Iran Iraq war of the eighties were pretty grim.

 

Back to the US civil war.

A book I would highly recommend to anyone with a deeper interest is Gore Vidals "Lincoln".

As it says on the review on the back on my copy, Vidal is "never particularly kind to US history in general or its icons in particular", but this book is an exception.
Extremely well researched, and very convincing, whether hes portraying Lincoln and the other politicians, or David Herold, one of the conspiritors in Lincolns assasination. There are many little details in there which bring the period to life.
Id say one of the best historical novels I have ever read. I feel it has helped increase my insight greatly.

 

Civil war was not about slavery it was about enforcing contracts.

Which of course is not the heart jerking popular mantra so it does not sell very well.

lincolns concern was the break up of the union. these colonies with the creation of the "we the government" constitution were no longer an association of plantations but under contract with their new constitution that grants no "peaceable" opt out that I am aware of.

There is no such thing as an enforceable legitimate eternal contract in law, but thats another topic for another day.

They had 2 choices, either chop the head off or put up and shut up. Just like now.

The war against slavery was nothing more than a convenient label that no one would disagree with, since upon the inception of the US constitution congress (north and south) was already writing/passing bills in the 1790's in preparation of abolishing WHITE BLACK AND INDIAN SLAVERY. Whites came over as slaves as well.

Confederate American Pride

The Civil War was NOT over slavery
by Amy M. Wrobel
http://www.confederateamericanpride.com/notslavery.html

I am a devout Southerner who is proud of my heritage. I am, however, tired of hearing such things as: "Southerners are ignorant," "Southerners are trash," "Southerners are racists," "The Civil war was over slavery," "whites treated the blacks horribly," "Southerners are uneducated." But so far the worst is that the "South was wrong." and "the Union was correct."

As I said before, I am a PROUD Southern woman and anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I am a loud, proud, outspoken person when it comes to my heritage. They can also, however, attest to the fact that I am not, in any way, shape or form, a prejudiced person.

This is not written to offend anyone who doesn't share my same beliefs, but I can assure you that if you were taught and believe the "Northern ways of life" that this will, for lack of better terms, piss you off. I will warn you now I am a very intellectual individual and if you try to contradict me I can throw a book of solid facts at you. I am going to speak about the black Confederates.

Yes, they existed and there were over 65,000 of them, both slave and free. What the war was really about, and both the point of view of Confederate Generals and Union Generals on the act of slavery. I will also touch on how blacks were treated both before and after the war and how the white population is being treated now as a minority.

First things first, the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln; Lincoln was NOT an abolitionist. William Lloyd Garrison, the most prominent of all abolitionists, concluded that Lincoln "had not a drop of anti-slavery blood in his veins." Lincoln was against social and political equality of the races, he opposed inter-racial marriages, supported the Illinois Constitution's prohibition of immigration of blacks into the state, defended a slave owner who was seeking to retrieve his runaway slaves but never defended slaves or runaways themselves, and he was a lifelong advocate of colonization - of sending every last black person in the U.S. to Africa, Haiti, or central America - anywhere but in the United States. In August of 1852 Lincoln said "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it… what I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union." Lincoln also said on September 18th, 1858, "I will say, then, that I am not, nor have I ever been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races." In 1861 Lincoln was asked "why not let the South go in peace?" He replied by saying "I can't let them go. Who would pay for the government?"

I have found no proof that Lincoln was a slave owner, but I can tell you without a doubt in my mind that he was not seeking to abolish slavery.

Two acts of Congress were passed during the Civil War, One in 1864 (13 Stat. 11) and one in 1866 (14 Stat. 321) which allowed slave owners whose slaves enlisted or were drafted into the Union military to file a claim against the Federal Government for loss of the slave's services. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 freed slaves in the Southern or 'rebellious' states but in border-states that were loyal to the Union, slavery continued to be legal. If a slave ran away to join the military and the owner knew where and when he joined, the owner could file a compensation claim as long as he or she was loyal to the Union. There were also free blacks who owned slaves. And something else you might not know, it was the Africans who sold their own people into slavery. Union Generals Grant and Sherman were slave owners as well. Confederate Generals Jackson and Lee were not.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis not only envisioned black confederate veterans but also envisioned them receiving bounty lands for their service. There would have been no future for slavery once the armed black CSA veterans came home after the war.

