Freedom is not free. Thank you to all our veterans.

A casualty is someone injured, killed, captured, or missing in a military engagement. The Civil War had plenty of all these. The casualty totals in the Civil War can only be treated as estimates. The exact numbers cannot be exactly known.

Dead at Spotsylvania, 1864.

Due to exhaustive research by many credible and earnest Civil War scholars, the casualty numbers presented here can be considered to be as accurate as possible. I have relied on trustworthy sources for the numbers and statistics I share in this post. The exact number of Civil War casualties will forever be a topic for debate.

One fact we can be certain of regarding Civil War casualty counts, the carnage of the Civil War was immense. War and disease provided the Grim Reaper with all he desired.

Let us not neglect to know that the cold numbers and statistics shown in this post are facts that represent real people. People who fought in a vicious war, who bled red blood whether they were clothed in blue or gray. People who lost limbs or were severely disfigured, people who died miserable, slow deaths of disease or injury, people who perished instantaneously in groups during battle, or slowly had life ebb away as they sprawled alone and incapacitated in the aftermath of a major battle or minor skirmish. Many died agonizing and feverish deaths of disease. These numbers are human beings.

Dead Yankee at Petersburg, 1864.

How Many Died in the Civil War? The quick and simple answer is that no one knows for sure exactly how many died in the Civil War, neither for the North or the South. An estimate of the deaths in the Civil War is 623,026. This means that of men of service age, one out of eleven men died during the Civil War years between 1861 and 1865.

Below is a chart showing how the Civil War compares in total deaths to other wars:

A severe facial wound suffered in the Civil War.

How Many Casualties in the Civil War? For both sides in the Civil War, 471,427 can be considered as a minimum number of those wounded. When added to the estimate of 623,026 deaths, the total estimate of Civil War casualties is 1,094,453.

Greatest Union Battle Losses

+ Not including South Mountain and Crampton’s Gap.
++ Includes Chantilly, Rappahannock, Bristoe Station, and Bull Run Bridge.
Source of table: William E. Fox, Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865

The Union Armies lost 110,070 killed or mortally wounded, and 275,175 wounded; for a total of 385,245. This does not include the missing in action. Of the 110,070 deaths from battle, 67,058 were killed on the field and the remaining 43,012 died of wounds.
This table shows how this loss was divided among the different arms of the service:

Source of table: William E. Fox, Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865

The losses in the three main categories of Union troops were:

Source of table: William E. Fox, Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865

DIED BY DISEASE. NOT INCLUDING DEATHS IN PRISONS.

Source of table: William E. Fox, Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865

Deaths in the Union Army, from all causes, as officially classified.
DEATHS FROM ALL CAUSES:

NOTE: The deaths from accidents were caused, principally, by the careless use of fire-arms, explosions of ammunition, and railway accidents; in the cavalry service, a large number of accidental deaths resulted from poor horsemanship.

Source of table: William E. Fox, Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865

DEATHS IN CONFEDERATE ARMIES
James B. Fry, United States Provost Marshal-General, provides a report in 1865-1866 that includes a tabulation of Confederate losses. Fry’s report is compiled from the muster-rolls which are on file in the Bureau of Confederate Archives. This report is incomplete, as Confederate records can be, and often are, spotty. For example, in these records the Alabama rolls are mostly missing. Nonetheless, the numbers are worth noting. From General Fry’s report, the following table was created by William E. Fox in his Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865:

Source of table: William E. Fox, Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865

Confederate Deaths of Disease:

Source of table: William E. Fox, Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865

1861 – Secession Completes and the Bloodshed Begins
South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860. In 1861, the Confederate States of America would gain its full roster of states. Here is a list of the seceding states and their dates of secession from the Union:

* South Carolina – December 20, 1860

* Mississippi – January 9, 1861

* Florida – January 10, 1861

* Alabama – January 11, 1861

* Georgia – January 19, 1861

* Louisiana – January 26, 1861

* Texas - February 1, 1861

* Virginia – April 17, 1861

* Arkansas – May 6, 1861

* North Carolina – May 20, 1861

* Tennessee – June 8, 1861

The Confederate States of America now exists. The blood of the Civil War starts flowing on April 12, 1861 as the Confederates fire on Fort Sumter. The Civil War begins.

Walt Whitman

To me, Whitman’s 1861 poem shows he knew the year of 1861 brought about a sea change. Before then, it was all about attempts at compromise, politicians debating and arguing, rattling of swords, and talk, talk, talk. Now the year 1861 brings about bloodshed and death with the gathering of men; "clothed in blue" and of "well-gristled body, and sunburnt face and hands," with "a knife in the belt at your side," and "bearing weapons." Whitman says there should be "No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses" for this "terrible year," of 1861. War and all of its evil, has arrived for North and South. It is for the reader to analyze and interpret Walt Whitman’s poem titled 1861, as he or she sees fit.

1861
Walt Whitman

ARM’D year! year of the struggle!
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year!
Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas
      piano;
But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing,
      carrying a rifle on your shoulder,
With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands–with a knife in
      the belt at your side,
As I heard you shouting loud–your sonorous voice ringing across the
      continent;
Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities,
Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the
      dwellers in Manhattan;
Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and
      Indiana,
Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the
      Alleghanies;
Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along
      the Ohio river;
Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at
      Chattanooga on the mountain top,
Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed in blue, bearing
      weapons, robust year;
Heard your determin’d voice, launch’d forth again and again;
Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipp’d cannon,
I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.

A commentary about Walt Whitman by EnglishGuyinTexas.
EnglishGuyInTexas

Another post with information about Walt Whitman…

Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis was born in Kentucky on June 3, 1808. A curious fact of the year 1808 (especially when you consider what Jefferson Davis’ life would mean to the Confederacy, slavery, and the history of the United States), is that in 1808 the importation of slaves was made illegal in the United States of America.

• Jefferson Davis was a graduate of the United States Military Academy (West Point). Davis ranked 23rd in his 33 member class of 1828. Also graduating in the 1828 West Point class was Robert E. Lee.
• After West Point, Davis was posted to the Pacific Northwest, serving there in the infantry. Davis transferred to the dragoons in 1833. After spending two years with the dragoons, Davis resigned as a first lieutenant.
• Jefferson Davis married Sarah, she was the daughter of Colonel Zachary Taylor, Davis’ commander. Colonel Taylor did not approve of his daughter marrying Jefferson Davis. Sadly, a short three months after they married, she died of malarial fever. Later, Davis would marry Varina Howell.

• Jefferson Davis took part as an officer in the Black Hawk War during the 1830s. Another officer in the Black Hawk War was Abraham Lincoln.
• Davis served from 1845 to 1847 in the House of Representatives as a Democrat.
• Davis fought in the Mexican War as a colonel of the 1st Mississippi Rifles. He was wounded at Buena Vista, and he declined a commission as a brigadier general. He then served in the United States Senate until 1853 when he became Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce. After Pierce’s presidency, Davis returned to the Senate.

• While he was Secretary of War, Davis imported camels and sent them to Texas. Davis thought the camels would do well in the arid environment of Texas and could be used as beasts of burden. The camels would be used to haul supplies and equipment for the United States Army troops in Texas. The Texas camels idea did not work out as Davis had hoped.
• Jefferson Davis and his wife, Varina Howell Davis, had four children. They lost their first child in infancy and then lost a son. Five-year-old Joe Davis fell from a balcony of the Confederate White House and died. Davis had the balcony torn down.
• After the Mexican War, Ulysses S. Grant was stationed in California. He was without his wife and children, and bored in California. Grant took to excessive drinking. Grant resigned his commission in 1854 and his resignation was accepted by the United States Secretary of War. The Secretary of War accepting Grant’s resignation from the United States Army was Jefferson Davis.

• Jefferson Davis was a strong supporter of states’ rights and supported his state of Mississippi’s secession from the Union.
• Mississippi seceded from the Union on January 9, 1861. On January 21, 1861 Davis was at the Capitol in Washington. History was about to happen. The Senate chamber was filled with curious on-lookers. On this morning, five senators from states that had seceded from the Union were to say their farewells. These senators were from the states of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. Jefferson Davis was among them. Davis rose and gave a stirring and emotional good-bye speech. He had been ill for a week and in bed. Davis had not slept the night before and was suffering from severe migraine head-aches.
• Montgomery, Alabama was the first capital of the Confederacy. On February 4, 1861 delegates from six of the states that seceded, met in Montgomery. Meeting at Montgomery, the Confederate States of America adopted a provisional constitution and also elected Jefferson Davis as provisional president. On May 20, 1861 the Confederate capital was moved to Richmond, Virginia. Montgomery only had two hotels, one of them was not up to desirable standards. The capital building in Montgomery was a bit small for the needs of the new Confederacy. Lack of adequate and decent hotel rooms and the need for a larger building in which to conduct the business of the Confederacy were some of the reasons for the move to Richmond.

• In February of 1861, at Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the provisional president of the Confederacy. On February 22, 1862 in Richmond, Virginia (where the Confederate capital now had been moved), Davis was inaugurated as the president of the Confederate States of America. The Confederate president was to serve a six-year term.
• Davis did not necessarily want to be president of the Confederacy. He would have preferred instead, to serve in the military and possibly command the Confederate army. As the events of the Civil War played out, Davis’ six-year term as the Confederacy’s president would be cut short.
• The White House of the Confederacy was the executive mansion for Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis and his family. It is located in Richmond, Virginia. The Virginia State Capitol was the Capitol of the Confederacy.

• "Dixie" was the unofficial anthem of the Confederacy. When Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Vice President Alexander Stephens rode to their inaugural, a band played "Dixie."
• Confederate postage stamps used only the portraits of President Jefferson Davis, General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, or Senator John C. Calhoun.
• Jefferson Davis delivered his inaugural address from the Washington statue on the grounds of the Capitol of the Confederacy.

