The American Civil War

[otiscleotus]

As the topic has taken over the Worst President In American History thread I suppose it is about time to give it its own thread. Maybe a mod could move some of the last posts it in over to here to help give this a running start.

When I was little I caught some of the last of the 100th years since attention it got but my current interest in it came from a series of early computer games by Talon that were part of their battlefield series. Since they are so old they're pretty much available for free (or were) on the web now, the problem is having a system that can play such ancient software. The maps used for them were excellent and I think could be pulled off as bmp files, I'll have to see if I can do that next time I'm near enough to the bin with those discs.

Those games led me to a pair of books called Generals In Blue and Generals In Gray by Ezra Warner. Originally written to be an index or dry reference source they contain thumbnail sketches of all the soldiers on both sides that obtained the rank (not brevet) of general during the conflict. The sketches are in the form of when and where they were born, what they did before the war, what they did during it, and if they survived what they did afterwards and when and where they dies and where they're buried. It makes for great reading because it covers not only a lot of what went on during the war but also what was happening on the continent for the entire century - there are guys that fought in the War of 1812 and some who were in uniform for the Spainish American war. Famous names that are viewed as icons today and forgotton figures that included a couple members of Walker's gang in Nicaragua and an early ardent follower of Karl Marx.

That in turn opened up a lot more writing for me on a much more comprehensible and enjoyable level.

In there other thread there are some later posts about how many of the soldiers came to have a benevolent attitude towards one another even immediately after the fighting stopped and how that could happen. If you've ever seen brothers get in a bar fight with one another and pummel the b'jesus out of one another and then leave with their arms around one another's shoulders I think you can grasp how it can happen. And also what a mistake it is to get between them while they're duking it out.

[otiscleotus]

I was able to pull some of the maps off those game discs. Also a composite of portraits of the leaders at the battles from the head general down though the corps, division, and brigade commanders. Those composites also contain pictures of guys just labeled "colonel", they're non-specific people that the game uses to replace one of the named leaders with if they get killed or badly wounded during the game.

I left the maps un-annotated for this post. If there's interest I can put labels on them for the names of the roads and various landmarks. And if people are really interested I could mark where/when the various corps-division-brigades where when the battles were fought. If you have a really good knowledge of these battles you can find your way around the maps without the annotation.

For this post I've got 1st Bull Run, 2nd Bull Run, and Gettysburg. Other battles I have include Antietam, Shiloh, Stones River, Chichmagua, and some smaller ones that occured around these major ones.




Note - it's easier to view the maps by saving them to your hard drive then looking at them with a picture viewer that you can zoom in with to see the detail. Except for the the edges of the grid system the game uses they are pretty good representations of the landscape at the time of the battle.

[begos]

Here's an excerpt from, and link to, today's NYT article in its excellent and ongoing series about the progression of the Civil War as it unfolded 150 years ago. I had no knowledge of what is discussed within it, and I think I can safely guarantee the same for 99+% of everyone else following things here.

Abe Lincoln and Filibuster Fever
These days the word “filibuster” brings to mind long-winded debates and congressional paralysis. But in January 1861, a very different use of the term occupied the mind of Abraham Lincoln...

...by the mid-19th century, it ("filibuster") had come to mean irregular armies from the United States bound for foreign lands and those who joined them. Some enjoyed nod-and-wink approval from federal or state officials, but most acted without governmental authority, even in outright defiance of Uncle Sam.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...ster-fever/?hp

Pretty fascinating information.

[DTravel]

Excerpts from some of the official declarations written to justify the secessions.


Mississippi:

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection
with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that
we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the
greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product
which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce
of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the
tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race
can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become
necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and
civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at
the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but
submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union,
whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

South Carolina:

These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which
each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own
institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to
free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to
represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their
slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by
stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been
defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the
action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of
deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied
the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized
by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of
slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies,
whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of
the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of
our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by
emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

Georgia:

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the
Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates
and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten
years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our
non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of
African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our
domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with
their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that
property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have
striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the
Republic.

Texas:

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one
of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic
tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty
to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own
constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the
compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was
received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the
institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the
white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first
settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people
intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical
position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding
States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association.
But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of
the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our
connection with them?

Tenessee:

First. A declaratory amendment that African slaves, as held under the
institutions of the slaveholding States, shall be recognized as property,
and entitled to the status of other property in the States where slavery
exists, in all places within the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress in the
slave States, in all the Territories south of 36 degrees 30 minutes, in the
District of Columbia, in transit, and while temporarily sojourning with the
owner in the non-slaveholding States and Territories north of 36 degrees 30
minutes; and, when fugitives from the owner, in the several places above
named, as well as in all places, in the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress
in the non-slaveholding States.