John Parker, a former slave, recorded that many colored Confederate soldiers were killed in action. The "Richmond Howitzers" were partially manned by black militiamen who saw action at the 1st Battle of Bull Run. There were also two black regiments, one free and one slave, who participated in the same battle on behalf of the South. One black Confederate was a non-commissioned officer by the name of James Washington. One was in Company D, 35th Texas Cavalry, Confederate States Army and became 3rd Sergeant. There were also higher ranking commissioned black Confederates. James Russell was a free 'man of color' and the cook for Company C, 24th South Carolina Volunteer Infantry. Unfortunately, he was killed in action at Missionary Ridge on November 25th, 1863. Private Louis Napoleon Nelson was also a free man of color and served time in the 7th Tennessee Cavalry under General Nathan Bedford Forrest. He fought at Shiloh, Lookout Mountain, Brice's Crossing, and Vicksburg and survived the war.

General Grant made the comment that, "The sole object of this war is to restore the Union. Should I be convinced it has any other object, or that the government designs using its soldiers to execute the wishes of the abolitionists, I pledge to you my honor as a man and a soldier I would resign my commission and carry my sword to the other side" in a letter to the Chicago Tribune 1862. Union General William T. Sherman said in 1864 "I am honest in my belief that it is not fair to my men to count negros as equals. Let us capture negros, of course, and use them to the best advantage." As I said before, these two men both owned slaves, and did not want to free them. I honestly do not see how so many "politically correct" people can stand there and say the "North was right."

Confederate General Robert E. Lee, however, saw the world of slavery from a different view. He said "There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery is an institution of a moral and political evil" In 1858. In 1866 he also made a statement that "All the south ever desired was that the union, as established by our forefathers, be preserved; and that the Government, as originally organized, should be administered in purity and truth." It wasn't a far fetched idea yet the people in this country then and still today are yet to grasp hold of something like morals, purity, or truth. But I guess that's where Confederate States President Jefferson Davis comes in with "Truth crushed to the earth is truth still and like a seed will rise again."

I will not deny that most slaves were treated poorly. I feel pity for those who had to endure lashes for not doing their "masters bidding". But as I said before, Africans sold their OWN people into slavery and there is still slavery going on in other parts of the world. And do not think that blacks were the only ones in this country who were slaves. During the 17th century Native Americans (My Ancestors) were enslaved by colonists on a common basis. But just because Southern whites owned slaves it is now taken out on the white population today. My family never once owned a slave and a select few of my ancestors fought beside them in the Civil War. My Aunt Evelynn is a Southern black woman whom I love dearly. As well as friends of both my husband and myself who are colored. I do not agree with slavery on any point. There were free blacks whom owned slaves and a large majority of northerners owned slaves.

 

No, but I'm sure it's good. She's an excellent writer.

I don't believe that Lee had a great interest in the city of Harrisburg. If he had taken it, it would have happened only because it was convenient and relatively easy to do. He didn't want to waste troops on an occupation of the city; keeping its militia pinned down was good enough.

His tactical plans had to be more flexible than that, subject to change daily, based on local conditions and enemy troop movements.

The Northern invasion's real goal was more political than military. Robert E. Lee was not the kind of man who would have completely destroyed a large city full of civilians, but the people of Pennsylvania didn't know that. Jefferson Davis wanted the people of the North to feel that intense fear, rather than continuing to think of the war as something far away. Davis wanted them to pressure Lincoln to stop the war.

