With the 45th Illinois at Shiloh-- Part 3: Union Graves and 'Half Seas Over'

"We buried  our Union boys in a separate trench, and on another board were the words:  '35 Union.'

"Many of our men had been taken away and buried separately by their comrades.  It was night when we finished the task, some of the squad, 'half seas over' with liquor, but they could not be blamed, for it was a hard job.

"The next day, we burned the dead horses and mules."

So, "Half Seas Over" is another way of saying "Snockered."

An Unpleasant Job All Around, But the Whiskey Helped.  --Old Secesh

Also Buried at Louisville's Cave Hill Cemetery-- Part 6: "Pappy" Van Winkle and "Charlie Ward

Buried at the cemetery along with Charles C. Gilbert.

JULIAN PROCTOR "PAPPY" VAN WINKLE, SR.  (1874-1965)

Businessman known as "Pappy" Van Winkle, he is the namesake of the premium bourbon of the same name (Old Rip Van Winkle).  Other brands his former company produced were Old Fitzgerald and Rebel Yell.  (I'm quite fond of Rebel Yell even though they changed its logo.)

***********************

CHARLES L. "CHARLIE" WARD  (1838-1875)

Songwriter, Confederate soldier and musician.  Well-known writer of minstrel and ,olotary songs in the 1850s and 1860s.  He wrote the words and/or music to such songs as "I'm Coming to My Dixie Home," "Think of Your Head in the Morning," "The Faded Gray Jacket" and "The Kentucky  Battle Song."

There has been speculation that the  tune "Dixie" was actually written by Charles Ward, with words by  Will S. Hays (not by Daniel Emmett)

During the Civil War, Ward  was the Chief Musician of the 4th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, CSA, of the famous Kentucky Orphan Brigade.

Bourbon and Dixie.   --Old Secesh

Gen. Grant Speaks at Hainesville-- Part 2: USMA, Military Career, Marriage, Resignation and 'Hardscrabble'

Presentation of Wayne Issleb, playing the role of General U.S. Grant.

But, he loved horses.  He trained them  By the time he was 12 he had quite a horse business going.

Grant went to West Point, even though he really didn't want to and graduated in 1843.  He was sent to Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis.  While at the military academy he had become a friend with Frederick Dent from Missouri and James Longstreet from Georgia.

He started going to his friend's home and met his sister Julia and became enamored of her and they eventually married.  However, his father did not attend because the Dents owned slaves and he was a strict abolitionist.

However, soon afterward, he was transferred to Oregon Territory while his family remained elsewhere.  This is when he started drinking.  

It was soon after that that he resigned from the Army and returned home. That trip from the West to home, via New York, took seven months as he went around the tip of South America.  By the time he got to New York City, he had used up all his money.  He had to borrow $70 to get back home to St. Louis.

From 1855 to 1857, he built a small farm at a place he called "Hardscrabble" and had a series of failed jobs.  In 1860, he asked his father for help was turned down because he was living in a slave state.

His Father Hated Anything Slave.  --Old Secesh

Civil War Slang-- Part 2: Secesh (Hey That's Me) and Bust Head

6. SECESH

Hey. that's my name!!    Short for secessionist.  Northerners used this as a put down to Confederates and Southerners.

7.  OPEN THE BALL

Starting the Battle.  Let the party begin.

8.  TIGHT

Slang for drunk.  From the old expression "Tight as a Tick."  So full of blood or liquor as it were.

9.  BUST HEAD / POP SKULL

Other names:  Moonshine, Booth  Terms for whiskey.  Well, cheap whiskey to be precise.  The whiskey was so strong that it could pop your skull or bust your head open.  You get what you pay for.

10.  LIGHT OUT

Not turning out the light as we might figure.  In the Civil War light out meant to leave in haste.

Secesh Who?   --Old Secesh

Troops Came to U.S. Capitol in 1861 and Left It In a Total Mess-- Part 1

From the Jan. 14, 2021, Washington Post "Troops lodged in the Capitol in 1861.  It was a wreck when they left" by Meryl Sonmez.

What with that huge turnout of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C. for President Biden's inauguration this Wednesday, I thought this article I found was appropriate.

At the beginning of the Civil War, President Lincoln, fearing for the safety of Washington, D.C., called out for thousands of soldiers to come to town on April 15, three days after Fort Sumter was attacked.  Three days later, they began arriving. 

Ohio Senator John Sherman, younger brother of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, recalled in his memoirs, "The response of the loyal states to the call of Lincoln was perhaps the most remarkable  uprising of a great people in the history of mankind."

But, he noted that they were not trained soldiers and had no discipline.  Some were housed in the Capitol building and they  wrecked it, getting bacon grease on the walls, swinging from ropes hanging from the ceiling of the dome and debating if they should ask for more booze

This greatly frightened the people who had to work in its hallowed halls and rooms.

--Old Secesh

Started With a Drunken Captain and Ended With a Mean Old Lady (But for Good Cause)

From the Spring 2019 Civil War Monitor  "Charley's Legacy" by Ronald S. Coddington, Military Images Magazine.

