Antietam Battlefield-- Part 2

The battle took place September17, 1862, just over 150 years ago.  Within four hours, 10,000 Americans on both sides were casualties with the heaviest action taking place with a one mile square area which was right in front of us.

A major flaw in the Union's battle plan were its piecemeal attacks.

There is a tower near the center that was built in 1897 by the Army War Department for use by the military to study the battlefield.  There are other such towers at Gettysburg, Shiloh and Vicksburg.A couple weeks ago, 300 Marines were studying the battlefield and even more recently the Joint Chiefs of Staff were there.

Five attacks were launched on Confederates along the Sunken Road with huge Union casualties until they captured key points and turned it into a bloodbath for Confederates.  The sunken road was a dirt path that had been worn down by wagons over the years and afforded an excellent defensive position.

More to Come.  --Old Secesh

Antietam Battlefield-- Part 1

I was fortunate to get to the visitor center in time for the park ranger talk on the battle.  However, I suggest visitors ( especially those who don't know a lot about the battle) try to get there earlier to see the excellent film on the battle which gives some solid background. 

The ranger presentation is at 10 AM and there is another one in the afternoon.

The ranger was very knowledgeable, but did it by memory.  Imagine he's done it a lot of times before.  I was happy to see so many people in attendance.  Often, I go to Civil War sites and its just the people at the center and me.  And, quite a few were younger and not there with their families.

The ranger said that we can see roughly two-thirds of the battlefield from our vantage point at the visitors center, which occupies the high ground backing up to the town.  These would have been the Confederate lines during the battle, though the Union forces came close to breaking them near our spot and even penetrated as far as the Dunker Church to our left and behind us a couple hundred yards.

The battle came down to three things:  Communication, Topography and Experience.  Nearly 30% of the Union soldiers were in their first-ever battle.  This was their first time to "See the Elephant" as Civil War soldiers termed seeing battle.  This is where I got the name of this blog.

More to Come.  --Old Secesh

Remembering the Civil War in the Land of Lincoln-- Part 2

***  Cairo, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers where Grant started his thrust south.

***  Fort Defiance State Park was a massive camp south of Cairo at the actual confluence.

***  Mound City National Cemetery is three miles north of Cairo and where both Confederate and Union soldiers are buried.  This is also where some of the river ironclads were built, including the one nearing the name.

***  Alton--  Confederates held at an infamous prison (that most have never heard of) where many died and are buried.

***  Rock Island--  another Confederate prison where some 12,000 were held and many died.

***  Wauconda--  the museum had a technology exhibit until last summer.  Every year during the summer a huge re-enactment is held there.

Old Secesh

Remembering the Civil War in the Land of Lincoln-- Part 1

From the April 13, 2011, Chicago Sun-Times by Lori Racki.

Illinois is famous for Lincoln, of course, but also noteworthy for other things in the war.

***  Only three states sent more troops to the war than Illinois:  New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio.  Illinois sent 259,092 soldiers to war.  Illinois troops were instrumental in Union victories at Shiloh and Vicksburg.

***  Then, there was that clerk from Galena who stepped out from behind the counter and ended up in command of all US troops.  That would be one U.S. Grant.  A grateful Galena gave him and his wife a home to live in after the war.

***  Jacksonville was the hometown of Col. Benjamin Grierson whose raid through the Deep South in 1863 greatly helped Grant taking Vicksburg.  The town celebrates his life annually with its Gen. Grierson Days Festival.

More to Come.  --Old Secesh

Lorain, Ohio's Civil War Dead-- Part 2

Two others buried in Lorain.

Augustus Silverthome was born in New York and moved to Lorain.  In 1863, at age 28, he enlisted in Co. F, 128th Ohio and served three years as a private.  He was discharged in 1865, three months before Lee's surrender on a surgeon's certificate of disability.

He served as a guard for the remainder of the war and after it at the Confederate prison camp at Johnson's Island in Sanduskey Bay and died Feb. 27, 1866.  I have to wonder if it is from his disability.  He is buried at Charleston Cemetery.

A,H. Babcock, Sr. served as mayor of Lorain 1889-1890.  He was born in Dundee, Michigan, and in 1861 enlisted in Co. F, First regiment Engineers and Mechanics Corps.  He spent much of the war building blockhouses and repairing bridges.  This would probably have been by railroads for both endeavors.

He fought at Mill Springs, Ky.; Champions Hill, Mississippi; Murfreesboro, Tn.; and the March to Atlanta.  Honorably discharged in 1864, he returned to Dundee and operated a general merchandise business until 1878 when he moved to Lorain and opened a grocery.