• St. Paul’s Church in Richmond, Virginia became known as the "Cathedral of the Confederacy" because both Confederate President Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee attended church services there.
• Confederate President Jefferson Davis was attending church services at the "Cathedral of the Confederacy" in Richmond on Sunday April 2, 1865. During the church service Davis was given a note informing him that General Robert E. Lee’s lines had been broken at Petersburg. It was immediately time now, for the Confederate president to evacuate Richmond.
• Union troops occupied Richmond, Virginia on April 3, 1865. The Confederate capital of Richmond had fallen. President Abraham Lincoln went to Richmond the following day and visited the White House of the Confederacy. This visit to Richmond was a moment of glory for President Lincoln. The South was very near defeat, the Union was to be preserved, and slavery was to end. Lincoln saw Jefferson Davis’ office and took the opportunity to sit in Davis’ chair.

Accompanying Lincoln in Richmond was his 12-year-old son, Tad. This was to be Lincoln’s first and last visit to Richmond. Lincoln died on April 15, 1865, the victim of an assassin’s bullet. Tad Lincoln would die of tuberculosis in 1871. After the South surrendered and the Civil War was lost for the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis was captured by Federal cavalry on May 10, 1865. He was accused of treason. On May 22, he was sent to prison at Fort Monroe, Virginia. Davis was kept there without benefit of a trial, for two years. Fort Monroe is the largest stone fort ever built in the United States. It is named for President James Monroe. Jefferson Davis died at New Orleans on December 5, 1889. Davis and his family, General J.E.B. Stuart, and General George Pickett are all buried at the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. Over 18,000 Confederate soldiers rest in peace at Hollywood Cemetery. The cemetery is so named because of its many holly trees.

Barnes&Noble: Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour by William C. Davis

These two parts of Virginia that were separated physically by the Alleghenies, were also separated from one another in other ways. Western Virginia was made up of thirty-five counties located west of the Shenandoah Valley and north of the Kanawa River. In 1860, this part of Virginia had one quarter of Virginia’s white population. This area of Virginia’s geography is very rough country made up mostly of hills and steep mountainsides with narrow valleys. The geography of western Virginia separated it significantly from the more lowland eastern tidewater part of the state. It’s fair to say that Western Virginia was a land of mountaineers.

Proposed state of Kanawha – 1862

The western part of Virginia was more closely tied by roads and rivers to its northern neighboring states of Ohio and Pennsylvania than it was to eastern Virginia. The two sections of Virginia were different in geography, culture, and economics as the western part identified more with Ohio and Pennsylvania in these regards. The western Virginia city of Wheeling was the largest city in that area and it is a mere 60 miles from Pittsburgh. In contrast, from Wheeling to Richmond it was 330 miles! An important difference between western and eastern Virginia was that it was rare to find slave owners and slaves in the rugged country of the mountaineers.

The mountaineers looked at the people of eastern Virginia as “tidewater aristocrats” and because of the larger population in the eastern part of the state, the mountaineers were underrepresented in the state legislature. The tidewater aristocrats dominated Virginia’s state government. The Virginia state legislature had passed laws and taxes that favored the eastern tidewater aristocrats more so than they did the mountaineers of western Virginia. The mountaineers needed more roads and railroads, and other internal improvements, that instead often found their way to the tidewater aristocrat’s eastern part of the state.

Discord had been stewing for years amongst the two sections of Virginia before Virginia seceded from the Union. Separate statehood for western Virginia was not a new idea at the start of the Civil War, and now it would come to the vanguard. With Virginia’s secession from the Union, the unhappiness and disagreement between the mountaineers and the tidewater aristocrats of Virginia only increased. Only five of the thirty-one delegates from northwestern Virginia voted for the Virginia secession ordinance on April 17, 1861. The mountaineer people of Virginia rejected the secession ordinance ratification by a margin of three to one. The Virginian mountaineers had little interest in secession from the Union, but it came because of the domination of votes and representation of the pro-secession eastern part of Virginia. On June 11, 1861 mountaineer Unionists met at a convention in Wheeling. The focus of this convention was separate statehood for western Virginia. However, there was a hurdle that stood in the way of western Virginia’s statehood, it was something called the United States Constitution.

Barnes&Noble: Civil War in West Virginia

Seems that Article IV, Section 3, of the United States Constitution requires consent of the legislature to form a new state from the territory of an existing one. Now, as hard as it might be to believe, the Confederate legislature over in Richmond wasn’t eager to allow western Virginia to become a separate state … and one that would be in the Union to boot. For the mountaineers and their quest for their own state, there just had to be a solution to this United States Constitution problem, someway, somehow.

The answer for western Virginia was for the Wheeling convention to ingeniously form its own Virginia “restored government.” You see, that Confederate legislature over east in Richmond, that secessionist one, is illegal and so the Wheeling mountaineers declared all state offices vacant. The Wheeling convention appointed new state officials on June 20. Francis Pierpoint was now governor of Virginia, and the new state capital was now in Wheeling. All these changes, as far as the Unionist western Virginia mountaineers were concerned, restored the state of Virginia.

Although this new Virginia legislature was in place, it really represented only one-fifth of Virginia, that being the mountaineers of the northwest counties. Nonetheless, it elected two United States senators from Virginia, and on July 13, 1861 these senators were seated by the United States Senate. Soon too, the United States House of Representatives had three congressmen from western Virginia.

In effect, there now was a Union Virginia claiming to represent all of Virginia, but actually only being made up of the mountaineer northwest part of the state, and there was a Confederate Virginia with its government in Richmond with its patronage of “tidewater aristocrats” who had seceded from the Union. President Abraham Lincoln recognized the Pierpoint administration as the government of Virginia. Obviously, President Lincoln was not going to recognize Virginia’s Confederate version of government as legitimate.

The Wheeling convention ended, and then it reconvened in August, 1861. Now a long debate began between separatists and a conservative minded faction who thought it improper that the new legislature was claiming to represent the entire state. In reality, the new legislature only represented the mountaineers of western Virginia, and this region only consisted of one-fifth of all of Virginia’s counties. Nevertheless, despite this debate, the Wheeling convention continued to move forward with its agenda … to form a new state.

On August 20, the Wheeling convention adopted what was called an “ordinance of dismemberment.” An ordinance for separate statehood had now been created. This ordinance would be subject to ratification on October 24, 1861 by the voters. Voters would also be able at this time to elect delegates for a constitutional convention, the purpose of which was for the formation of a new state to be named “Kanawha.” [The name "Kanawha" is an Native American word. It is believed to mean "place of white stone." ]

Now, there were some military concerns that had to be handled concurrently with all this new state conventioning and formation going on in western Virginia. I will discuss the military operations of western Virginia completely in a future post, where they can be addressed fully and receive the attention they deserve. Important military assets such as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Ohio River were integral to western Virginia and their control was desired by both Yankees and Rebels. Suffice it to say for now, that Union military efforts in western Virginia were sufficient enough to rid the area of Confederate military problems, thus clearing the way for a new state to come about. This brief mention of the military operations in western Virginia is not to short-change them, they were significant. Indeed, without Union military dominance over Rebel troops in western Virginia, the formation of a new state would not have been possible.

Union military success in western Virginia allowed the October 24, 1861 referendum to occur. Voter turn-out was small, and voters (those of a Rebel ilk) in more than a dozen counties actually boycotted the election. The end result however, was that the creation of a new state was strongly endorsed.

West Virginia counties map

Boundaries for the new state were set during the constitutional convention held in January, 1862. There would be fifty counties in the new state and the new state would not be called Kanawha, but instead West Virginia. On May 23, 1862 West Virginia was sanctioned by the restored legislature of Virginia. The United States Congress would not allow a slave state to enter the Union, so first a bill requiring emancipation in West Virginia was passed in the United States Senate in July, 1862. It passed in the United States House of Representatives the following December. West Virginia accepted emancipation as a condition to statehood.

The eastern aristocrats still had their Confederate state of Virginia, but they lost some state territory as on July 4, 1863, the new state of West Virginia joined the Union.

West Virginia state flag.

West Virginia became the 35th state of the Union.

Barnes&Noble: Civil War in West Virginia: A Pictorial History

The Convention, by its pretended ordinances, has required the people of Virginia to separate from and wage war against the government of the United States, and against the citizens of neighboring State, with whom they have heretofore maintained friendly, social and business relations: It has attempted to subvert the Union founded by Washington and his co-patriots in the purer days of the republic, which has conferred unexampled prosperity upon every class of citizens, and upon every section of the country: It has attempted to transfer the allegiance of the people to an illegal confederacy of rebellious States, and required their submission to its pretended edicts and decrees:

Secession fever hit the South after Abraham Lincoln was elected president. The South considered Lincoln’s Republican party victory in the 1860 presidential election as a sign that the North was now going to end the “peculiar institution” of slavery. For the South, the time of talk and compromise had ended. In December, 1860 South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union. Secession of the rest of the states that would make up the Confederate States of America occurred in two waves.

By the first week in February, 1861 six more states joined South Carolina in secession. The first wave of states to secede from the Union were all states of the Lower South. These states included: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina.

The second wave of states to secede from the Union consisted of states from the Upper South. These states were: Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia.

The states of the Confederacy in order of their dates of secession from the Union:

The Confederate States of America was made up of eleven states.

Confederate States of America – 1864

Virginia was a very important state of the Confederacy. The capital of the Confederacy was first in Montgomery, Alabama, but Richmond, Virginia soon became the Confederate capital. Virginia had 40 percent of the Rebel manufacturing capacity and the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond would produce most of the Confederate artillery during the Civil War. As part of the Upper South, Virginia was a resource of vital agricultural and industrial assets needed to supply the Confederate war effort.

