Tag: civil war

Friendly Fire Changes History

Today in History, May 2, 1863:

He was, in today’s vernacular, the epitome of a “nerd”. He had an odd, ungainly walk, was very strict in his interpretations of religion, and either ignored or did not see his contemporaries and his students mocking him and laughing at him behind his back for his awkwardness.

He graduated from West Point, served with distinction in the Mexican-American War, and then became a professor at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). He was a terrible teacher, and mocking him became a tradition amongst the students.

Then the Civil War came. Thomas Jackson didn’t have any particular political views, but he was true to his “country” of Virginia. So he served, proving to be efficient at training brigades at drill and military movements.

While still considered ungainly, Jackson earned the faith of his men by always being at the front, without guile, without fear. At the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run for the Union, Confederates called it Manassas), he did the same.

One of his contemporaries from the Mexican-American War, Gen. Bernard Bee, rallied his own men by shouting, “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer. Rally behind the Virginians!” And they did, and the battle was won.

The awkward Thomas J. Jackson had transformed into the legend of “Stonewall” Jackson and he would soon become the right hand man of Gen. Robert E. Lee. After many battles won, on today’s date, during the Battle of Chancellorsville, Jackson was returning to his camp at night when he was taken for a Yankee soldier and accidentally shot by a sentry. Within a few days, one of the South’s greatest heroes would die of his injuries.

Lee in particular would mourn the loss of a valued lieutenant, and would miss him during battles to come, particularly Gettysburg.

The Tragedy of the SS Sultana

Today in History, April 27, 1865:

The SS Sultana.

They had left their farms, their jobs and their families, to fight for the Union, some for glory, some for honor. Any glory in the war faded, as it always must, as they fought through terrible battles. They saw their friends die mutilated, many of them suffered irreparable injuries.

Then they were captured by their enemy and sent to horrific prison camps such as the despised Andersonville. Conditions there were unspeakable; even if the Confederates had any sympathy for them, the South didn’t have the resources to care for it’s own, much less it’s prisoners.

Finally after months or years of starvation and brutality, the war was over; they were liberated. They were going home! Can you imagine the joy, the rapture they must have felt? Most had to have believed it would never happen, that they would die in their captivity.

They marched (those that could still walk) to ports on the Mississippi to board steamships for the trip north and home. Desperate to get home as quickly as possible, they begged, cajoled, bartered or simply boarded the overloaded river boats clandestinely. You can take just one more, right?

The steamer SS Sultana was one of those commissioned by the Union Government to get them home. Her capacity was for 376 passengers. 376. By the time she sailed from the captured city of Vicksburg, MS she was loaded down with at least 2,400…mostly those Union prisoners on their way home.

At 2 AM on the 27th of April her decks and quarters were jammed beyond capacity, but their must have been peace amongst the passengers. The ship was top heavy and as she made the turns of the river, the water in her inter-connected boilers sloshed back and forth, lowering the water levels in the boilers opposite the turn. One of the boilers had been hastily patched to allow her use on the trip.

Suddenly, one of the boilers burst, causing at least two more to follow. The ship exploded, the suddenly escaping steam burned hundreds to death in an instant, setting the wooden ship afire to kill hundreds more. Most of those that managed to escape the ship into the water, already emaciated, drowned before they could be rescued; the first ship to reach them was an hour away in the frigid waters.

Of the 2,400, as many as 1,900 perished. 7 to 9 miles above Memphis on the river, even the recently defeated Confederates there responded with compassion, opening their homes to the few survivors.

No one was ever prosecuted for the disaster, however Maj. Gen. Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana, commander of the Department of the Mississippi, was relieved of his command by Lt. Gen. Grant.

Assassin’s Demise

Today in History, April 26, 1865:

Union Army forces track down John Wilkes Booth 12 days after he assassinated President Lincoln. In the meantime, he had been hidden by Confederates, treated by Doctor Samuel Mudd (your name is mud) and hidden in a barn on the Garrett farm in Virginia, where he was found.