Ideally, Lee would have preferred a large battle with Hooker (his presumed opponent) somewhere on the Philadelphia side of Harrisburg. Expecting Hooker to fold, Davis could then offer Lincoln terms of peace, including a recognition of Southern independence, under threat of taking Philadelphia and cutting off Washington and Baltimore from New York City and Boston.

Lee didn't have time to move east of Harrisburg because the Union army was moving so much faster than it usually did.

Longstreet was one of the first to do much with trench warfare, which did not become the standard approach until WWI.

The first one on this subject I ever read cover to cover was Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, which was the basis for the movie Gettysburg. I have the theater version and extended version on DVD. Though it had a big budget and big name cast (Martin Sheen, Tom Berenger, Jeff Daniels, Sam Elliott), the general public had no interest in the topic. As a classical music fan, I really love the soundtrack!

I was managing a bookstore at the time, so I started looking things up in our Civil War nonfiction books in my spare time, whenever I had follow-up questions about topics and people in Killer Angels.

I don't know why more women weren't drawn into this story, because it's about the biggest soap opera in world history. There's never been a bigger bunch of drama queens and attention whores than the generals of the American Civil War!

Well...it's time now for another installment of my narrative.

 

End Game: 1864-1865

The Civil War entered a new era once Lincoln appointed Ulysses S. Grant the overall commander of the US Army. Finally, Robert E. Lee had an adversary with a proven track record comparable to his own, and equally stubborn in demeanor. William Tecumseh Sherman replaced Grant in Tennessee, where he was facing a new opponent. Jefferson Davis had just replaced his personal friend Braxton Bragg with Joe Johnston. Southern cavalry in the Tennessee area remained under the command of Nathan Bedford Forest.

Other things were changing too. Both sides were running out of volunteers, starting to make use of the draft, and (up north only) citizenship incentive plans for immigrants. Massive numbers of POW’s had been accumulated on both sides, leading to horrendous prison camp conditions, with high death rates due to disease and malnutrition. With few functioning ports remaining, the South was making heavier use of railroads to move supplies around, and also for troop movements. That prompted the North to make heavier use of cavalry to destroy railroads behind enemy lines. In general, the South was running out of everything. CSA army units were having a hard time finding local farms that had enough food for their needs. That was already a problem as early as 1862 in northern Virginia, but now the problem was widespread. Without the international cotton trade, the Confederate economy was in a death spiral. Farms and cities had almost no remaining men in them, except for veterans with missing arms and legs. Women and children had to do the work.

One thing that needed to be changing, but wasn’t, was military tactics. Modern weapons were too powerful and accurate to allow men to march across open fields in formation, but they continued to do it anyway. Battle after battle, both sides continued to suffer some of the highest average casualty rates ever seen in warfare, before or since. They had the discipline to continue on anyway, most of the time. Desertion rates were increasing among draftees.

William T. Sherman spent the spring and early summer driving from Chattanooga to Atlanta, pushing back Johnston, who was then replaced by John Bell Hood, a veteran of the battle of Gettysburg (second day, Devil’s Den). Hood fought harder, but still lost Atlanta.

At the same time, the port of Mobile, Alabama fell, the last CSA port on the Gulf of Mexico. The Deep South was in a hopeless situation.

Meanwhile in the east, Grant (directly supervising George Meade) moved south from Washington and got attacked by Lee (Wilderness battle). Lee won as usual, but unlike other Northern generals of the past, Grant didn’t run away in fear. He regrouped and resumed moving toward Richmond.

There was no clear winner at Spotsylvania, but once again, Grant moved away in the direction of Richmond. Lee had never seen such determination in an adversary. Same thing happened after Grant’s loss at Cold Harbor. Nothing was able to break his focus on his objective.

But then, Grant passed by Richmond, to the east, and continued south to Petersburg. No one seems to know when Grant made the decision that Petersburg would be his next target. Maybe that had been his plan all along. Without Petersburg, Richmond (and points further north) would have no railroad connection to the port of Wilmington (NC) or the rest of the Confederacy, and would become useless, its factories isolated and idle, military supply yards empty.