Ohio's Pride.  --Old Secesh

Lorain, Ohio's Civil War Dead-- Part 1

From the April 24, 2011 Northern Ohio Morning Journal "Lorain's Civil War heroes honored 150 years later" by Ron Vidika.

There are 114 Civil War veterans buried in four Lorain cemeteries.  Seven are in Calvary Cemetery, one each in Ridge Hill and Charleston cemeteries and 106 in Elmwood.

One was a woman, Sarah W.R.C. Shaffer, buried in Elmwood of the 103rd Ohio Infantry.

Probably the most famous one is General Quincy Adams Gilmore.  He was born in Lorain County in 1825 and an 1849 USMA graduate.  After graduation, he was assigned to the elite Corps of Engineers (the top graduates).  He built forts, taught at West Point and after leaving the Army, served as the head of an engineering agency in New York City.

Rejoining the Army at the beginning of the war, he was commissioned a 1st Lt and was chief engineer of the Port Royal Expedition Nov. 7, 1861.  He received praise for his efforts in the capture of Fort Pulaski and helped in the capture of Morris Island and Fort Wagner by Charleston, SC.

Robert J. Crowley of Lorain entered the Navy and served in the West Gulf Blockading Squadron.  At the Mobile, Alabama, his gunboat was blown up by a torpedo, killing and wounding half of the crew.  He narrowly escaped.

Honoring the Veterans.  --Old Secesh

Oregon's Fort Hoskins Commander's House Tour Set

From the May 16, 2012, Corvallis Gazette Times.

The tour was set for May 19th.

Fort Hoskins was constructed in 1857 by Lt. Philip Sheridan, later a famous Civil War general.  The post was built bu the U.S. Army to monitor Coastal Indian Reservations.

During the Civil War, it kept an eye out for Confederate sympathetic activity in the Willamette Valley.

The fort was abandoned in 1865 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Old Secesh

Illinois Returns Mississippi Flag

The flag of the 46th Mississippi Infantry, captured at Fort Blakely, Alabama, on April 9, 1865, was returned from the state of Illinois where it had been in the Hall of Flags in Springfield, Illinois.

The Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans worked hard to accomplish it.

A celebration was held April 28, 2012, at Beauvoir, Mississippi, Jefferson Davis' postwar home, where it will be on permanent display, near the graves of members of the 46th Regiment who are buried on the grounds.  It was made possible by efforts of the Illinois and Mississippi National Guards.

Good to Have It Home.  --Old Secesh

Jews Don the Gray, Fight for the South

From the Nov. 26, 2009, Washington Times.

There are 30 names: including Adler, Cohen, Hessberg, Wolf and Seldner.  They are from various states, but they all have the fact that they died in Virginia and all are Jews.  The lie together in the Soldier's Section of the old Hebrew Cemetery at Shockoe Hill in Richmond, Virginia.

During the war, there were three synagogues in Richmond.  There were also large Jewish populations at other cities, including Atlanta and Charleston with the largest concentration in New Orleans.

No entirely Jewish regiments were formed to fight for the Confederacy, and it is estimated that between 2,000 and 3,000 donned the Confederate gray.

More than 100 Richmond Jews enlisted, fifteen of whom joined the Richmond Blues who later became part of the 46th Virginia Infantry.  Myer Angle, president of the Beth Ahabah, had six sons in the Army of Northern Virginia.

Organized June 5, 1866, the Hebrew Ladies' Memorial Association (HLMA) began reburying Confederate dead and memorializing their memory with monuments and a memorial day celebration.  The Soldiers' Section at the cemetery was dedicated that same day in June.

Fighting For the Cause.  --Old Secesh

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Abraham Lincoln-- Part 4

7.  Lincoln was offered the governorship of the OREGON TERRITORY in 1849, but turned down the job.

8.  The story that Lincoln wrote the farmed GETTYSBURG ADDRESS on a scrap of brown paper on the train to the battlefield is complete bunk.  This story comes from a 1906 article by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews that ran in Scribner's Magazine "The Perfect Tribute."

Lincoln, a gifted speechwriter, by all accounts, started it weeks before.  A Chicago Tribune article in 1877 also debunked the myth.

9.  The "GOLD HOAX" was started in May 1864, when a New York journalist named Joseph Howard invested a lot of money in gold and then forged phony dispatches about how war suspects were forcing Lincoln to draft another 400,000 soldiers.  He figured the bad news would inflate the price of gold.

Two New York papers picked up the story and Lincoln ordered the papers closed and their editors arrested.  Lincoln was especially mad because he was already planning a new draft and had to delay it.