The barn was set afire and his associate surrendered. Booth refused…a Union soldier, Boston Corbett, saw Booth inside the barn and fired his Colt revolver…causing a mortal wound to Booth.

Many Confederates saw Booth as a hero. However many Southerners wept openly at Lincoln’s death, and Confederate Generals, including Lee and Johnston, denounced Booth’s actions.

Fortunately, in the interim between his deed and his death, Booth was able to see news accounts that recorded his hero’s denunciation of his act. So when he died, he knew what he was.

Confederate Big Easy Defenseless

Today in History, April 25, 1862:

Have you ever walked along the levee in the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana? If you have, it’s difficult not to be awed when you look UP at the top of the levee and see a ship floating across the water…well above you.

The view makes it very obvious how incredibly vulnerable the city is to the Mighty Mississippi and the massive ships sailing her channel.

On this date in 1862 Union Admiral David Farragut had already led his fleet of US Navy ships past Ft. Jackson and Ft. St. Phillips below the Crescent City, he and his crews blew past nascent the Confederate “Navy” and placed their heavy guns off of New Orleans.

The New Orleans military, government and citizens were told…it was obvious…if they didn’t surrender, the US Navy would fire DOWN into the wooden structures of the Quarter….they may, if necessary, blast a hole in the levee and simply let nature flood out the defenders.

Confederate General Mansfield Lovell told Major Moore what would happen if resisted. So they stalled while Lovell shipped his troops and equipment north by rail to Vicksburg.

Finally on April 29 the residents folded. By May 2 the Confederates relinquished the largest, most industrial, cosmopolitan city in the Confederacy. Remember the rivers were the thoroughfares in the 1800’s.

The Union now had control of NOLA’S resources, and now the Union could ship supplies north from the Gulf as far as Vicksburg and north to south.

The War had seen a major change. And the citizens of New Orleans would find peace with General Butler worse than war with Farragut. But thats a different story.

Appomattox

Today in History, April 9, 1865:

After years of foiling every move the Union made, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee had finally been run to ground. Several Yankee Generals had been bested by him, but he had finally met his match…not tactically, but in determination, by Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

At Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, Lee, his army starving and with nowhere else to run, in spite of the fact that he would “rather die a thousand deaths”, agreed to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant.

Lee arrived in his best uniform; Grant, typically, arrived in a muddy private’s uniform. Grant offered terms that included Confederate officers keeping their horses and sidearms, enlisted men keeping their horses so that they could farm their land, as long as they agreed to abide by their paroles and obey the laws of the land. Lee was very appreciative of these terms, saying they would be helpful to his army, men he loved.

As Lee mounted his horse and left the site of the surrender, Union soldiers began to cheer. Grant quickly silenced them, reminding them that the Confederates were once again their countrymen.

The surrender document was signed in the home of Wilmer McLean. Ironically, in the first battle of the war, First Bull Run, or First Manassas if you are from the South, Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard’s headquarters were in McLean’s home in Manassas, where cannon shot destroyed part of the house. McLean moved south to Appomattox Courthouse to keep his family safe. So, as is said, the Civil War began in Wilmer McLean’s front yard, and ended in his parlor.

McLean’s home was almost completely stripped of furniture by Union officers seeking momentos of the occasion.

Lee was given the opportunity by Grant to allow one of his subordinates to accept the surrender…to avoid humiliation. Lee refused…his FATHER, Light Horse Harry Lee, had been with Washington at Yorktown and witnessed the ungentlemanly act of British Gen. Lord Cornwallis sending a subordinate to surrender his sword to Washington. Lee refused to dishonor his family name by repeating the act. Grant did not require Lee to surrender his sword, but Lee was the man that represented his army at Appomattox Courthouse. Both gentlemen, North and South, maintained their honor.