Many of the South’s military leaders were of Virginia, such as: Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. Jackson, J.E.B. Stuart, Joseph E. Johnston, A. P. Hill, Richard S. Ewell, and others. The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington provided many Rebel leaders of the Civil War. Along with North Carolina, and Tennessee, Virginia supplied most of the Confederacy’s soldiers. Richmond, Virginia is only 96 miles away from Washington D.C., and it was very important for the Confederacy to defend, and keep Richmond safe. Virginia was a hotspot of action during the Civil War. The First Battle of Manassas (First Battle of Bull Run was the name used for this same battle by the North) was the first major land battle of the Civil War, it was fought July 21, 1861, near Manassas, Virginia. General Robert E. Lee would surrender the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia on April 9, 1865.

The Winchester, Virginia area is rich in both Civil War and colonial history. Winchester is located in the north-western part of Virginia in Frederick County. This area is part of the Shenandoah Valley, and Winchester was an important transportation and commercial center. During the Civil War, from early 1862 to late 1864, Winchester changed hands between North and South no less than 70 times. Six major Civil War battles were fought in the Frederick County, Virginia area. These six major battles include the First, Second, and Third Battles of Winchester, the First and Second Battles of Kernstown, and Cedar Creek.

The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia was a place of much action during the Civil War. A curiosity of the geography of the Shenandoah Valley is that as you go down the valley from north to south, you actually go up in elevation. So, as you go “down” the valley, you actually go “up.” The Shenandoah Valley was an important route of invasion into the North for the Confederates, and was a source of much needed provisions. It was important for the North to prevent the South from using the Shenandoah Valley.

When Virginia seceded, it took over the United States armory located at Harpers Ferry, Virginia and the Gosport Naval Yard in Norfolk. The Gosport Naval Yard was the largest facility of shipbuilding and repair in the Confederate States of America.

The Virginia Ordinance of Secession

Virginia Ordinance of Secession
Virginia Secession Convention

AN ORDINANCE to repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United State of America by the State of Virginia, and to resume all the rights and powers granted under said Constitution.

The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States:

Barnes&Noble:Crucible of the Civil War: Virginia from Secession to Commemoration

Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain, That the ordinance adopted by the people of this State in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and all acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying and adopting amendments to said Constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the Constitution aforesaid is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Virginia is in the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.

And they do further declare, That said Constitution of the United States of America is no longer binding on any of the citizens of this State.

This ordinance shall take effect and be an act of this day, when ratified by a majority of the voter of the people of this State cast at a poll to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday in May next, in pursuance of a schedule hereafter to be enacted.

[Adopted by the convention of Virginia April 17,1861.]

[Ratified by a vote of 132,201 to 37,451 on May 23, 1861.]

Up, men, and to your posts! Don’t forget today that you are from Old Virginia!

– General George E. Pickett, to his men just before Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. Many of these men never returned to “Old Virginia.”

Just about everyone thinks he or she knows what the Rebel Yell sounded like. Movies and television have provided us their versions, but no one knows for sure what this battle cry sounded like. Or … do we know today exactly how the actual Rebel Yell sounded?

The Rebel Yell was first heard at The Battle of First Bull Run (First Manassas) on July 21, 1861. At an important part of the fight, as Confederate forces were failing, Rebel reinforcements arrived on the battlefield. The Confederates were able to rally and Thomas Jonathan Jackson gave the order; “Charge, men and yell like furies!”

The Rebel Yell thus was born. Savvy readers will know that not long before this, Jackson had gained his nickname of “Stonewall” from General Barnard Bee. As Jackson gave the above order that resulted in the Rebel Yell, he was not yet called Stonewall Jackson. After all, the battle was still being fought!

Confederate Lieutenant Richard Lewis, Fourth South Carolina Volunteers, wrote the following words describing the action at First Bull Run in a letter dated July 24, 1861 (bold added by your BlogMaster):

“The Yankees in such superiority of numbers … poured forth such a destructive fire into our ranks that our men were becoming confused and began to fall back. The gallant and noble General Barnard Bee dismounted his horse to rally the men, telling them as Carolinians they should never disgrace or dishonor their banner but should die under its folds, and all rallied again, and, with a shout and a yell that might have been heard for miles, they charged and repulsed the enemy, and drove them back from their position. It was not long before our brave General Bee fell mortally wounded.”

The Rebel Yell has been described as a high-pitched shout, and is possibly an adaptation of a Southern fox hunter cry. For the enemy Yankees, hearing the Rebel Yell most likely sent a chill of fear up their spines. Indeed, after the war, a veteran Yankee described the Rebel Yell:

“There is nothing like it on this side of the infernal region. The peculiar corkscrew sensation that it sends down your backbone under these circumstances can never be told. You have to feel it.”

There is no record that any Yankees actually ran after hearing the Rebel Yell.

Has the Rebel Yell been lost to history? Those who fought in the Civil War have long ago left us, they can no longer give the Rebel Yell, or tell us what it sounded like. But, maybe not!

Here is a video that possibly brings the Rebel Yell to our ears today:

During the Civil War, the young Yankee and Rebel soldiers most likely were far away from home for the first time in their lives. It was common before the war, for these young soldiers never to have traveled more than 25 miles away from their homes. Now, they could find themselves hundreds of miles away from their loved ones and homes. Understandingly, these young men often suffered from homesickness.

To keep in touch with their loved ones, the soldiers, and their families wrote letters back and forth. Pen and ink were often not available, so most of the handwritten letters were in pencil. Rough handwriting and phonetic spelling are common in these letters. For the Union, 90,000 letters went through Washington, D.C. daily. In Louisville, Kentucky 180,000 Union letters passed through daily.

Major Sullivan Ballou of the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers was 32-years-old at the beginning of the Civil War. He was born in Smithfield, Rhode Island and after attending the National Law School in Ballston, New York he was admitted to the Rhode Island Bar. Ballou married Sarah on October 15, 1855 and they had two sons, Edgar and William. Ballou was a Republican and a strong supporter of President Abraham Lincoln. He volunteered the spring of 1861. He and his men left Providence, Rhode Island for Washington, D.C. on June 19.

Major Sullivan Ballou

As what would become known as the First Battle of Bull Run (the Confederates called the same battle the First Battle of Manassas) approached, Sullivan Ballou wrote a letter to his wife back home in Smithfield. On July 14, 1861 Ballou wrote to Sarah as he sat alone in a tent at Camp Clarke in Washington, D.C., Ballou knew that the army would soon be moving southward against the Confederates, and that he would soon see battle. We’ll never know for sure, but perhaps he had a premonition of death, because he now took the opportunity to write a touching letter to his wife. In the letter, Ballou writes of his love for Sarah, and of his duty to his country.

Many are familiar with the Sullivan Ballou letter from hearing it during Ken Burns’ documentary The Civil War which aired in 1990. The letter was introduced by narrator David McCullough, and read by Paul Roebling with Jay Ungar’s Ashokan Farewell playing in the background. It only caught the hearts of everyone who heard it. The Sullivan Ballou letter is perhaps the most emotional and memorable letter written by a soldier in the Civil War.

The version of the Sullivan Ballou letter heard in The Civil War documentary was a shortened one. Some of Ballou’s words about his family and childhood are missing from the television presentation of the letter. In fact, the original Sullivan Ballou letter apparently did not survive, and has been lost to history. There are versions of the letter available today, but it is unknown which is most similar to the original written by Ballou.

Here is the Sullivan Ballou letter as it was heard in The Civil War by Ken Burns:

I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing – perfectly willing – to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this government, and to pay that debt.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but omnipotence can break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield. The memory of all the blissful moments I have enjoyed with you come crowding over me, and I feel most deeply grateful to God and you, that I have enjoyed them for so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes and future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and see our boys grown up to honorable manhood around us.

If I do not return, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I loved you, nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name…

Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have sometimes been!…

But, 0 Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they love, I shall always be with you, in the brightest day and in the darkest night… always, always. And when the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath, or the cool air your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for me, for we shall meet again…

Sullivan

Here is a longer version of the Sullivan Ballou letter:

July the 14th, 1861

Washington D.C.

My very dear Sarah:

The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days—perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure—and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine O God, be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing—perfectly willing—to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.

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But, my dear wife, when I know that with my own joys I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with cares and sorrows—when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it as their only sustenance to my dear little children—is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country?

I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death—and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.

I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in thus hazarding the happiness of those I loved and I could not find one. A pure love of my country and of the principles have often advocated before the people and "the name of honor that I love more than I fear death" have called upon me, and I have obeyed.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.

The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me—perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar—that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.

Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot. I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.

But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night—amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours—always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.

As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father’s love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers his and hers I call God’s blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.

Sullivan

Major Sullivan Ballou suffered a mortal injury on July 21, 1861 at the First Battle of Bull Run. Ballou lost his right leg when a Confederate six-pounder artillery shell slammed into him and his horse as he was riding at the front of his regiment. The horse was killed instantly, and the very severely injured Major Ballou was taken off the battlefield. What was left of his leg, had to be amputated. Major Sullivan Ballou died of his battle injury on July 28, and was buried in a yard very close to Sudley Church.

After the First Battle of Bull Run, the Confederates held the ground where Ballou was buried. According to witnesses, gruesome treatment of Ballou’s body followed. Confederate soldiers (supposedly, members of the 21st Georgia Infantry, but there is some uncertainty regarding this) dug up Ballou’s body, chopped off his head, and performed further insults and profanations to his remains. With these events, Sullivan Ballou’s body was never recovered. What was thought to be the charred ash and bone of Sullivan Ballou was later put to rest at Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, Rhode Island.

