militaryhistory

On a solemn day in April of 1865, an older gray distinguished man mounted his horse and rode out to a small house owned by a man named Wilmer McClean. The house was at a place called Appomattox Virginian. Waiting for his were a group of Union Officers. One of which was Ulysess S Grant. The older man was Robert E Lee, the Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.

This was one of two days which would forever become the foundation for the southern cause. The first was July 4th, 1863 at Gettysburg Pennsylvania. It was on that day that Lee had sent approximately one third of the Army of Northern Virginia to its death as part of “Picketts Charge”. This event would later be refered to as the Confedrerate high water mark, and in the famous  words of Edwin Bearss aNational Parks Civil War Historian, “And the Confederate tide, rolled back”.

But out of the surrender and defeat rose the “Confederate Cause”. The cause would live on for generations in the hearts and minds of southerners. An idea that in many ways still permeates southern culture today through symbolism, thought and learning, that has been passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation. In the north, the southern cause is an abstract idea, read about in history books, hashed out on the silver screen and made up of men in white sheets and burning crosses. But in reality, the southern cause evolved into something more complicated and viceral to the southerner and emotional to those who are touched by it.

In  a novel by William Faulkner “Intruder in the Dust”, Faulkner states;

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain…… In this eloquent paragraph, Faulkner sums up what is in the heart of a southerner, in the heart of a young south, so ready to stand on her own. And yet that moment in history does take place on that long and open killing ground.

Out of the ashes of Gettysburg, also rose a central figure to the cause. A man who isthe most beloved in the southern experience, a name that still hangs on the tounges of both southerner and northerner alike. The man, was non other than Robert E. Lee.

Lee, was later refered to as the marble man. This is because he had been firmly placed on a pedestal by southerners and and greatly admired by many northerners as well. When it comes to Lee it is indeed very difficult to seperate the man from his myth. Even now, as I write this paragragh, I myself feel a great connection To Robert E. Lee.

As a young man in eigth grade I visited Washington DC with my class prior to graduation. I visited Arlington National Cemetary, I saw the overwhelming multitude of graves, I saw from a distance Lee’s Mansion. It was a white gleeming ediface of beauty to my eyes. But at the time I had no idea that it was a focal point of anger during the civil war, and that Lee had sacraficed his home, his commission in the Union Army and his entire life for what he believed.

Many years later as an adult, I visited Washington Lee University where Lee’s tomb is located. As I stood at his tomb, I remember being completed and utterly overwhelmed by the power of being in Lees presence. It mattered not that he had already been deceased for generations. As an adult I knew what sacrafice meant. I had been in the military, saw my commrades die in the execution of their duties, I had made my own sacrafices and clearly understood what most people never come to understand, that duty and service commands all in the life of those that choose a military career, and it did with Lee, and so many that had served under in him in the “cause”.

On December 26, 1860, five days after South Carolina seceeded from the Union, A U.S. Army Major, by the name of  Robert Anderson moved his garrison from the indefensible Fort Moultrie and secretly relocated his two companies (127 men, 13 of them musicians) of the 1st U.S. Artillery to Fort Sumter. He did this without official authorization or obedience to orders from Washington. He thought that providing a stronger defense would delay a Rebel attack. The Fort was not yet complete at the time and fewer than half of the cannons that should have been there were available due to military downsizing by James Buchanan. Ironically the newly formed Confederate government would view this move as an act of hostility. Over the next few months, repeated calls for the United States to evacuate Fort Sumter from the government of South Carolina and later Confederate Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard were ignored. Attempts to resupply and reinforce the garrison were repulsed on January 9, 1861 when the first shots of the war stopped the steamer Star of the West, a ship hired by the United States to transport troops and supplies to Fort Sumter, from completing the task. After realizing that Anderson’s command would run out of food by April 15, 1861, President Lincoln ordered a fleet of ships, under the command of Gustavus V. Fox, to attempt a forced entry into Charleston Harbor to reinforce Fort Sumter. The ships assigned were the steam sloop-of-war USS Pawnee, steam sloop-of-war USS Powhatan, transporting motorized launches and about 300 sailors (secretly removed from the Charleston fleet to join in the forced reenforcement of Fort Pickens, Pensacola, Fla.), armed screw steamer USS Pocahontas, Revenue Cutter USS Harriet Lane, steamer Baltic transporting about 200 troops, composed of companies C and D of the 2nd U.S. Artillery, and three hired tug boats. By April 6, 1861 the first ships began to set sail for their rendezvous off the Charleston Bar. The first to arrive, the Harriet Lane, arriving before midnight of April 11, 1861