Like he had done in Vicksburg, Grant set up a siege line around two sides of Petersburg and prepared to wait them out.

Then, he was talked into trying something never attempted before. Several hundred of his men had been coal miners in Pennsylvania, and knew how to build tunnels. They wanted to dig a long tunnel under the Confederate front line, pack it with explosives, and set them off. Grant let them try it. The tunnel entrance was out of sight of the Confederates, and all excavated dirt was carried away from the area at night. The roof was supported by square timbers, like a proper coal mine. The Southern soldiers had no idea what was beneath them until the day that the explosives were detonated, killing hundreds instantly. The problem for the North was that nobody knew what to do next. There was a large break in the Confederate line, but it was a giant hole in the ground. Northern troops poured into the hole, to be slaughtered by Southern reinforcements shooting down at them from the edges.

The hole still exists inside a historical park. It doesn’t look as big as some history books describe it, but it was big enough to hold hundreds of dead and wounded from both sides.

Meanwhile, Union forces were burning the crops and barns in the Shenandoah Valley to deprive the Confederates of food.

In between the battles of Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor, Jeb Stuart met his end at Yellow Tavern (north of Richmond), in a battle with his Union cavalry counterpart, Philip Sheridan.

While it was still warm, Grant settled in for the winter, confident that final victory was just a matter of time. He had river access to Chesapeake Bay, so his supply line was secure. While he was relaxing, Abraham Lincoln was elected to a second term as President. His opponent was George McClellan. Think there might have been some personal animosity between the candidates?

The fall of 1864 was anything but leisurely for General Sherman. John Bell Hood tried to draw him out of Atlanta by disrupting his flow of supplies, which were coming through Chattanooga. Sherman only sent a small portion of his army to deal with Hood. The rest of his forces began the infamous March to the Sea, ending in Savannah. His goal was absolute destruction of everything, and maximum human suffering for everyone in his path. Many thousands of families were left homeless and starving, most without an able-bodied man in the family. The poor were treated the same as wealthy plantation owners. His men regularly went far beyond his written orders, which was completely tolerated, even rape and murder.

His tactics greatly increased hatred of the North by many generations of Southerners. Every Southern child was taught the story of Sherman’s March. By current international laws, Sherman would be considered a war criminal. No such laws existed at the time, but there is one other unresolved legal issue. Since the federal government never recognized the CSA and maintained that all Southerners remained US citizens, then it follows that Sherman had no legal authority to harm anyone who was not actively participating in rebellion.

There is no conclusive evidence as to whether Grant or Lincoln was aware of the extent of Sherman’s cruelty. Grant had shown no such pattern of such behavior in the past, or tolerance for anything like it. During his occupation of Natchez, Mississippi, Grant gave orders that there be no damage done to the town, since there was nothing there of any military value, and no one there but women and children and the elderly. Sherman’s desire to burn it all was overruled.

Hood fought two battles against the smaller Union force. His attacks were so crazy that many thought he had a death wish. Having already lost an arm and a leg, Hood had to be tied on his horse every day. After two pointless defeats with extreme losses, he asked to be relieved of command. His request was granted.

The arrival of 1865 found Grant still on his working vacation outside of Petersburg, Virginia, and Sherman still in the city of Savannah, Georgia. Armies on both sides (especially the South) had already drafted almost every male in the country able to walk and lift a gun. This problem, along with the fact that the South seemed caught in a vise from which there was no escape, and that Lincoln had secured for himself another four years in office, seems like a rational explanation for why Lincoln was not pushing Grant to move on Petersburg. On a strategic level, Lincoln may have felt that Grant had essentially won the war the previous summer, when he fought his way into his current position. For whatever reason, Grant was being given as much time as he wanted.