Barnes&Noble: People of Rhode Island in the American Civil War: Ambrose Burnside, George S. Greene, Frank Wheaton, Kate Chase, Sullivan Ballou

The now famous Sullivan Ballou letter may never have been mailed to Sarah. Rhode Island Governor William Sprague went to Virginia to gather the effects of soldiers from Rhode Island who had fallen at Bull Run. Sullivan’s letter to Sarah was among his personal effects, and Governor Sprague delivered the letter to Sarah Ballou.

Sarah was only 24-years-old when her husband Sullivan Ballou died. Eventually, she lived out her life with her son William in New Jersey. She died in 1917 at the age of 80 and was buried next to her husband’s remains at Swan Point Cemetery.

Sarah never re-married.

Winfield Scott

On May 3, 1861 General-in-Chief Winfield Scott writes to General George B. McClellan describing his strategy for subduing the rebellion. Later, Scott’s strategy was derisively referred to as The Anaconda Plan:

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,
Washington, May 3, 1861.
Maj. Gen. GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN,
Commanding Ohio Volunteers, Cincinnati, Ohio:

SIR: I have read and carefully considered your plan for a campaign, and now send you confidentially my own views, supported by certain facts of which you should be advised.

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First. It is the design of the Government to raise 25,000 additional regular troops, and 60,000 volunteers for three years. It will be inexpedient either to rely on the three-months’ volunteers for extensive operations or to put in their hands the best class of arms we have in store. The term of service would expire by the commencement of a regular campaign, and the arms not lost be returned mostly in a damaged condition. Hence I must strongly urge upon you to confine yourself strictly to the quota of three-months’ men called for by the War Department.

Third. A word now as to the greatest obstacle in the way of this plan–the great danger now pressing upon us–the impatience of our patriotic and loyal Union friends. They will urge instant and vigorous action, regardless, I fear, of consequences–that is, unwilling to wait for the slow instruction of (say) twelve or fifteen camps, for the rise of rivers, and the return of frosts to kill the virus of malignant fevers below Memphis. I fear this; but impress right views, on every proper occasion, upon the brave men who are hastening to the support of their Government. Lose no time, while necessary preparations for the great expedition are in progress, in organizing, drilling, and disciplining your three-months’ men, many of whom, it is hoped, will be ultimately found enrolled under the call for three-years’ volunteers. Should an urgent and immediate occasion arise meantime for their services, they will be the more effective. I commend these views to your consideration, and shall be happy to hear the result.

With great respect, yours, truly,

WINFIELD SCOTT.

Source:
Union Correspondence, Orders, And Returns Relating To Operations In Maryland, Eastern North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia (Except Southwestern), And West Virginia, From January 1, 1861, To June 30, 1865.–#3 O.R.–SERIES I–VOLUME LI/1 [S# 107]

At the beginning of the Civil War, General-in-Chief Winfield Scott was seventy-four-years-old, so overweight he could not mount or ride a horse, and suffered from painful gout. Scott’s best days were behind him.

The Anaconda Plan

Since the War of 1812, Scott had participated in all of America’s military actions. He was a genuine hero. There was no doubt about Scott’s leadership ability, in the War of 1812 he was once captured, and during the Mexican War he led the campaign that captured Mexico City.

His nickname was Old Fuss and Feathers, because of his reputation for strict adherence to regulations, and a propensity for fancy uniforms. Winfield Scott was born a Virginian in 1786, but was loyal to the Union. He did not understand Robert E. Lee’s choice to side with the Confederacy, and had even asked Lee to lead the United States Army.

President Abraham Lincoln sought Scott’s advice, however as the Civil War began, it was evident the aging Winfield Scott was not up to the demands of leading the army. At times, Scott would doze off during meetings. Scott voluntarily retired on November 1, 1861 and was replaced by George B. McClellan as general in chief.

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Winfield Scott’s Anaconda Plan was criticized as too slow and gained its “Anaconda” name when the press mockingly compared it to a snake slowly constricting its prey to death. As Scott’s plan was being considered, the clamor in the North was for an invasion that would quickly crush the Confederate army presently found at a railroad junction in northern Virginia named Manassas. Taking Manassas would hurt the Rebels significantly as the railroad lines there were major ones that connected to the Shenandoah Valley, and the thus to the heart of the South.

Richmond, Virginia had become the Confederate capital, and the southern Congress planned a session there on July 20, 1861. The New York Tribune (published by Horace Greeley) responded with this headline:

After this, other newspapers throughout the Union followed suit with the FORWARD TO RICHMOND! thought and the public soon caught on to the fever. In light of this, even though Southern seaports were beginning to be blockaded, Scott’s plan faltered as public and political pressure demanded quick military action. President Lincoln saw merit in attacking the Confederates at Manassas. On July 21, 1861 the Battle of First Bull Run (called First Manassas by the Confederates) took place. It was a Union loss, no Union troops went on to Richmond, and most skedaddled back to Washington. Soon the idea faded away that a quick, strong, and superior military action along with a compromising attitude, might end the Confederate rebellion fast. The Union would have to win the Civil War by destroying the Confederate armies on the field. Much time, many resources, and many, many lives would have to be spent to accomplish the Northern victory.

Barnes&Noble: Agent of Destiny: The Life and Times of General Winfield Scott Agent of Destiny: The Life and Times of General Winfield Scott

Winfield Scott’s Anaconda Plan was worthy. Blockading the South’s seaports and gaining control of the Mississippi River were major factors in crippling the Rebel economy and military. As the Civil War progressed, the basic strategy of the Anaconda Plan contributed ultimately to the defeat of the Confederacy. Old Winfield Scott lived to see the end of the Civil War. He died in 1866.

In June 1861, a small lad in Newark, Ohio gazed at Union troops marching through his town and despite his too young age, he wanted to join up and fight in the Civil War. The boy’s name was John Joseph Klem.

Earlier, Klem tried to enlist in the 3rd Ohio Infantry, but because of his age and small size, young Klem was turned away. Johnny Clem (he would be known by this name and spelling, later he would be called Johnny Shiloh, and officially he changed his name to John Lincoln Clem) was persistent with his desire to join the army, so he trailed along with the 22nd Massachusetts as it marched through Newark.

Johnny Clem

The 22nd Massachusetts made Clem its mascot and drummer boy. A sawed-off rifle and a small uniform were provided him, and officers of the Massachusetts unit pooled together to pay Johnny the regular soldier’s pay of thirteen dollars a month. Johnny was not yet even 10-years-old, but now he was a drummer (but, not necessarily a good one!), unofficially fighting for the Union. Two years later, Johnny Clem would be allowed to enlist. On May 1, 1863 Johnny officially became a musician in Company C, 22nd Michigan. A nurse describes Johnny Clem; "was a fair and beautiful child…about twelve years old, but very small for his age. He was only about thirty inches high and weighed about sixty pounds." Johnny Clem was one of the youngest soldiers for either the Union or Confederate armies, to fight in the Civil War. Johnny would go on to fame in the Civil War, and make the army his career.

It has been common for Johnny Clem to also be known as "Johnny Shiloh." A story goes that young Clem was at the 1862 Shiloh battle and his drum was broken by an artillery projectile, and then he picked up a gun for the fight. This story was very popular and eventually a poem, a play, and a song were all named "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh." Clem at Shiloh however, is questionable history.

There were others who claimed to be the actual "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh," but a study by the National Park Service showed Clem to be the most likely one. Clem’s service indicates he was with the 3rd Ohio, the 22nd Michigan, and the 22nd Wisconsin. The trouble is, is that the 3rd Ohio was not at Shiloh, and the 22nd Michigan, and the 22nd Wisconsin were not organized until after Shiloh. At this time, Johnny Clem was not yet officially a soldier, he was a young boy dressed up as a soldier trying to play the drum. He would not have been reassigned to any units that were at Shiloh. This BlogMaster will leave it up to the reader to decide if Johnny Clem is also Johnny Shiloh. We will see that there is no reason to doubt Johnny Clem’s bravery.

At Chickamauga on September 20, 1863 Johnny Clem rode to the front of the battle on an artillery caisson, carrying along his cut-down rifle. As the course of the battle played out, the Union troops had to retreat and during this a Confederate colonel encountered young Clem and demanded his surrender. Johnny Clem halted as if to comply, but then raised his cut-down rifle at the enemy officer and fired, wounding him.

Barnes&Noble: “Seeing the Elephant” Raw Recruits at the Battle of Shiloh “Seeing the Elephant”: Raw Recruits at the Battle of Shiloh

On learning of Johnny’s exploits, General George H. Thomas promoted Johnny to the rank of lance corporal. Newspapers told Johnny Clem’s story and he gained celebrity status, becoming known as "The Drummer Boy of Chickamauga."

In October, 1863 Johnny Clem was detailed as a train guard in Georgia when Confederate cavalry captured him. Johnny was freed two months later during a prisoner exchange, but the Confederate newspapers used his capture to ridicule the Union with this barb; "what sore straits the Yankees are driven, when they have to send their babies to fight us."

Johnny Clem was assigned to General Thomas’s staff as a mounted orderly in January, 1864. During the Atlanta Campaign, young Johnny was twice wounded. On September 19, 1864 he was discharged from the army. President Grant gave Johnny Clem an appointment to West Point, but Johnny had spent his youth and times as a soldier. His lack of formal education prevented him from passing the West Point entrance exam.

President Grant came through for Johnny Clem again by making him a second lieutenant of the 24th Infantry, a unit of black soldiers, in 1871. Johnny thus began his second army term. He advanced to the rank of colonel in the Quartermaster Corps. Clem was able to remain on active duty long enough to become the last Civil War veteran still on duty in the Armed Forces.