10.  When Lincoln was ten, a HORSE kicked him in the head, and for a short time, young Abe, er, Abraham was feared dead.  He had been trying to get the family mare to work faster in the field, whipping her and yelling, "Git up, you old hussy."  As he said "Git up!" one last time, the horse knocked him senseless.  Supposedly, when he came to, his first words were "You old hussy."

If you go to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield and see the show, be careful when he gets kicked.  It's liable to scare you.  I think they also referred to it as a mule, not a horse.

You Old Hussy!  --Old Secesh

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Abraham Lincoln-- Part 3

5.  Lincoln declined the King of Siam's offer to supply the U.S. with ELEPHANTS in 1862, saying that the climate of the U.S. wouldn't be in favor of "the multiplication of the elephant."  I guess it could have been like Hannibal's elephants going into battle, only against Confederates instead of Romans.  I doubt they would have lasted too long on the battlefield with all those cannons.  Kind of hard to miss an elephant.

Well, had the Union used elephants, the Confederates could have said they had "seen the elephant" and really meant it, not just referring to seeing battle.  Either that, or they had gotten a bit too much of that moonshine.


6.  WHO LIVED IN LINCOLN'S LOG CABIN?    That cabin that sits inside the marble temple near Hodgenville, Kentucky, could just as easily have been Confederate President Jefferson Davis'.  Back in the late 1800s, the entrepreneur who bought the Lincoln property found no cabin on it.  he found a nearby one which legend had being the Lincoln cabin that had been taken apart and moved.

That man put both that cabin and one that he bought that supposedly was Davis' boyhood home on tour and exhibited them in Nashville, Tennessee, and Buffalo, NY,.  The logs from the two homes were later intermingled and stored in a New York warehouse.  They were resurrected for the historic site, which opened in 1911.

Well, either way, they are old cabins and would indicate the poor beginnings of the two future presidents.

You Don't Know Lincoln.  --Old Secesh

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Abraham Lincoln-- Part 2

4.  The famous BIXBY LETTER written by Lincoln was intended to express sympathy to a Boston mother who had lost five sons in the Civil War.  This letter was featured in the Tom Hanks film "Saving Private Ryan" and read by President George W. Bush at 9-11's Ground Zero in New York City.

In fact, Lydia Bixby lost only two sons (still two too many) in battle.  A third got an honorable discharge, a fourth deserted and a fifth was captured and later listed as a deserter.

Mrs. Bixby was a Southern sympathizer suspected of running a house of prostitution may have claimed here sons' deaths to get sympathy and perhaps donations.  I have also read that Mrs. Bixby destroyed the letter after she let the local paper reprint it to show her disgust with Lincoln.  There is also some question as to whether Lincoln wrote the letter in the first place.  Some believe it was his personal secretary, John Hay.

Fact or Fiction?  --Old Secesh

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Abraham Lincoln-- Part 1

From the November 11, 2012, Chicago Tribune by Mark Jacob and Stephen Benzkofer.  I usually do these in my Cooter's History Blog, but a lot of this pertains to the Civil War, so here goes.  These two reporters are researchers grade A and did this because of the new movie on Lincoln.

 1.  Lincoln detested the name"ABE," and his friends and family avoided using it in his presence.


2.  The Lincoln's Sparrow is not named after him, but for Thomas Lincoln, a man from Maine who shot the bird so John James Audubon could draw it.  Also, the towns of Lincoln in Alabama and Vermont and the counties of Lincoln in Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee are all named for Revolutionary War general Benjamin Lincoln who accepted the British surrender at Yorktown.

2A.  Lincoln, Illinois, was named after Abraham Lincoln before he became president.  He reportedly christened the town by spitting out a watermelon seed.


3.  Lincoln wanted blacks to be free--to leave the country and supported proposals to send them back to Africa at one time.

More to Come.  --Old Secesh

Civil War Deaths Higher Than Thought

From the April 3, 2012, Philadelphia Inquirer by Peter Mucha.

The true death toll of the war was about 750,000, some 20% higher than the traditionally-quoted 620,000, and might even be as high as 850,000 according to J. David Hacker of Binghamton University in New York.  It was published in the December issue of Civil War History.

James McPherson, author, thought the 620,000 number might be too low, especially with the Confederacy's 260,000.

The older estimates determined the death rates from disease as about equal between Union and Confederate forces, but the North had better medical care.

Data from the 1870 census showed a big drop in the population.

Sad to have to Raise the Number.  --Old Secesh

Pearl Harbor Plus 71 Years

I am making mention of the anniversary of this U.S. defeat on all my blogs today.

And, on my World War II blog, I had five entries today on the subject.

Not Forgetting.  --Old Secesh