Grant wanted Sherman to sail to Petersburg, to help make the final push, but Sherman persuaded Grant to let him make a march through South Carolina and North Carolina. Sherman was itching to burn the SC capital city of Columbia to the ground, and he soon got his chance. For reasons unknown, he did not burn Savannah on his way out of town. After Columbia, he fought one final battle, in North Carolina, with Johnston.

In March of 1865, General Lee felt that he would not be able to hold onto Petersburg much longer. Before he withdrew to the west, Richmond was evacuated, and anything left of any military value was burned. The fire spread out of control, destroying much of downtown, but not Thomas Jefferson’s magnificent state capitol building (also the CSA national capital). Jefferson Davis headed southwest to Danville, VA. As Grant fought his way into Petersburg, CSA General A.P. Hill was killed in action. Richmond surrendered without a fight on April 3.

Grant caught up with Lee again at Appomattox Court House on April 9. Lee surrendered after a brief battle, with documents signed at a formal surrender ceremony on April 11. With Lincoln’s approval, Grant’s surrender terms were generous.

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by a Southern sympathizer on April 14.

General Johnston surrendered his army to General Sherman on April 18, near Durham, NC, but the paperwork was not finalized until April 26. Jefferson Davis met with his cabinet one last time in Greensboro, and was later captured in Georgia. And two other smaller military units further to the south and west continued combat operations for a short time, unaware that the war was over.

Next time: Aftermath

 

Very good post Karen J, unfortunately I don't have time to read all the way through it now---but I will later.

Haven't talked with you for a while.

 

Justin Ewers, a senior editor at U.S. News & World Report, said: "Of course, Lincoln's presidency had its dark side. Most infamously, the Great Emancipator suspended habeas corpus in 1861–62, allowing the indefinite detention of citizens without trial.

violate the organic laws of the land? What other laws were violated?

 

Civil War Aftermath

Immediately following the death of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson was sworn in as President. This was during the time in which a vice president was always from the opposite party as the president, because he had the second highest number of votes from the Electoral College. An amendment to the Constitution was required to solve this problem, allowing presidential candidates to choose their own running mates. Johnson agreed with Lincoln’s generous attitude toward receiving Confederate states back into the US, and continued that policy until Congress returned in December and got busy reversing every decision that Johnson had made. They also passed several laws greatly reducing the President’s power, and then charged him with violating them. At his impeachment trial in 1868, he avoided removal from office by a single vote in the Senate. He didn’t bother with running for reelection.

In 1866, Congress sent the Fourteenth Amendment (outlawing slavery at the Constitutional level) out to the states. Tennessee was the only Southern state to ratify it, initially.

Of all the key figures in the war who went on to bigger and better things, none did better than Ulysses S. Grant. He was elected President in 1868, following Johnson, and served two terms. During his eight years, his prime focus was on punishing the South and getting it under tighter control. In the Confederate states, transition governments led by military governors slowly gave way to permanent state governments formed under new state constitutions, which had to meet federal approval. Grant’s harsh policies insured that every one of these new governments would become dominated by white racists by 1878. His legacy includes the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing black Americans the right to vote. He did not seek a third term in 1876, but unsuccessfully ran again in 1880, losing his party’s nomination to Garfield, who followed Hayes.

President Grant’s administration was almost constantly dealing with accusations of corruption, but the American political landscape was even more hostile and polarized than it is today, so the majority of those unproven accusations may actually be evidence of little more than aggressive political activity by the opposition party. Like every other US president before or since, Grant filled some positions with individuals who later disappointed him.

The Northern industrial economy suffered a downturn during his second term, the first of its kind in US history, while the South was deep into an economic depression that would last for many decades.

Grant’s statue stands in front of the US Capitol’s front steps, eternally guarding the government he saved from destruction. I think the sculptor did a magnificent job of capturing his personality. In that pose, Grant appears to be watching a battle on a cold, wet day, not emotional, not seeking attention, just focused 100% on his responsibilities.

​

His friends called him Sam, and remembered him from his younger days as a mostly serious guy who loved cigars and whiskey, and sometimes got in a bit of trouble.