John Lincoln Clem completed his military career when he retired in 1916. At his retirement, a special act of Congress made him Major General John Clem. He passed away at age 85, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

A history of the Civil War is incomplete, unless it includes Johnny Clem’s story.

"A little, slim, pale-faced consumptive man just concluded the very best speech of an hour’s length I ever heard."
–Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln describing Alexander Hamilton Stephens of Georgia after Stephens completed a speech to Congress. Lincoln and Stephens became friends while they served in Congress before the Civil War, but later slavery ended their friendship. During the Civil War, Stephens was the vice president of the Confederacy.

Alexander Stephens was never a picture of health. He was 5′ 7", a height in line with the norms of the 19th century, but only carried about ninety-pounds on his frame, he was pale and sickly. From birth, he was small, and during his childhood was given the nickname of "Little Aleck." Stephens suffered many maladies including angina, bladder stones, colitis, migraine headaches, pneumonia, pruritus, arthritis, and sciatica. The word cadaverous would come to mind when seeing Alexander Stephens. He clothed himself layer upon layer trying to stay warm, and once defined his idea of happiness as; "To be warm."

Alexander Hamilton Stephens

Despite Stephens’s sickly body, behind his dark eyes he was blessed with a brilliant mind. His childhood was a difficult one, Stephens’s mother died soon after he was born, then his farmer and schoolteacher father died when Little Aleck was 14-years-old. Fortunately, a few benevolent mentors realized the potential of the highly intelligent young Stephens and funded his education at Franklin College (later to become the University of Georgia). Alexander Stephens finished at the top of his class at Franklin College.

Stephens became a lawyer and owned a plantation named Liberty Hall. If there can be such as thing as a good master, then perhaps Stephens was. He never beat or whipped his slaves, and he never split slave families apart. None of his slaves tried to escape, perhaps a testament of his care for them. Nonetheless, Stephens held human beings captive as slaves on his Georgia plantation and profited from their bondage.

Alexander Stephens served in the United States Congress for 17 years and became an authority on the Constitution. Though he had an odd, girl-like, high voice, his brightness brought him fame as an orator. Stephens was a moderate Unionist and voted against Georgia’s secession. When Georgia did leave the Union, out of honor Stephens chose the South.

The new Confederate Congress met in Montgomery, Alabama (later Richmond, Virginia became the Confederate Capital) in February, 1861 to establish the foundation of the Southern country. Although he at first was opposed to disunion, Alexander Stephens was a favorite to become the president, but he lost that position to Jefferson Davis. Instead, Stephens became the vice president of the Confederate States of America.

On December 22, 1860 Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter marked as "For Your Eyes Only" to Georgia Congressman Alexander Stephens. In this letter Lincoln, before taking office, is telling Confederate Vice President Stephens in a private, personal letter, that he has no plans for his Republican administration to interfere with slavery: "The South would be in no more danger in this respect, than it was in the days of Washington. I suppose, however, this does not meet the case. You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while I think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub."

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Stephens had been a Unionist, but he was also loyal to the South. A moderate, he was a supporter of a peaceful resolution between the North and the South, he hoped to avoid war. Seeing that it was inevitable, he became a supporter of secession.

As the South formed its government at the Montgomery Convention, Alexander Stephens contributed significantly to the creation of the Confederate Constitution. He chaired the Rules Committee and also the Committee on the Executive Departments.

Stephens gave what is known as his Cornerstone Speech on March 21, 1861 at Savannah, Georgia. This speech is probably what Stephens is best known for. In this speech, Stephens fundamentally lays out what the conflict between the North and the South is all about. One sentence (that gives the speech its name) of this extemporaneous speech stands out as the definition of the Confederate cause and what its government stood for:

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition."
— Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Hamilton Stephens.

With these words from his Cornerstone Speech, Alexander Stephens is stating in a nutshell the reason for secession … slavery. In our modern world of today, these words by Stephens are shocking and ugly. His words are so contrary to our times, that it may be necessary to read them twice, to see if what you thought he said, is really what he said. Stephens’s words show the way it was back in Civil War times. Because of this cornerstone difference between the North and the South, a brutal war of brother against brother was fought.

Soon there was conflict between Vice President Stephens and President Jefferson Davis. As Stephens was a moderate, he disagreed with Davis over various topics. The two Confederate leaders did not get along. Stephens refused to go on several missions that Davis wanted him to make. Finally, Davis had to order Stephens to go to the still independent state of Virginia as a Confederate commissioner.

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Stephens remained a strong supporter of state sovereignty, so he disagreed with Davis over the Confederate draft and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Alexander Stephens continued to support negotiated peace, this gave Davis an edge in weakening Stephens’s strength within the Confederate government. Stephens’s role in the Davis administration was minimal and he felt that Davis ignored whatever advice or council he offered. For months at a time, Little Aleck was absent from Richmond, he would be at his Liberty Hall plantation in Georgia, avoiding the problems and cares of the Confederate government.

Davis was able to get Stephens out of Georgia long enough to send him on a peace mission to Washington to meet with President Lincoln in 1863. It was Stephens’s idea that by June, 1863, with the success of Southern armies, and the "failure of Hooker and Grant," (in Stephens’s words) that the timing was right for peace negotiations. Alexander Stephens offered to meet with President Lincoln, his old pre-war friend from their days in Congress, under a flag of truce to talk about prisoner-of-war exchanges. It was hoped that this tact of approach might lead to discussion of peace. Jefferson Davis liked the idea and gave Stephens instructions that limited his powers to prisoner exchanges.

On July 3, 1863 Stephens took a boat down the James River, on his way to Washington to meet with President Abraham Lincoln and to hopefully discuss peace. Also on that July 3 day, at a town named Gettysburg, the Army of Northern Virginia led by General Robert E. Lee suffered a climatic loss to General George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac.

President Jefferson Davis was expecting a Confederate victory at Gettysburg and thought that as the Army of Northern Virginia was approaching Washington from the north, that Vice President Stephens would be approaching from the south … and with good timing, they both might arrive at the same time. President Lincoln would then have a choice (and either way, the Union loses), discuss peace negotiations with Stephens, or suffer conquest by Robert E. Lee.

Things flip-flopped fast. The Union won at Gettysburg, President Lincoln got word at the same time of the Union battlefield victory, and that Confederate Vice President Stephens was coming to Washington on a mission. Lincoln sent word that refused a request of Stephens’s to pass through the lines under a flag of truce. Lincoln thought if the Confederacy wanted to discuss prisoner-of-war exchanges, then there were military ways for that. The fortunes of war had changed and Stephens’s mission was for naught.

Alexander Stephens met with President Lincoln in another peace attempt, at the Hampton Roads Peace Conference on February 3, 1865 as the Civil War was soon coming to an end. Confederates Stephens, Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, and Judge John A. Campbell met with Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward on board the steamer River Queen in Hampton Roads.

The three Confederates wanted Southern independence, Lincoln and Seward refused any plan that continued slavery. For Little Aleck, this meeting proved to be a total failure. Jefferson Davis knew that this meeting would prove fruitless for Alexander Stephens, and humiliate him. Stephens had to return to Richmond for a report of the meeting’s failure to the Confederate Congress, thus proving that Stephens’s interests in a negotiated peace were impossible.

At the end of the Civil War, Stephens was imprisoned at Boston’s Fort Warren. The year after being released from prison he was elected as a United States Senator of Georgia, but was denied his seat in Washington. Afterwards, Little Aleck bought the Atlanta Southern Sun, and wrote A Constitutional View of the Late War, in this 2 volume book he was critical of Jefferson Davis. Stephens’s public service was not yet complete, he returned to the United States House of Representatives from 1873 to 1882. He was elected as governor of Georgia, but died within only a few months of taking office. Alexander Hamilton Stephens is buried at his Liberty Hall plantation near Crawfordville, Georgia.

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Some Alexander Stephens Quotes:

"We are without doubt on the verge, on the brink of an abyss into which I do not wish to look."
–Alexander Stephens, after Abraham Lincoln was elected president on November 6, 1860.

"This step, secession, once taken, can never be recalled. We and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war."
–Alexander Stephens, January 18, 1861.

"It will probably end the war."
–Alexander Stephens, regarding the secession of Virginia from the Union on April 17, 1861.

"We shall be in one of the bloodiest civil wars that history has recorded."
–Alexander Stephens after Fort Sumter.

"War I look for as almost certain … Revolutions are much easier started than controlled, and the men who begin them … themselves become the victims."
–Alexander Stephens, 1861.

"I want sudden, bold, forward, determined war,"
Senator Edward D. Baker’s reaction to Fort Sumter, as he declared it to the Senate. Baker was a unique individual, and he would play a key role in the Battle of Ball’s Bluff.

When Edward D. Baker was four, his family moved from England to Philadelphia. Baker later lived in Illinois where he was admitted to the bar in 1830. In 1835, he started in local Illinois politics and along this path he met Abraham Lincoln. In 1837, Baker was elected to the United States Congress and in 1840, to the United States Senate. Edward D. Baker defeated Abraham Lincoln in 1844 for the United States congressional seat, and was elected. Despite this, Lincoln and Baker were good friends and later Lincoln named his second son (Edward Baker Lincoln) after him.

Senator and Colonel Edward D. Baker

Baker was a veteran of the Black Hawk War of 1832, and the Mexican War, where he served as a colonel of the 4th Illinois Volunteers. After this he moved to Galena, Illinois to run for the United States Congress, thus avoiding running against his friend from Springfield, Abraham Lincoln (whom he had previously defeated). Baker was elected. Baker failed to obtain a cabinet appointment from President Franklin Pierce in 1852, so he moved on west to follow the California Gold Rush and was admitted to the bar in California. In 1860, Baker was on the move again, this time to Oregon, and following in his tradition of political success, was elected to the United States Senate. At Abraham Lincoln’s first inauguration, Edward D. Baker rode in the presidential carriage and introduced Lincoln before his inaugural address.