Speech of Henry Benning of Georgia to the Virginia Convention

I have been appointed by the Convention of the State of Georgia, to present
to this Convention, the ordinance of secession of Georgia, and further, to
invite Virginia, through this Convention ' to join Georgia and the other
seceded States in the formation of a Southern Confederacy. This, sir, is the
whole extent of my mission. 1 have no power to make promises, none to
receive promises; no power to bind at all in any respect. But still, sir, it
has seemed to me that a proper respect for this Convention requires that I
should with some fulness and particularity, exhibit before the Convention
the reasons which have induced Georgia to take that important step of
secession, and then to lay before the Convention some facts and
considerations in favor of the acceptance of the invitation by Virginia.
With your permission then, sit, I will pursue this course.
What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This
reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a
deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was
the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. This
conviction, sir, was the main cause. It is true, sir, that the effect of
this conviction was strengthened by a further conviction that such a
separation would be the best remedy for the fugitive slave evil, and also
the best, if not the only remedy, for the territorial evil. But, doubtless,
if it had not been for the first conviction this step would never have been
taken. It therefore becomes important to inquire whether this conviction was
well founded.

[otiscleotus]

Originally Posted by begos

Here's an excerpt from, and link to, today's NYT article in its excellent and ongoing series about the progression of the Civil War as it unfolded 150 years ago. I had no knowledge of what is discussed within it, and I think I can safely guarantee the same for 99+% of everyone else following things here.

Abe Lincoln and Filibuster Fever
These days the word “filibuster” brings to mind long-winded debates and congressional paralysis. But in January 1861, a very different use of the term occupied the mind of Abraham Lincoln...

...by the mid-19th century, it ("filibuster") had come to mean irregular armies from the United States bound for foreign lands and those who joined them. Some enjoyed nod-and-wink approval from federal or state officials, but most acted without governmental authority, even in outright defiance of Uncle Sam.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...ster-fever/?hp

Pretty fascinating information.

After obtaining the soundtrack by Joe Strummer to the awful film Walker I developed an interest in the strange story of William Walker and to a lesser extent the fillibusters of the pre-war period. Unfortunately there's very little in print now about them although in the early 1850s they were getting more debate in congress than slavery was.

Before his final trip to central america Walker wrote an autobiography. It's online now at:

http://books.google.com/books?id=bwc...page&q&f=false

There's a recent book on the filibusters called "Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America" by Robert May. It's more of a college text book than a general reading tome but one doesn't have much selection on the subject without visiting the rare books room at the library.

Walker also has a wiki page here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(filibuster)

At least one Union and one Confederate civil war general spent time with Walker in Nicaragau. I can't remember the Union one off the top of my head but the (mysterious) Confederate one was named Robert Charles Tyler:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_C._Tyler

And if you are familiar with the old TV show Bonanza there's an episode where an old friend of Ben Cartwright comes to visit the Ponderosa and they talk about their days as memebrs of Walker's Imortals.

As bad as it is - it gets ridiculous on purpose - the film Walker is worth viewing once. The guy's life was so extrordinary that a miniseries is really the only way to cover it on video.

[Ace1965]

Living here in Alabama I have always been very aware of the Civil War. I've been the the Battlefield at Shiloh but it's been back when I was in school and didn't really appreciate the significance of it. Chattanooga, TN is about 90 miles away from me and there were several key battles around there.

I have a degree in history from college but I've forgotten a lot of what I learned back then but I still love watching programs about the Civil War.

Look up a certain Confederate general named "Fightin" Joe Wheeler. He was from this area. I think he later served in the Spanish American War. His house is about 30 miles away from where I live now.

[otiscleotus]

Joe Wheeler did serve during the Spainish American war. There were a few others too. After the war a number of confederate generals made their way to Mexico for a time and a few even got to Egypt to fight for the Khedeve (spelling?).

I did more of the battlefield games maps. Murfreesboro was just a little too big for the picture host so I'll shrink it a little and put it up with more of the leaders pics which I forgot to do. I'll also add Prairie Grove and Wilson's Creek.

Then I guess I'll go back and annotate the maps with location names. I think I'll try to see if I can get the games installed as if I remember correctly there's a way I can get a snapshot of the field at various times and places in the battle with the regiments and batteries involved at that point. Also I can get each army's order of battle down to the regiment level and transcribe it.

Anyway the maps in order below are Antietam, South Mountain, Chickamauga, and Shiloh:

[DTravel]

During one of my road trips a few years ago I visited Gettysburg National Battlefield. If people are interested I may be able to dig up the photos I took there.

[crazybikerme]

Well, I declare for the South!

[rc_riddle]

Originally Posted by Hilts

Well, I declare for the South!

Us Yorkshiremen beg to differ, Hilts!!