Grant is buried under a large memorial in New York City, well away from routes commonly traveled by tourists.

William T. Sherman remains the war’s most controversial and divisive figure. While the South remembers him as a heartless monster who went much too far, he was very popular in the North with people who looked at him and saw a reflection of their own anger and rage at the South.

Northern historians tend to credit Sherman with being an innovator; the prime inventor of the “total war” strategy. For Southern historians, instead of a well thought out strategy, they see only a rationalization for letting undisciplined troops take out vengeance on the defenseless, giving in to the lowest of human temptations. Others assert that Sherman was often unaware of what his men were doing. I say he was responsible for knowing. If he wasn’t checking up on them, that communicated the message that he didn’t care what was going on. A good leader understands how all that works.

After the war, Sherman was investigated only for his actions in South Carolina, which were more extreme than the destruction done between Atlanta and Savannah. In a sworn deposition, Sherman testified that he played no part in the burning of Columbia. I wonder if anybody ever believed it.

When Grant was elected President, Sherman took his place as commanding general of the US Army. All his future combat operations were against Native Americans. At least once, he argued in favor of total genocide of an Indian tribe. Grant said no.

He was later urged to go into politics, but had no interest.

In the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Philip Sheridan received the same orders from Grant as Sherman did, with respect to destruction of all assets that might be of any value to the South, militarily or economically. He carried out those orders in such a way that he was not vilified after the war. After Sherman’s retirement, Sheridan became the highest ranking US general.

Even though Sherman was neither born nor buried in New York, there is a larger than life statue of him (mounted) at the main entrance to Central Park (southeast corner). I personally find it offensive, and wish they would move it to a less prominent location. I wouldn’t have a problem with any other Civil War figure they could have honored there. Maybe a New York native?

John Buford died of an illness five months after Gettysburg. He was a West Point graduate from Kentucky, a state with divided loyalties, and had relatives fighting on both sides of the war.

W. Scott Hancock established an outstanding reputation for leadership, reliability, and competence on the battlefield. He was seriously wounded on the third day at Gettysburg, during Pickett‘s Charge, and was slow to recover. He did not retire from the army immediately after the war, but ran for President in 1880, as a Democrat, losing to Garfield in the general election. He spoke at President Grant’s funeral.

J. Lawrence Chamberlain was promoted several times after Little Round Top at Gettysburg, which was his first battle. He played an important role in the surrender ceremony at Appomattox. He had the men stand at attention, to show respect for the defeated. Like many other officers on both sides of the war, he entered the military without any military education. Many of them were utter failures, and none did better than Chamberlain. After the war, he served as governor of Maine, college president, lawyer, and businessman. He eventually died of complications related to his war wounds. His home near Bowdoin College is now a museum.

Dan Butterfield was a Union general who liked to write bugle calls. Military bands played at ceremonies of all kinds, but bugle calls were used to communicate orders quickly to a brigade, over the noise of combat. Butterfield was quite prolific. Bugle calls are now used only for ceremonial purposes, but all the ones still in use were written by Dan Butterfield. Otherwise, he was known mostly for hard partying with Joe Hooker.

[continued below]

 

Jefferson Davis was a West Point graduate, a war veteran, former US Secretary of War, and US senator before the war broke out. He was also a wealthy plantation owner with hundreds of slaves. As the only President of the Confederate States, Davis was arrested for treason at the end of the war and imprisoned for two years at Fort Monroe (Virginia), but never put on trial. Later, he lived in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. He died in New Orleans and was buried in Richmond, near the graves of Jeb Stuart, George Pickett. His post-war popularity in the South has been limited, and his competence questioned. Unlike most top Confederate war leaders, he did not hesitate to publicly share his extreme racist views in his retirement years.

Notable public monuments to Jefferson Davis include Richmond, Virginia and Stone Mountain, Georgia. A mansion he once owned with his second wife in Natchez, Mississippi is open for tours in the spring and fall.