In May, of 1861 Baker’s star again was on the rise as the Civil War began to heat up. He was authorized by the Secretary of War to form an infantry regiment that would be counted as part of the California quota. Baker raised the 71st Pennsylvania Infantry (also known as the 1st California), mostly recruiting the troops from Philadelphia, and served as this regiment’s colonel. Only a few month’s following, Baker gained command of a brigade in General Charles P. Stone’s division. Baker’s work as brigade commander was to guard fords of the Potomac River north of Washington.

In the fall of 1861, Edward D. Baker was now fifty-years-old, handsome, beardless, a close personal friend of President Abraham Lincoln, and a staunch Union supporter. He was both an Oregon senator and a colonel in the army. After distinguishing himself at many levels of law and politics, apparently further achievement awaited him as a Civil War officer.

He was a man fond of reciting poetry, was always on the move, was larger than life, and soon Baker would have the opportunity to "promote sudden, bold, forward, determined war." With a Civil War now underway, may God bless and protect any Confederate found in Colonel Edward D. Baker’s path.

Ball’s Bluff is along the Potomac River about 35 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., and is northeast of Leesburg, Virginia, it is a steep 100-foot-high bank rising above the Potomac on the Virginia shore. It has a 50-yard-deep flood plain from the river, and the bluff itself is about 600 yards wide. The steep, wooded, bank of the bluff has a 10 to 12 foot-wide cow or cart path meandering from the shore up to the top.

Barnes&Noble: A Little Short Of Boats: The Fights At Ball’s Bluff

At Ball’s Bluff, approximately halfway across from the Virginia shore of the Potomac River, is Harrison’s Island, the water runs swiftly through this narrow channel. From Harrison’s Island across the Potomac over to the Maryland shore, the channel is wider and shallower.

After First Bull Run, the Confederates were firmly planted in northeast Virginia and controlled most of it. In October, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston had accumulated the majority of troops at Centerville. There were still some Rebel troops around Leesburg, north of Centerville, but there were rumors (a black deserter of the 13th Mississippi had told that the Confederates at Leesburg had removed supplies back to Manassas, thus preparing for a retreat) floating about that Johnston was pulling his Leesburg men back.

Union General George B. McClellan thought it might be worthwhile to see how sincere Johnston was about keeping troops at Leesburg. Camped at Langley (on the Virginia side of the Potomac), was the Pennsylvania Reserves division, it had 13,000 troops and was led by George McCall. McClellan sent McCall to Dranesville (about halfway between Leesburg and Washington, D. C.) on October 19, thinking this advancement of Yankee troops might help urge Joe Johnston to move his troops out of Leesburg.

Contrary to McClellan’s desires, Confederate commander Nathan "Shanks" Evans took up a defensive position west of Dranesville instead of withdrawing. Then to complicate the situation, on the morning of October 20, McClellan received an incorrect message saying that the Confederates had responded to McCall’s movement by withdrawing. Shanks Evan’s defensive actions west of Dranesville were misinterpreted as withdrawal.

McClellan wanted to be sure about the Confederate retreat, so he sent an order containing these following words to General Charles Stone on the Maryland side of the Potomac:

"…keep a good lookout upon Leesburg, to see if this movement has the effect to drive them away. Perhaps a slight demonstration on your part would have the effect to move them."

General Stone interpreted McClellan’s orders freely and proceeded to cross a regiment or two at Edward’s Ferry below Ball’s Bluff, and sent other troops three miles up the Maryland side of the Potomac so they could cross over to Virginia at Harrison’s Island. Stone’s thoughts were that he could apply some pressure to the Confederates, and urge them to retreat from Leesburg.

Stone’s men marching toward the crossing at Harrison’s Island were the 20th Massachusetts. It was a nighttime march, and by midnight they found themselves making the crossing from the Maryland shore. This crossing was difficult because they only had three small boats that could only ferry a combined total of 25 men at a time. There was a lot of standing around and waiting, and confusion, for those waiting to cross and those who had crossed. Near dawn on October 21, all the 20th Massachusetts found itself on Harrison’s Island looking out at the remaining river crossing of 150 yards over to the Virginia shore. There was a high and wooded bluff, Ball’s Bluff was its name. They also learned the evening previous, the 15th Massachusetts was able to get five companies over to the Virginia shore. Those men were now up on the bluff … and something was going on up there.

That morning the 20th Massachusetts made its crossing from Harrison’s Island, and climbed up Ball’s Bluff by the meandering cow or cart path. At the top, they found themselves in a glade of open ground, and with not much going on. Earlier that dawn, Colonel Charles Devon of the 15th Massachusetts had taken some troops almost all the way to Leesburg, west of Ball’s Bluff. Devon ran into some Confederate outposts during his foray, and some shots were fired. Devon was now back at the glade.

Confederates were off somewhere in the woods beyond the glade, on higher ground, and there were some pickets doing some shooting. No one knew exactly where the Rebels were, nor how many of them there might be. Colonel Devon sent word off to General Stone, reporting what he knew. Stone sent word back telling Devon to wait for Colonel Edward D. Baker, who would arrive soon with more troops, and take charge.

After some delay, Colonel Baker arrived at Ball’s Bluff and took command, ready to satisfy his want of; "sudden, bold, forward, determined war." Lincoln’s close friend was now in charge, ready to move (remember, Baker was a man on the move) against the Confederates. One can only imagine how much Baker, the successful lawyer and politician, had longed for this moment. He was known to occasionally recite poetry, and once on a battlefield had told a friend to "Press where ye see my white plume shine amidst the ranks of war."

As Baker assumed command he told Colonel Devon, "I congratulate you, sir, on the prospect of a battle," and to the troops nearby he inquired, "Boys, you want to fight, don’t you?" The boys responded positively. The fight was on.

Barnes&Noble: The Maps of First Bull Run: An Atlas of the First Bull Run (Manassas) Campaign, Including the Battle of Ball’s Bluff

The Rebel fire was becoming more and more frequent, and the Johnny Rebs were concentrating in greater numbers on beyond in the woods, on the high ground. Baker had gotten a couple of guns up on the bluff, and they were put to work shelling the woods where the Rebel sniping came from. The 20th Massachusetts returned fire and men were being hit, falling. The boys were green and new to all this, the idea that enemy shot at them, and accurately. The boys felt their nerves as they saw the elephant first-hand, this was no drill, blood flowed and lives ended.

Baker returned to the edge of the bluff and saw a New York regiment, the Tammany Regiment it was called, making its way up the path. With the arrival of the Tammany men, there would be a total of four Union regiments on Ball’s Bluff. Colonel Baker felt more and more confident. Seeing the Tammany Regiment’s colonel, Milton Cogswell, approaching the top of the bluff, Baker waved and greeted the colonel with a line from Sir Walter Scott’s "The Lady of the Lake;"

"One blast upon your bugle horn
Is worth a thousand men."

Now, Colonel Milton Cogswell was not a lawyer-politician-officer, no sir, Cogswell was a genuine West Point professional soldier, and he saw the situation at the top of the bluff differently than Colonel Edward D. Baker. To Cogswell’s trained military eye, things looked bad, very bad. The Confederates held the high ground in woods, brush, and timber, and were picking off Union men at will, just like a turkey-shoot. Cogswell knew the Confederates were building up to a an attack. The Union boys were backed up to a steep bluff, with an unfordable river below. To increase the trouble that Cogswell saw, soon one of the guns recoiled over the cliff’s bluff. This left the Union boys with no big gun, because the Rebels had already silenced the other with sniper fire.

Colonel Baker may have been a lawyer-politician colonel, but he was not an idiot. Baker immediately caught on to the dire circumstances. He moved along the Union line encouraging the boys to stand fast. Perhaps Baker realized that if they retreated down the bluff, with only three small boats it would take hours to ferry everyone across the river. It was better to stay and fight. Certainly, Baker must have had a plan in mind for success, and to save the day for the Union boys. We’ll never know.

A Rebel sharpshooter (perhaps one not fond of poetry) drew a bead on Colonel Edward D. Baker’s pumpkin and killed him instantly with a bullet through the brain.

Death of Colonel Edward D Baker (not true to life).

The Union boys had lost their poetry quoting lawyer-politician turned colonel. Baker’s body would now be on the move down the bluff. Things began to erode into a complete skedaddle. After all, how can you conduct a battle on a bluff, where you are sitting ducks, without poetry recitation?

Some resistance and maneuvering was attempted, but as dusk began, the day was lost for the Union. As Rebel Mississippians and Virginians shot at the compacted group of Yankees, men went over the bluff as fast as they could. Union boys toppled over the bluff and in their haste to flee, they fell agonizingly onto the bayonets and heads of others making their way down the bluff. In places, the sides of the bluff were worn down to the dirt and smoothed over by men and bodies. After making it down to the narrow shore, more horror awaited.

Two boatloads of wounded soldiers (the wounded had been brought down the bluff for evacuation all day long) were trying to make their way over to Harrison’s Island. These boats were swamped by panicked men jumping onboard in their rush to save their own skin. Bullets from Rebels firing down from the bluff turned the water; "as white as in a great hail storm" as one man described. Many of the wounded of the swamped boats could not help themselves, they drowned and were swept downstream. A remaining sheet-metal skiff soon sank after being shot full of holes, now there were no boats.

Night fell with bright, scarlet muzzle flashes continuing from above. Some Union boys surrendered, some stripped down and swam to safety, others found a neck-deep ford and made it over to Harrison’s Island. Finally, over 200 Union men were killed or injured, and over 700 were taken prisoner. The Confederate losses were minimal.