1861, inside the fort flying the Confederate Flag

On April 12, 1861, at 4:30 a.m., Confederate batteries opened fire, the bombardment continued for 33 straight hours, on the fort. Edmund Ruffin, noted Virginian agronomist and secessionist, claimed that he fired the first shot on Fort Sumter. His story has been widely believed, but Lieutenant Henry S. Farley, commanding a battery of two mortars on James Island fired the first shot at 4:30 A.M. The garrison returned fire, but it had no effect. In part because Major Anderson did not use the guns mounted on the highest tier, the barbette tier, where the gun detachments would be more exposed to Confederate fire. On April13th , Anderson surrendered the fort. During the attack, the Union colors fell. Lt. Norman J. Hall risked life and limb to put them back up, burning off his eyebrows permanently. No Union soldiers died in the actual battle though a Confederate soldier bled to death having been wounded by a misfiring cannon. One Union soldier died and another was mortally wounded during the 27th shot of a 100 shot salute, allowed by the Confederacy. Afterwards the salute was shortened to 50 shots. Accounts, such as in the famous diary of Mary Chesnut, describe Charleston residents along what is now known as The Battery, sitting on balconies and drinking salutes to the start of the hostilities.

The hostilities proir to the fall of Fort Sumter, and now the seizure of a federal installation had opened wounds that could only healed by the spilling of blood. One person said that all of the blood that was to be spilled during this conflict would be cleaned up with one hankerchief. This was a terrible miscalculation. The Cvil war would kill approximately 600,000 lives, and these were only military numbers. No one knows the numbers of civilians who perished in the conflict, particularly in the south where the war was executed.

The west, Missouri,  Arkansas and Kansas were rife with guerilla warfare as pro-slavery rebels clashed with anti-slavery factions. Governments in many southern states split into two, one part confederate and another part union. Before the war ended it would touch nearly every person who lived in the United States. 

HARPER’s FERRY VIRGINIA

I believe to have interfered as I have done, . . . in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it be deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done.”

- John Brown

On October 16th, 1859. John Brown and a handful of followers went to Harpers Ferry Virginia with the intention of attacking the federal arsenal that was located there. In what seemed to be a wild scheme, Brown intended to take the arsenal and trigger a general uprising of slaves who he assumed would rebel and come to his aid. Brown was wrong. However the incident at Harper’s Ferry would in the long run have the exact effect that he had hoped. The attack on Harper’s Ferry would also be host to some very unusual coincidences that would almost seem impossible but true. The story speaks for itself.