Robert E. Lee was selected to run Washington College after the war, in Lexington, Virginia (now Washington and Lee University). He wrote extensively, always encouraging Southerners to peacefully assimilate back into American life. Always a deeply religious man, he believed that the war had turned out the way God wanted it to, and slavery had ended because God had decided it was the right time for that to happen. He did not believe that human decisions or actions played any part in the final outcome.

Many notable people traveled to Lexington to meet Lee in person. When asked if he had any regrets in life, he answered, “pursuing a military education”. For the rest of his life, whenever he was walking anywhere and heard a military band playing or a drummer drumming for a march, he would intentionally walk out of step with the beat.

The grounds of his house in Arlington, inherited by his wife from her family (related to George Washington), got turned into a military cemetery so that the Lee family could never live there again. Arlington National Cemetery became the most prestigious burial ground in America. Lee’s home is open to the public daily, at no cost.

Lee died a contented old man in Lexington, and was buried underneath what is now called Lee Chapel, on the grounds of the university. His white horse Traveler is buried outside, beneath a small marker at the right front corner. On the level above Lee’s tomb lies a magnificent marble sculpture of him lying down, as if asleep, surrounded by all the flags of the Confederacy. Visitors to the chapel still sometimes get emotional. It’s almost as if he is some sort of a religious figure to some. Also near the tomb, Lee’s college office can be viewed, intact with original furnishings, and many of his personal items positioned as if he has only left the room for a moment.

There are many large statues of Lee around the South, the most notable being in Richmond, Virginia, and the largest in New Orleans. He also appears on Stone Mountain, Georgia, the Mount Rushmore of the South. Almost every Southern state has a Lee highway, and several Robert E. Lee high schools. For decades, the Robert E. Lee was a famous and popular large steamboat operating on the Mississippi River. Based on his own writings, the way that Lee has been remembered and idolized seems to be the opposite of what he would have wanted. He did not value celebrity.

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James Longstreet was Lee’s right hand man, always with him except for a short assignment under Bragg, so he had little opportunity to independently make a name for himself during the war. Some of Lee’s biographers were so fanatically devoted to him and so enraptured by his excellence that they decided all of Lee’s battlefield failures must have been someone else’s fault. Longstreet was the most convenient scapegoat. Among those authors, Douglas Southall Freeman was the worst offender.

Longstreet outlived most of his counterparts, spending much of it writing to defend his own integrity and military record. He was especially passionate in his assertion that no one in his position could have made a success out of Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. Lee himself did not blame Longstreet for any specific defeats or failure, though Longstreet did say quite openly that he found Lee’s approach to be excessively aggressive at times, especially at Gettysburg.

Being an old friend of President Grant from their West Point days, Longstreet was given a government job in New Orleans by Grant. It was there that Longstreet converted to Catholicism, a religion that was somewhat rare in the South outside of the New Orleans area. He loved the city and its culture, even though his hard-drinking ways had greatly moderated since 1861, when three of his children died in an epidemic. Its international feel was a welcome contrast to the monolithic culture dominant throughout the rest of the South. He then joined the (anti-slavery) Republican Party, which was too controversial even for liberal New Orleans.

He relocated to a farm near Gainesville, Georgia, not far from where he was born in rural South Carolina, and lived out the rest of his days there. Amazingly, he survived until 1903, and his second wife to 1962. As far as I know, the only memorial to Longstreet is his modest grave marker, which gets visits from a handful of die-hard loyal fans every day. There was no Longstreet statue anywhere until 1998.

Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was already a legend before he died on the battlefield. Virginia Military Institute claims that they have maintained his university office just the way he left it, even though Philip Sheridan burned most of VMI to the ground. VMI is also in Lexington, Virginia. Jackson’s home (open for tours) and the cemetery where he is buried are a few blocks south of VMI. And yes, every Southern state has Stonewall Jackson highways and high schools, and he has a giant statue in Richmond, and appears on Stone Mountain.