John D. Lynde Improved Your Life…

aerosol

Today in History, April 8, 1862:

John D. Lynde of Philadelphia receives a patent for an “improved” aerosol spray bottle.  The concept was not new, but Lynde perfected the use of gasses to propel spray mists from a bottle.

Today we use aerosol devices for personal care products, kitchen sprays and many other applications in farming and industry.  Perhaps most importantly for medical purposes such as inhalers and atomisers.

Shiloh

Today in History, April 7, 1862:

The Battle of Shiloh comes to and end with a Union “Victory”. Union Gen. US Grant had moved his army into Tennessee and was preparing his next campaign.

But Confederate Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, considered second only to Robert E. Lee by both armies, had different ideas. His troops, in addition to those of CSA Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard almost literally caught the Northern Army sleeping….attacking in the morning and routing the Yankees.

The Confederates, always hungry due to their lack of supplies, actually stopped to eat the breakfasts the Union soldiers left in flight. The battle was vicious all through the day. But by the morning of the 7th, Grant had been reinforced by Gen. Buell’s Corps, and Grant quickly turned the rebels back. Shiloh was not so much a victory as a recovery for the North.

But the North nearly lost it’s best commander in the aftermath, as the press excoriated Grant as a drunk who was asleep at the wheel. President Lincoln answered the charges by saying that he could not spare Grant, “he fights” and offering to buy his other generals the brand of whiskey Grant used. In truth Grant had taken to drink when missing his family during his pre-war assignment in California, but was always focused during the Civil War Campaigns.

During the battle, Albert Sydney Johnston was mortally wounded. He died looking in fascination at the sky above.

The Grand Army of the Republic

Today in History, April 6, 1866:

Fraternity, Charity and Loyalty.” The Grand Army of the Republic is formed in Decatur, Illinois, bringing together a Fraternal organization of veterans of the Union (US) Army, Navy, Marines, and “Revenue Cutter Service” (Coast Guard) from the Civil War.

Admittedly an arm of the Republican Party, the GAR was one of the first bi-racial fraternal organizations in the US…white and black veterans worked together to gain veteran’s pensions, elect Republican Presidents Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Harrison and McKinley, all Civil War veterans.

At it’s high point, the organization had 490,000 members; it passed with it’s last member’s death in 1956, to be replaced by the “Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.

Victory and Assassination

Today in History, April 4: 1865:

150 years ago today. President Lincoln enters Richmond, the Confederate Capitol. Lincoln had been at City Point when informed that Richmond had been taken the day before by Union Army forces.

He immediately sailed on the USS Malvern, Flag Officer David Dixon Porter’s flagship for Richmond. After he disembarked, he was initially escorted through crowds by a contingent of sailors, who were very relieved when they were met by a group of Union Cavalry to assist in escorting the President to the home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Many former slaves attempted to pay homage to Lincoln, who would not allow it. Onlookers watched from the windows and street corners.

At Davis’ house, Lincoln sat in Davis’ chair, then toured the house.

When later asked by Union Gen. Weitzel how the conquered rebels should be treated, Lincoln indicated that he would not give an order in that regard, but that his advice would be to, “Let them up easy….let them up easy”.

As for the nervous sailors and cavalrymen that escorted him? As it turns out, Lincoln was safer in the Confederate capitol that his own. He had only ten days until he would be assassinated.

103 years later to the day, another man dedicated to civil rights and the advancement of justice, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

April is a Historic month with many stories to tell.

Before They Became Enemies, They Were Brothers

Today in History, March 29, 1847:

The siege of Veracruz, Mexico, led by American General Winfield Scott, is completed successfully with the capture of Veracruz by American forces after the first amphibious landing by American troops.

This was important by itself…but it added to the historical record, because many of the comrades in arms at Veracruz would, within 13 years, despite their loyalty to each other, become devout enemies.

Fighting together at Veracruz were Robert E. Lee, George Meade, Ulysses S. Grant, James Longstreet, and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Some would be Unionists, some Confederates…but before the Civil War, they are comrades.