Ball’s Bluff was a Union disaster. A day that was once interlaced with poetry, was now more appropriate as a subject for a dirge.

Back in Washington, Abraham Lincoln would now mourn a Union loss, and the death of a close friend.

Artillery Glossary

Arsenal – Used to store and upgrade small arms, Ordnance, and ordnance stores. Where construction and repair of ordnance takes place. It is a military installation.

Battery – A group of at least two artillery pieces, in the field, working together. An emplacement of artillery. In the Civil War, a Union Battery was six cannon, usually of similar caliber. For the Confederacy, a Battery was most likely only made up of four cannon.

Bore – The size of the opening of a gun barrel, its inside diameter.

Breech – The rear part of a gun barrel, not where the projectile come out.

Breech-Loading – A gun that has its projectile and powder charge loaded at the rear of the barrel. Breech Loading greatly lowers the time it takes to reload, a good thing when you are in a battle.

Caisson – Used to transport two chests of ammunition. The number of rounds in the chest depended on their Caliber.

Caliber – The size of the Bore of a gun’s barrel, the diameter of the bore. Is a decimal fraction in hundredths or thousandths of an inch. Is also used to describe the size of a projectile.

Carriage – A two-wheeled cart used to move field artillery. They were light and easy to move, this meant artillery could go with an army into the field.

Friction Primer – Used to fire a cannon. Was made up of two small brass or copper tubes, and a serrated wire. The larger tube was filled with gunpowder and the smaller tube was soldered onto the larger at a ninety-degree angle. The smaller tube had fulminate of mercury in it. The Friction Primer acted like a match.

Fuse – There were three kinds of fuses in the Civil War, timer-fuses, percussion fuses, and combination fuses. A fuse causes an artillery shell or case shot to blow at a certain set length of time after firing from the cannon.

Limber – A two-wheeled cart that was attached to the Carriage. The Limber had one ammunition chest, it was used for fast, immediate gun supply. The Limber and the Carriage combined to make a four-wheeled cannon mover

Muzzle – Is the front end of the gun barrel. where the bullet or artillery round comes out.

Muzzle Loader – A cannon (or other small arm) that is loaded by pouring a powder charge down the barrel and then seating the bullet or artillery round on top. A primer percussion cap at the Breech was used to ignite the powder charge.

Ordnance – Used to describe all weaponry, its ammunition, and needed equipment to maintain it.

Rifling – Rifling is when grooves or channels have been cut into the inside of a gun barrel (the Bore). The rifling will give spin to the projectile and this spin creates greater accuracy and range.

Smoothbore – This type of a gun barrel has no grooves (Rifling) cut into it.

Light Artillery

Field cannon were often pulled into place by a team of horses, the number of horses depending upon the size and weight of the cannon (or gun). After the gun was unlimbered, the horses and caissons were moved back to the relative safety of the rear or perhaps other nearby safe spot. The gun’s crew would then align the aim and trajectory by hand, load and fire. A competent crew might fire its cannon twice a minute, but under the heat of battle and with the adrenaline pumping, four canister shot a minute was known to occur. When the cannon fires, it would recoil from a few feet up to maybe a dozen yards, all depending on the particular powder charge amount and ammunition used. The gun crew would swab and load the gun as it is rolled back into place by hand.

How the Guns Were Fired

Here is a typical and general process of firing a muzzle-loading artillery weapon:

* One soldier drops a bag of gunpowder down the gun barrel. The gunpowder weight or amount has been chosen for the particular target.

* Another soldier rams a projectile down the barrel so it seats on top of the gunpowder charge.

* A third soldier at the back of the gun puts a friction primer into the breech. The friction primer has a lanyard, it will ignite the gunpowder charge.

* A fourth soldier pulls the lanyard and the gun fires, hopefully it is not a dud round and the target is hit.

* Now another soldier cleans the gun barrel out with water by using a sponge/swab on the end of a pole. A very important step because any remaining embers must be extinguished before the next gunpowder charge is placed into the barrel. A premature powder charge explosion because of remaining embers was a very bad thing.

* While the cannon was being fired, other soldiers would be busy holding horses, carrying ammunition to the gun, and performing other support duties.

Barnes&Noble: Field Artillery Weapons of the Civil War

Swabbing the cannon barrel was a very important step that could not be eliminated. Swabbing cooled the barrel and put out any remaining sparks that would ignite the next charge prematurely … injuring or killing the gun crew. Black powder was used, so billowing, great clouds of smoke would soon fog the battleground as multiple artillery pieces fire. The cannon and their ammunition were dangerous to the crew, plus enemy infantry regarded an artillery battery as a prime target. Capture of a cannon was a great prize and the gun crews were targets for enemy bullets. When a gun was being limbered up for movement, attacking enemy would often shoot the horses and then the gun would have to be abandoned. If a cannon was going to be captured, then the crew would spike it by driving a piece of metal into the firing vent, this would make the cannon useless to the enemy for a period of time, until the metal spike could be removed. Gun crews would even shoot the horses themselves if cannon capture was unavoidable in order to prevent the enemy from moving the piece.

On the third day of the battle at Gettysburg, the Confederates unleashed a huge artillery bombardment. This artillery fire was directed at Cemetery Ridge where the Union troops held a strong defensive position. This artillery fire came from close to 150 guns and it lasted for nearly two hours. The noise from this massive artillery fire was heard in Pittsburgh, 140 miles away. At the time, this was one of the loudest sounds ever heard on the North American continent.

Acoustic Shadow is a strange thing. It is a phenomenon where sound, such as artillery, is unheard close to the cause of the sound, but the same sound is heard a far distance away from its source. The distance that the sound is heard may be great, even hundreds of miles, yet nearby, mere miles away, the sounds are not heard. Battles where the Acoustic Shadow phenomenon occurred in the Civil War are Gettysburg, Seven Pines, Iuka, Fort Donelson, Five Forks, Perryville, and Chancellorsville.

Some Artillery Ammunition

The ammunition for field artillery during the Civil War generally fell into four categories; solid, shell, case (or shrapnel), and canister. Each was used for a specific purpose.

Solid
This was simply a solid iron shell, like a bowling ball. In fact, the solid shot acted like a bowling ball. It was fired at enemy cavalry, or at infantry aligned in column or at its flank. The solid shot was like a deadly bowling ball rolling through pins, only the pins in the Civil War were men and horses made of flesh and blood. As the solid shot bowled through the line of enemy in position of column or flank, man after man would be bowled down, the result was often slaughter.

Explosive Shell
Shell was a hollow projectile filled with black powder. They had fuses that were cut in length to time the explosion of the shell after it was fired from the cannon. Usually the shell could be timed to explode in 0 – 50 seconds and the firing charge of the cannon lit the fuse. Targets for shell were often enemy fortifications and artillery.

Case or Shrapnel General Shrapnel of the British Army came up with the idea of case shot. It was similar to shell shot, but differed in that it was filled with iron balls in addition to the explosion charge inside its shell. This ammunition was used against infantry positioned at long range of over 400 yards. It was most successful when it could be timed to explode at about 15 feet above the target so it could rain its iron ball shrapnel downward. Canister Think of a thin-walled metal can(similar to a coffee can) packed with iron or lead balls in sawdust. As canister was fired from a cannon, the can would disintegrate as it left the gun muzzle and then it would act like a blast from a huge shotgun with the iron or lead balls plowing through the enemy. Canister was effective against attacking infantry.

Barnes&Noble: Civil War Heavy Explosive Ordnance

All this artillery ammunition was effective when it worked, but it was not reliable. Results were variable, but duds were common, sometimes as much as half the cannon fire were failures.

Some Various Cannon Types

12-pounder Napoleon
A commonly used cannon in the Civil War was the 12-pounder Napoleon. Napoleon cannons were muzzle-loading and bronze barreled of a ninety percent copper and ten percent tin mixture. They were used as field artillery. Napoleons could fire four canister shots a minute and killed infantry efficiently. These cannons weighed 2,600 pounds and it took a crew of six men to man each cannon. Six horses were needed to pull the cannon and its caisson.

The Napoleon was officially named the "Twelve-Pounder Field Guns, Model 1857." The French emperor Louis Napoleon (he was Napoleon III) began this cannon’s development in France. It is the most widely used cannon of the Civil War. Approximately 40% of the artillery used by the Union Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia were Napoleons. Napoleons were manufactured in both the North and the South, the North made more than 1,000 and the South somewhere between 500 and 600. Southern Napoleons can be identified because they don’t have a muzzle swell as the Northern Napoleons have. The Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia made Napoleons of iron, instead of bronze. Because the Napoleon was a smooth-bore it was not as accurate, nor did it have the range of a rifled gun. However, they could be loaded fast and were very good at defending against enemy infantry.

Napoleon cannons were smooth bored. The 12-pounder Napoleon was named such because the weight of one round of its solid shot was 12 pounds. Because of its smooth bore design, Napoleons had a low muzzle velocity. Their range was under a mile (1700 yards) for solid shot and for shell under 1300 yards.

At Gettysburg on the afternoon of July 3, 1863, Union Napoleon cannon had crushing effect against Rebel soldiers in Pickett’s Charge.

Whitworth Guns
The Whitworth Gun (also called the Whitworth Rifle) was a breech loading cannon with a rifled barrel. The Whitworth had a unique hexagonal bore and fired an elongated projectile that was called a bolt. Various calibers were found, and with the breech loading, a tighter rifling was possible. This meant these artillery pieces had increased range and accuracy. Whitworth Rifles were brought into the South through the blockade from England, but they were never available in sufficient numbers for the South. The bolts used by the Whitworths were an elongated twelve-pound shell that emitted a strange whine during its flight toward a target. Interestingly, the Whitworths imported after 1863 were muzzle-loaders instead of breech.