James “Jeb” Stuart rounds out the CSA army’s “big three” from Virginia, and gets all the same standard honors around the South, except for his surprising absence from Stone Mountain. The granite monument where he was killed at Yellow Tavern is now in an area that is anything but peaceful and serene, thanks to suburban sprawl creeping north out of Richmond. Though formally trained at West Point (during the time that Lee was its superintendent), he had a habit of wearing colorful feathers and plumes on his uniform, sashes, and flowers. I can’t believe that Lee and Jackson (especially Jackson!) let him do it. Would any other army on the planet have tolerated such behavior? Before the CW, Stuart was with Lee at Harper’s Ferry. Stuart’s fame and popularity have been diminished somewhat by historians who are irrationally fixated on Lee.

Nathan Bedford Forest (CSA cavalry, western theater) founded the KKK after the war, and became the Klan’s first Grand Dragon. Though he was openly a white supremacist, it is doubtful that he could have foreseen at its founding that the KKK would quickly become the largest and most dangerous illegal organization in US history. President Grant was able to make it smaller and less effective, but the Klan would not fade to irrelevance until the 1980’s.

Racist state laws passed in the South after the Civil War, often called Jim Crow laws, were commonplace until the mid-1960’s. Legal segregation in the South was very similar to South Africa’s apartheid system before the Civil Rights Movement. A combined total of more than 600,000 deaths during the Civil War were not enough to lay the race issue to rest in this country.

Among the big Civil War museums in operation today, you can’t beat the one in Richmond and the one in Gettysburg, near the battlefield. New Orleans has the second largest CSA collection, but I haven’t seen it myself.

Among preserved Civil War battlefields, Gettysburg greatly stands out above the crowd. The National Park Service owns several square miles there, covering all the spots where important things happened, except for the activities of the first day. Only the center of Buford’s original defensive line on the Chambersburg Pike has been preserved, and the Lutheran Seminary where Buford watched from the observation tower still belongs to the Lutheran denomination.

Many states, especially Northern states, have raised money to build huge memorials to their troops at Gettysburg. These are generally placed where the majority of a state’s forces were located, at some important time during the battle. That gives the park a rather strange appearance, quite unlike a real battlefield. However, there is still very little other than open space at the site of Pickett’s Charge. I’ve made the walk myself, all the way from the North Carolina monument (Pettigrew’s brigade) to Hancock’s stone fence. It’s a long walk; quite an experience, if you have a good imagination and are able to visualize shells landing all around you from Little Round Top.

The national military park includes a vast cemetery where many thousands of Northern troops are buried, the site of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

At the visitor’s center, tour guides who operate as independent contractors are available for hire. They will ride in your car, or drive your car, and give you an in-depth tour of the battlefield. They are required to pass a history test from the NPS before they can solicit tours from the public. I think their background knowledge is nothing short of astounding. Many are retired history teachers and professors.

Many other significant battlefields have been preserved, mostly in the South. Most have a limited number of small monuments, memorials, and statues, keeping their appearance much closer to what they were at the time of battle. Antietam/Sharpsburg is an outstanding example of authentic preservation.

There were so many battles that preserving them all would have been absurd and impractical. Some of the sites have been completely obliterated by modern development. In others, shallow infantry trenches and embankments for artillery can still be seen out in the wood on private land, in winter. This is especially common on the southeast side of Richmond. And there are many spots where nothing is left behind except a black and silver historical marker sign with a brief description. Judging from those signs, Union cavalry guy George Stoneman (Stonewall’s West Point roommate) seems to have raided every little hole in the wall town in the Appalachian Mountains, for reasons I can’t imagine.

* * *

Among younger Americans, the consensus seems to be that all anybody needs to know about our civil war can be stated in eight words: “It happened, the South lost, and slavery ended.”

I say the war had a profound impact on shaping the nation’s character, and continues to do so. You can’t fully understand America without understanding the Civil War period. For better or worse, the past is a part of us.