Captain Charles Gloyd served three years with the 118th Ohio Infantry and his war experiences turned him into a raging alcoholic.  His drinking buddies called him Charley.  Even so, he tried to live a normal life and took a wife named Carrie in 1867.

Their marriage, however, was short.  Charley drank himself to death in 1869.

His demise, left Carrie a widow at age 23 and with an infant daughter named Charlien, named after Charley. Carrie never forgot Charley.

As a matter of fact, this turned Carrie against the evils of drinking.  She eventually became a leading person in the temperance campaign and toured the country, making speeches, and, on occasion, wielding a famous hatchet smashing up saloons.

We have come to know her as Carrie Nation, her second husband's surname.

So, Now You Know.  --Old SeceshWatchOutForCarrie

Kentucky's Clay Family in the Civil War

I have been writing about Green Clay in my Not So Forgotten:  The War of 1812 blog last month and this month.  He was a veteran of the American Revolution and a Kentucky militia general during the War of 1812 as well as one of the richest men in the state.  He owned thousands of acres of land, many slaves and several distilleries.

In addition to other Clays, including the famous Henry Clay, who were involved in both the American Revolution and War of 1812, there were Clays playing roles in the Civil War.

I'll be writing about the Clays with a Civil War connection here in the next several posts.

--Old Secesh

The Confederacy Under Attack-- Part 105: And Even the Whiskey

Today, I went browsing around Binny's, a huge liquor store here in the Chicagoland area.  They have most any liquor you might want and is one of the few places I know that you can find Rebel Yell Whiskey which  has always featured a mounted Confederate cavalryman holding a sword.

He is no longer on the label.  Now all you see are the intertwined letters "R" and "Y." and the words "Rebel Yell."

So, It Strikes Here As Well.  --Old Secesh

William Herndon Speaks On Lincoln-- Part 5: "A Great Fan of the Bottle"

Herndon's (and Lincoln's) Law practice went downhill and Herndon ended up penniless and "a great fan of the bottle."

Lincoln is also the only U.S. President to have a patent

Researching the biography took 15-20 years and Herndon spent much time looking up and locating people who had known Lincoln for their impressions of the man.  And, he determined to write down all things, even ones that might show Lincoln in a somewhat negative light.

The book's publisher had giver Herndon an advance which is how he afforded the writer.

--Old Secesh

The Scourge of Whisky and Loose Women in Memphis-- Part 4: "Sell themselves and a Bottle of Liquor for a Dollar"

Continuing with George Cadman's letter to his wife.

I have come across mention that he was born and grew up in England which probably was why he made use of the 'habitues of Wapping and Shadwell" phrase.

"I shall be glad when we get orders for Vicksburg which I expect is our ultimate Destination, for here we have nothing but prisoners.  We cannot go more than 50 yards from our Camp without a pass, only in consequence of the misconduct of our Regt. in the Guard House, for offenses committed while Drunk.

"Even now women come to the very Guard line with their bodies strung round with Whisky under their clothes to sell themselves and a bottle of Liquor for a Dollar.  For the first few nights we could get no sleep for the cursing of the men [and] screaming of women and the firing of pistols outside our camp."

The 39th, Making Up for Lost Time.  --Old Secesh

The Scourge of Whiskey and Loose Women at Memphis- Part 2: "Habitues of Wapping and Shadwell"

Continuing with George Cadman's letter to his wife.  I kind of have to wonder why he wrote his wife about this particular thing.  It couldn't have settled her worries for her husband.

"One [company] got all its men in the Block (military prison) but three.  Our men were not quite as bad as that that, but the biggest part was drunk, in fact drunkenness was the order of the day, so you may form some idea of what the camp was like and with some Hundreds of the most Abandoned women in the world to add to this evil influence, I thought the habitues of Wapping and Shadwell were bad enough, but the Harpies of this place beat them all hollow."

Okay, I wasn't sure what he exactly meant by "habitues of Wapping and Shadwell" so looked them up even though I had a definite idea of what George Cadman was referring to.

The dictionary said "Wap" originally meant a hit or blow.  In slang between 1560-1730, it meant to copulate (usually used in reference to women.

Wikipedia said that Wapping is a district in East London, England, located by the Thames River whose proximity :"has given it a strong maritime character."  Many of the original buildings of Wapping were destroyed when the London Docks were built and many more during the Battle of Britain in World War II.

Let's see, what two things might attract a sailor after a long sea voyage.

The Scourge of Whisky and Loose Women at Memphis-- Part 1: "Did Not Take Them Long to Raise Hell Generally"

From the Mash Notes site.

I came across another letter written by George Hovey Cadman.  This one was a year earlier in 1863 and written from Memphis, Tennessee.  His 39th Ohio had just arrived at Memphis and he described what happened next.

George Cadman was a very literate man, even more so as an enlisted man than some officers.

Letter to his wife dated May 1863.

"When we arrived in Memphis our trouble began.  Women and whisky are plentiful here, and the men had been so long debarred from both that it did not take them long to raise Hell generally.

"Never did I see such a scene before in my life, and hope to God I never  may again for some days, in spite of all the Endeavors of the Colonel (Noyes?) who did his utmost to preserve discipline, the Camp was a wild scene of Debauchery."

The 39th Came to Party.   --Old Secesh