Parrott Gun
This was also called the Parrott Rifle. The Parrott Gun was a rifled and muzzle loading cannon. The barrels were cast-iron and this made them apt to burst. To strengthen the guns, a reinforcing band of wrought-iron was added around the breech where the pressure of firing projectiles was greatest. Robert P. Parrott developed the wrought-iron breech reinforcement band of the Parrott Gun. Compared to smoothbore guns, the Parrotts were less expensive to make and because they were rifled, more accurate. The reinforcing band of wrought-iron gives the Parrott cannon a very distinctive look. They are easy to identify when you visit the various Civil War battlefields, like Gettysburg. Both the North and the South used the Parrott guns in the Civil War. Despite the reinforcement near the breech, Parrotts still had a tendency to burst. Ten-pounder and twenty-pounder Parrotts were available and popular.

3-Inch Ordnance Rifle
3-Inch Ordnance Rifles were light-weight and long-ranged cannon made by wrapping boiler plate around a core. They were patented by John Griffen in 1855 and made of wrought iron. Their barrels were much stronger than the Parrott. Horse Artillery used 3-Inch Ordnance Rifles because their barrels weighed only 820 pounds, making it 100 pounds lighter than the Parrott. Although 3-Inch Ordnance Rifles had a range of about 1,835 yards, the Parrott had a range of around 2,000 yards (both using a five degree elevation). This cannon was also a favorite
of regular army artillery batteries. It was a muzzle-loader and had a range of approximately two miles (4,000 yards).

The Napoleon, the Parrott, and the 3-Inch Ordnance Rifle were the three guns that made up most of the artillery of the Civil War.

How Artillery Was Organized

Union – The Union artillery batteries were usually made up of six guns that were used in three, 2-gun sections. There were left, middle, and right sections. Because the North had a better a supply system and great resources, all of the guns in a battery were of the same type. This made supplying ammunition easier. Around a hundred men made a Union battery.

Confederate – A Confederate battery was made up of four guns. They usually had a mixture of different guns, so the Confederate ammunition supply to artillery batteries was very difficult. Around sixty-eight men made up a Confederate battery.

Learn More About Civil War Artillery With The Swamp Angel…

Barnes&Noble: What This Cruel War Was Over

It is important to note that slavery was not unique to the United States. Many European countries had slavery before it came to the New World colonies and grew. Countries like Spain and Portugal had significant counts of slaves before 1492. But, this is no defense of the institution of slavery. The world was guilty of slavery. Slavery was a disease of humanity that spread to the colonies of the New World. It should be known that although the United States was guilty of slavery, it fought a war against itself. As a result of the Civil War, in which literally brother fought against brother and hundreds of thousands died, slavery ended here.

In 1619 a Dutch ship arrived at the Virginia colony and sold "20 and odd negroes" to colonists. Some of these blacks became indentured servants (people who worked for a period of years to pay for their passage to the New World, then became free) but others were slaves. Most blacks in the Virginia colony were either free or indentured servants in 1640. Slavery grew and flourished in the colonies, especially in the Southern ones. By 1700 in the Virginia colony, most blacks were in the bondage of that "peculiar institution," slavery. The South depended on slavery for its agricultural economic success.

Cotton was King in the South and the institution of slavery made it very profitable. Indeed, the South’s economy was based on slavery and cotton. One of the main contributing factors to the Civil War was that the South was willing to go to war with its own fellow countrymen in order to preserve slavery.

In 1808 the importation of slaves was made illegal in the United States of America. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 and was very popular amongst abolitionists. In the book, slaves were described as victims of the Southern system. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a powerful factor in bringing about anti-slavery sentiment in the North. The expansion of the country westward, with new territories and states coming into being, only fueled debate and conflict over the spread and continuation of slavery. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, the South believed he intended to end slavery. Secession, and then the Civil War followed.

Barnes&Noble: The Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe Harriet Beecher Stowe first published her groundbreaking novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852 as an outcry against slavery after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. The book sold more copies than any book other than the Bible and caused Abraham Lincoln to exclaim upon meeting her, during the Civil War, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!”

In 1860, approximately 4,500,000 white people were living in the states that had slavery. Of these 4,500,000 approximately 46,000 of them owned more than 20 slaves. Approximately 4,000,000 slaves lived in America at the start of the Civil War. On January 1, 1863 President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation that declared free the slaves in the parts of the country which were in rebellion. Only Northern victory and preservation of the Union ensured the end of slavery in the United States.

The shown map is: Distribution of Slaves in the Southern States from the book History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard. – White areas depict less than 25% slave distribution – Light gray areas depict 25 – 50% – Dark gray areas depict 50% and greater
Distribution of Slaves in the Southern States

Barnes&Noble: John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights

A few quotes by Abraham Lincoln regarding slavery: ”In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free,–honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.” — Abraham Lincoln, from his Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.   ”My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving the others alone, I would also do that.” — Abraham Lincoln, from a letter to Horace Greeley of August 22, 1862. (The Emancipation Proclamation had been written but not yet released).

”I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.”
— Abraham Lincoln, from a letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862.

The ugly fact is that slaves were treated as property. Slavery was a brutal, cruel, unfair, and evil thing. Slaves did not have the right to vote. Slaves could not own land. Slaves could not travel. Slave marriages were not recognized by law. Slaves were allowed to work, and work hard from the early morning light until darkness (or longer if the moonlight was bright). Slave families could be split up by the whims and desires of their owners. Slaves could be beaten and whipped to make them obey. Some slaves were killed either by their owners or by hard work. Disease killed slaves. Slaves worked on plantations and farms, in homes, on docks, in businesses, and anywhere labor was needed.

The history of slavery still haunts the United States to this day. Perhaps only with the coming of each new generation, with its hopefully new and unprejudiced rational understanding, will the scar of slavery completely fade away. That will be a glorious time.

On April 22, 1861 Robert E. Lee took command of the Virginia troops. Lee fought for the Confederacy because his loyalty was to his home state of Virginia.

On this date Lee left his home of Arlington in Virginia, and would never return to it. Union forces soon occupied Arlington, and Robert E. Lee’s home became Union General Irvin McDowell’s headquarters. During the Civil War, Lee’s home of Arlington would become Arlington National Cemetery.

Barnes&Noble: Robert E. Lee

Colonel Robert E. Lee of the United States Army, resigns his commission on this day in 1861.

Robert E. Lee was born on January 19, 1807 at Stratford in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Lee spent his youth and adulthood in Northern Virginia. He ranked second in his class when he graduated from West Point in 1829.

Barnes&Noble: Robert E. Lee on Leadership

President Abraham Lincoln offered Robert E. Lee command of the Federal armies on April 18, 1861 after General Winfield Scott recommended Lee for this position. Virginia had seceded from the Union on April 17. Lee declined President Lincoln’s offer and on April 20, he resigned from the United States Army. Robert E. Lee had decided to fight for the Confederacy because his loyalty was to the state of Virginia.

Abraham Lincoln would say that he could not understand Lee and other southern officers, who broke their oaths of allegiance to the United States and fought for the Confederacy.

Confederate Edmund Ruffin fires the first shot of the Civil War at 4:30 in the morning of April 12, when he fires a single mortar upon Union held Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. It is questionable that Ruffin actually fired the first shot of the Civil War. Strangely, it might be said that Ruffin fired one of the last shots of the Civil War when he committed suicide in April, 1865 after he learned of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House.

The Confederates bombarded Fort Sumter for 34 hours. During the bombardment, the Confederates and the Yankees combined fired approximately 4,000 shells. The formal surrender of Fort Sumter takes place on April 14.

Oddly, not a single Johnny Reb or Billy Yank died during the intense bombardment. However, there was an accidental explosion that took lives during the formal surrender ceremonies at Fort Sumter. A big gun was fired as a salute and somehow a burning piece of debris (most likely part of a powder bag) landed on a pile of cartridges. These cartridges exploded, instantly killing a Yankee private, and badly injuring another five. One of the injured Yankees died a few days later.

On Sunday, April 14, President Abraham Lincoln learned Fort Sumter had surrendered. Lincoln met with his cabinet and advisors from the military.

Barnes&Noble: Civil War Journal: Conflict Begins DVD – 2 Disc Set

On April 15, Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring that an insurrection existed, and that 75,000 militia were being calling out from the Northern states. President Lincoln also stated that a special session of Congress would convene on July 4.

The Civil War had begun.

Quotes about Fort Sumter:

"We shall be in one of the bloodiest civil wars that history has recorded."
-Alexander Stephens was the Confederate vice president, this is his prediction after Fort Sumter.

"What a change now greets us! The Government is aroused, the dead North is alive, and its divided people united…The cry now is for war, vigorous war, war to the bitter end, and war till the traitors are effectually and permanently put down."
-Some words of Frederick Douglass in May of 1861, after the Civil War began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter.

"The firing on that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen…you will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet’s nest which extends from mountains to ocean. Legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary. It puts us in the wrong. It is fatal."
-Robert Toombs, his words to Jefferson Davis regarding Fort Sumter. Toombs was Confederate Secretary of State but later resigned this position to become a Brigadier General and fight in battles for the Confederacy.

"Abe Linkhorn,

We received your proklamation, and as you have put us on very short notis, a few of us boys have conkluded to write you, and ax for a little more time. The fact is, we are most obleeged to have a few more days, for the way things are happening, it is utterly onpossible for us to disperse in twenty days. I tried my darndest yisterday to disperse and retire, but it was no go."
-Bill Arp. When Fort Sumter was bombarded, Abraham Lincoln put out a proclamation asking the Rebels to "disperse and retire." The above is a letter to Lincoln that appeared in a newspaper. "Bill Arp" is the pen name of humorist Charles Henry Smith.