       About 11 p.m., Sunday, October 16, 1859, Brown, accompanied by 14 white men from Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Maine, Indiana and Canada, and 5 negroes from Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, some 20 insurgents, all fully armed, crossed the Potomac into Virginia at Harper’s Ferry, overpowered the watchmen at the Baltimore & Ohio railroad bridge, the United States armory and arsenal near the Baltimore & Ohio, and the rifle factory above the town on the Shenandoah, and placed guards at those points and at the street corners of the town. Brown established himself in the thick-walled brick building at the armory gate, one room of which was the quarters of the watchman and the other contained a fire-engine; he then sent six men, including the spy Cook, under Captain Stevens, to seize the principal citizens in the neighborhood and incite the negroes to rise in insurrection. This party broke into the house of Col. L. W. Washington, about five miles from Harper’s Ferry, about 1:30 a. m. of the 17th, and forced him and four of his servants to accompany them to Harper’s Ferry, he in his own carriage and followed by one of his farm wagons, which they seized. On their way back, at about 3 a.m., they captured Mr. Allstadt and six of his servants, placing arms in the hands of the latter. On reaching Harper’s Ferry, Cook and five of the captured slaves were sent with Colonel Washington’s four-horse wagon to bring forward the arms, etc., deposited at the schoolhouse in Maryland.
       In the meantime Brown halted, for a time, an eastbound passenger train on the Baltimore & Ohio, one of his men killing the railroad guard at the bridge; he also captured, as they appeared on the streets in the early morning, some 40 citizens of Harper’s Ferry, whom he confined, with Messrs. Washington and Allstadt, in one room of the gate or engine house which he had selected as his fort or point of defense.
       News of these occurrences spread rapidly, and citizens and citizen soldiery, with arms, hastened from all the surrounding parts of Virginia and Maryland to resist this high-handed invasion of their homes and States. About 11 a.m., of the 17th, the Jefferson Guards, from Charlestown, arrived, soon followed by the Hamtramck and the Shepherdstown troop, from Shepherdstown, and Alburtis’ company from Martinsburg. These, under the command of Col. R. A. Baylor, forced the insurgents within the armory enclosure, which they surrounded by a cordon of pickets. Brown then withdrew his men into the gate house, which he proceeded to loophole and fortify, taking with him ten of the most prominent of his Virginia and Maryland captives, which he termed “hostages,” to insure the safety of his band. From openings in the building the insurgents fired upon all white people that came in sight.
       After sunset of the 17th, Capt. B. B. Washington’s company from Winchester, and three companies from Frederick City, Md., under Colonel Shriver, arrived; later came companies from Baltimore, under Gen. C. C. Edgerton, and a detachment of United States marines, commanded by Lieut. J. Green and Major Russell, accompanied by Lieut.-Col. R. E. Lee, of the Second United States cavalry (with his aide, Lieut. J. E. B. Stuart, of the First United States cavalry), who, happening to be at Arlington, his home, near Washington, had been ordered to take command at Harper’s Ferry, recapture the government armory and arsenal, and restore order. Colonel Lee halted the Baltimore troops at Sandy Hook, about a mile and a half east of Harper’s Ferry, directed the United States artillery companies (ordered from Fort Monroe) to halt in Baltimore, then crossed to Harper’s Ferry with the marines, disposed them in the armory grounds so as to prevent the escape of the insurgents, and awaited dawn of the 18th before attacking Brown’s stronghold, for fear of sacrificing the lives of the “hostages” in a midnight attack.
       Soon after daylight of the 18th, after having posted the volunteer troops so as to completely invest the armory grounds, and prepared for an assault upon Brown’s fort by the marines, Lee, under a flag by Lieutenant Stuart, made a written demand upon Brown to surrender himself, his associates and the prisoners they had taken, with the assurance that “if they will peaceably surrender themselves and restore the pillaged property, they shall be kept in safety to await orders of.the President …. That if he is compelled to take them by force he cannot answer for their safety.” Stuart was instructed to receive no counter propositions from Brown, and to say that if they accepted the proffered terms they must immediately give up their arms and release their prisoners. As Lee expected, Brown spurned the offered terms of surrender. At a given signal to this effect from Stuart, Lee ordered forward twelve marines, led by Lieutenant Green, that he had put under cover near the engine-house, three of them supplied with sledge hammers to break in the doors, to attack Brown’s party with bayonets, taking care not to injure the citizens held captive, nor the captured slaves unless they resisted. The storming party quickly attacked the doors, but Brown had barricaded them inside with the fire-engine and fastened them by ropes, so the sledges were of no avail. Lee then ordered forward reserves, with a heavy ladder for a battering ram, with which a portion of the door was dashed in and admission gained. Up to that time Brown’s fire had been harmless, but at the threshold one marine was mortally wounded. The others quickly ended the contest, bayoneting the insurrectionists that resisted, Lieutenant Green cutting down Brown with his sword. The whole affair was over in a few minutes, and the captured citizens and slaves were released. A party of marines under Stuart was then sent to the Kennedy farm, which captured pikes (said to have been over 1,000), blankets, tools, tents, and other necessaries for a campaign, which Brown had there stored. A party of Maryland troops secured from the schoolhouse, where Brown had deposited them, boxes of carbines and revolvers, and the horses and wagon of Colonel Washington, which Brown had sent there to bring his military supplies to Harper’s Ferry.

Brown was later tried and convicted fortreason and would be hung. The incident would send shock waves through the nation. The south would shutter at the possibility of a greater slave up rising and would be killed in their beds while sleeping. The stage would be set and the seperation between north and south was one step away from total war.

The American people in 1860 believed that they were the happiest and luckiest people in all the world, and in a way they were right. Most of them lived on farms or in very small towns, they lived better than their fathers had lived, and they knew that thei children would do better still. The landscape was predominantly rural, with unending sany roads winding leisurely accross a country, which was both drowsy with enjoyment of the present and vibrant with eagerness to get into the future.

-Bruce Catton “The Civil War”

It is difficult to explain the civil war reenacting experience without talking about the war itself. The story would be incomplete without explaining the conflict in some detail. It gives substance to an extreme reaction to a failed national dialouge that eventually became the civil war, a dialouge that continues to this very day. The late historian Shelby Foote said that the civil war made us an “is”. This could’nt be more true, as before the war the United States was a collection decentralized states that were more or less under the control of a weak federal government.

Whereas this model of government may seem somewhat alien to us now, it was in fact the model that the founders of the nation intended. The early American government had fought the revolution to thwart just that. They had been controlled by a monarchy and had suffered under the yoke of opression from this strong form governing.

In 1803, the Corps of Discovery lead by Lewis and Clark had revealed that large tracts of land existed to the west, and the federal government was more than ambitious to exploit the land by any means. The only ways to do this were by treaty with the peole who already lived there, (which were the multitude of native american tribes), warfare when treaties failed and the highly encouraged settlement of the west by white settlers.

By the mid 1830’s the viabilty of just such a proram had become fully recognized. Despite the small size of the US Military during this time period (approximately 6000 +). The army had become both ambassador and enforcer in the west. They had forged treaties, relocated a majority of native americans west of the Mississippi River and used military force where necessary to enforce policy.

By the 1850’s the war with Mexico had opened up huge tracts of land in the southwest and both the government and settlers were in a race to settle the land. But the institution of slavery had poisoned the water of the new dream. The constitution had been forged with slavery under the table like a coiled rattlesnake waiting to strike.

Many alternatives were put fourth to settle the slavery issue, including the Missouri compromise, the Wilmot provisio and the idea of popular soveriegnty which would have given each state the authority to decide for itself as to permit slavery within the boundries of its juristiction.

There were however forces at work that were in opposition to the political compromises. A slave by the name of Dred Scott had been kept a slave by his owner and taken into the northern territory, when he sued fo his freedom, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger Tawney ruled that no black man had any rights that a white man was bound to respect. Then came the fugitive slave act which made it a law that any fugitive slaves found in the north were to be returned to their southern owners, this act gave birth to the underground railroad, a system of safe houses that assisted slaves in crossing the Canadian border to freedom.  Following this, the author Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” which shed light on the system of slavery. Her book sold 100,000 copies in the first year of production.

THE ABOLITIONISTS MOVEMENT

Then came “John Brown”, the meteor of the abolitionist movement. The “Abolitonist movement” in America, could for all purposes be considered a special interest group from a moder perspective. The movement had many prominent names who supported is ideas, including Frederick Douglas, a black one time slave, who won his freedom and became a highly educated individual. William Lloyd Garrison who wrote the newspaper “The Liberator” and called for immediate emancipation, (also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism ), but Brown set the tone for the bloodshed that was to follow in the next few years that would be the civil war period.

BLEEDING KANSAS

Kansas had become a powder keg of activity after the Kansas-Nebraska act implemented the idea of Popular Sovereignty, which gave the idea both fire and steal. Pro-slavery people were determined to see Kansas become a slave state and anti-slavery proponents were equally determined to see slavery abolished in the newly formed state. Subsequently the act also opened e door for the extremist and silenced the voice of the moderate. The abolitionist John Brown had lead a small contingent of raider to a place called Pottawanamie Creek Kansas, where he and his followers hacked several pro slavery peopl to death with broad swords.  Lawrence Kansas was later sacked and burned to the ground by border ruffians who invaded the state from Missouri. The union as they knew it was now falling apart.

Introduction By the Author;

For many children, thier minds are filled with family, play, new toys and baseball. I guess I had some of the same thoughts, but other things were in my head. Within my own thoughts were war. In the sense that I always heard the sounds of battle and flashed to battlefields filled with gun fire, explosions, the cries of the wounded and the deafening silence of the dead. My father was in the Navy during world war two, and I grew up on a diet of old war stories and a constant stream of world war two propaganda films that were a mainstay on the local Chicago TV stations, particulalry WGN late night TV. I fell in love with American history during the 200th aniversary of our nation and my father had help to pay my way to visit Washington DC with my eigth grade class, a trip that ignited my interest in history.

During the 1970’s and 1980’s, I served in both the Navy and the Illinois National Guard. These experiences furthered my interest in history. But it was’nt until the 1990’s that I found my way into Civil War Reenacting. I first ran into a civil group during a 4th of July celebration. The unit was Battery G, an artillery unit located in the northern Illinois area. The impression they made was unrivaled, as I sat down muzzle from their artillery piece, a full scale nepolean as they fired rounds. I could feel the heat of the gun and the crash of the gun as it discharged. It had a lasting effect on me that I can still feel today.

THE GROVE

After my cannon experience, I started looking around and investigating the various civil war groups in the Chicago area. I met with a couple of groups and ran into Confederate Group that were based in notrhern Illinois called the 2nd North Carolina Dismounted Cavalry. I had some initial reservations about reenacting a Confederate soldier, due to the moral implications of slavery, which in reality, I knew very little about at this point in my life. That however would change as I became emersed in the reenacting sub- culture.My first reenacting experience was at a place called the Grove, in Glenview illinois which is essentially a an outdoor museum.

I was very nervouse, and felt a great amount of anxiety as I walked into camp for the first time. I recall the smell of canvas, campfires and felt the heat of the summer sun beating down on me. I met with my new found unit and was introduced to this new group of people. I had already bought my first musket, which was a two band Zouave musket, it was’nt exactly a historically correct weapon but it passed muster for this day. I borrowed period clothing from another member of the unit, and also had purchsed a pistol, a colt Navy pistol.

SOMETHING DEEP INSIDE

As we formed ranks to march to the battlefield, I began t raelize that this was indeed very familiar territory for me. As we approached the field there was an ld one room period school house occupied by a small contingent of federal troops in navy blue uniforms. The men in our ranks were anything but unifomed, they wore gray wool jackets, butter nut colored tunics a variety of different colored pants and many different styles of hats.

As we formed to cross the field, an officer drew his sword and ordered us to take the building and remove the federals. We opened fire, a dn the smoke of black power hung heavy in the area. There were yells and the sound of gun fire, and ignited something deep inside of me. This ground, this action felt very familiar and swelled up in me. It as a feeling that would grip me far beyond anything that I had ever known. I’ve heard of past life memory, and I tend to not adhere to such things. But at this point I had to believe that I had experienced something very powerful. It was an experience that would last for ten years. It would cause me to visit distant corners of the nation and walk the trails and fields that were walked by the soldiers of the civil war, and in some cases, I believe they still do.  It became more than a hobby to me, it was a way of life that would permeate every segment of my life. It would dictate how I looked at life, how I felt about my surroundings and how I dealt with lifes problems.

Ironically much like those who lived through the civil war my experience would end in personal tradgedy. It would launch me into many years of depression, doubt and self hatred as I struggled to make sense of what I had gone through.

On this day Nov 06th 1861;

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AS RECORDED

 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES

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An Astounding Triumph of Republicanism.

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THE NORTH RISING IN INDIGNATION AT THE MENACES OF THE SOUTH

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Abraham Lincoln Probably Elected President by a Majority of the Entire Popular Vote

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Forty Thousand Majority for the Republican Ticket in New-York

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One Hundred Thousand Majority in Pennsylvania

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Seventy Thousand Majority in Massachusetts

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Corresponding Gains in the Western and North-Western States

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Preponderance of John Bell and Conservatism at the South

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Results of the Contest upon Congressional and Local Tickets

The canvass for the Presidency of the United States terminated last evening, in all the States of the Union, under the revised regulation of Congress, passed in 1845, and the result, by the vote of New-York, is placed beyond question at once. It elects ABRAHAM LINCOLN of Illinois, President, and HANNIBAL HAMLIN of Maine, Vice-President of the United States, for four years, from the 4th March next, directly by the People.

The election, so far as the City and State of New-York are concerned, will probably stand, hereafter as one of the most remarkable in the political contests of the country; marked, as it is, by far the heaviest popular vote ever cast in the City, and by the sweeping, and almost uniform, Republican majorities in the country.