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Thread: 2nd South Carolina Rifles Companies A, B, C, & D

  1. #21
    Civil War Fact #11

    Soldiers and artists alike expressed their view points through political cartoons and hand written accounts. Like today's memes, political cartoons were used as humorous propaganda or to poke fun at a person. During an extraordinary time in American history, humor in the Civil War is just as unique. Hand written accounts and letters on both sides are sprinkled with cheeky limericks or funny stories during battles or around a campfire.

    https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/civil-war-humor
    A few political cartoons

    http://wesclark.com/jw/cw_humor.html

    http://teachtnhistory.org/File/Polit..._Civil_War.pdf
    More cartoons

  2. #22
    Civil War Fact #12

    It is estimated that 95,000 soldiers died diarrhea or dysentery during the Civil War. Due to poor diet and unsanitary conditions in camps, disease was a constant concern for soldiers on both sides. There was an unspoken code of honor in the Civil War that soldiers would not shoot at enemy soldiers if they noticed them pooping. When armies were marching from one place to the next it was common for soldiers to fall out of line and relieve themselves whereever and how ever they could. In camp, slit trenches were dug called "sinks". You hung onto a rail and squatted over the open trench. Fecal matter was tracked all over camp on the bottoms of shoes and left on hillsides by soldiers caught short on the way. Water supplies were frequently contaminated, resulting in typhus and cholera. There was generally no toilet paper available. Soldiers used sheets of newspaper, pages from catalogs, or water from a canteen to clean themselves. A Civil War era army camp was a foul, smelly, and unimaginably (by modern standards) filthy place. Twice as many soldiers died of disease as were killed in battle. During encampments,, pits were dug. Brigade/Division medical staff/surgeons were supposed to inspect to make sure the location was good. The pits were called 'sinks'. In the summer of 1862 the Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac wrote instructions that "sinks be dug and used, 6 inches of earth being thrown into them daily, and when filled to within 2 feet of the surface new sinks be dug and the old ones filled up".

    https://civilwartalk.com/threads/rel...n-camp.114604/

    http://www.civilwarmed.org/sewers/

  3. #23
    Civil War Fact #13

    The surrender at Appomattox Courthouse by General Lee is widely considered the end of the Civil War. What many over-look is that it was just the surrender of the army of Virginia, not the end of the conflict. The end of the war wasn't official until the surrender of Confederates at Bennett's Place, under the command of General Joseph E. Johnston. Union General William T. Sherman, who desperately wanted to be a part of Lee's surrender, proceeded with the last part of his Carolinas Campaign and marched to Raleigh, North Carolina. General Johnston moved his forces in position to guard Raleigh against the attack. The Confederate cavalry mounted resistance on the road from Goldsboro to Raleigh and the small skirmishes slowed the advance of the Union forces. Sherman did not learn of Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House (April 9, 1865) until April 11. on April 14, Sherman received a letter under the flag of truce from General Johnston seeking an end to the war. Sherman agreed to suspend hostilities and meet with the Confederate General. After a few meetings in the course of a few days, over 8,000 men had deserted Johnston’s army. Sherman had spent a portion of his life in the south and wanted to end the conflict as peacefully as possible, despite his villainous "march to the sea". Realizing his men were tired of fighting and on the brink of total desertion, Johnston signed the surrender of his army to Sherman on April 26, 1865. Ironically, Sherman and Johnston formed a friendship that would last for close to thirty years after the war.

    https://northcarolinahistory.org/enc...il-17-26-1865/

    https://ehistory.osu.edu/articles/jo...%99s-surrender

  4. #24
    Civil War Fact #14

    Camp Douglas near south Chicago was opened in 1861 as a Union training and an enlistment center. By February 1862, the first 5,000 Confederate prisoners were sent to this 80 acre plot that was improvised into a prisoner of war camp. Soon, though, the camp was taking on more and more prisoners and keeping them for longer and longer. But because neither side intended on taking large numbers of prisoners for extended periods of time, this POW camp was unprepared for the sheer numbers. The camp was meant for no more than 6,000 prisoners, and as its ranks grew to roughly 12,000 at its peak it became more dangerous than any battlefield. Overcrowding and poor sanitation spread diseases such as dysentery, smallpox, typhoid fever and tuberculosis. Illness became the camp’s leading cause of death, claiming roughly 4,500 Confederate soldiers, or 17 percent of the total number of men imprisoned at the camp during its nearly four years in operation, according to historian Theodore Karamanski’s estimate. In his book, Karamanski cites an 1862 report by the U.S. Sanitary Commission, wherein an agent admonished Camp Douglas for its “foul stinks,” “unventilated and crowded barracks,” and “soil reeking of with miasmic accretions” as “enough to drive a sanitarian to despair.” Even after documented inspections repeatedly determined the conditions of the camp sub-par, the multiple officers in charged did little to improve conditions. The Union guards were fed and clothed properly at the camp, yet despite the means, Confederates never received proper rations or medical treatment. Unlike another infamous POW camp in Andersonville Georgia, the poor conditions and mounting deaths of prisoners was swept under the rug, not one Union officer was indicted for war crimes. The contrast of these two camps shows how history is written by the winners.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Douglas_(Chicago)

    https://www.wbez.org/shows/curious-c...1-62747b7be31f

    https://www.mycivilwar.com/pow/il-camp-douglas.html
    Last edited by Smears; 02-05-2020 at 06:47 PM.

  5. #25
    Civil War Fact #15

    The American Civil War has its share of stories about secret agents, spies, or espionage on both sides of the conflict. James J. Andrews a civilian scout and secret agent for the North in 1862 devised a plan to steal a locomotive named "The General" from a train station near Kennesaw Georgia and ride it all the way to Chattanooga. Along the way, Andrews and 22 volunteers from various Ohio regiments, would cut telegraph lines and destroy portions of railway. On April 12th 1862, William Allen Fuller and his crew were having breakfast when Andrews and his cohorts, donning southern civilian attire, boarded the locomotive and steamed northward. Fuller immediately jumped from his chair and chased the locomotive by foot for 2 miles. once at Adairsville, he commandeered a south bound locomotive named "Texas" and continued the pursuit in reverse as baffled civilians looked on. Two miles short of Chattanooga, "The General" lost power and was abandoned, its conspirators scrambled. Andrews and most the raiders were captured, tried and executed for their roles. William Fuller's relentless and successful pursuit of the stolen train earned him a commission of Captain in the Independent State Road Guard.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Allen_Fuller

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_J._Andrews

    https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/20...omotive-chase/

  6. #26
    Civil War Fact #16

    After marrying wealthy widow Virginia Mason eight years earlier, Wilmer McLean, the former operator of the Kerr & McLean wholesale and retail grocery moved into his wife’s small plantation near Manassas Junction, Virginia. Through McLean’s farm meandered a small stream called Bull Run that would witness the first major engagement between Union and Confederate forces in July 1861. As Union forces approached on a 30-mile march west from Washington, D.C., Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard took over McLean’s Manassas farmhouse as his headquarters. The day after Mclean moved his family away from dangers of the first battle of the Civil War, a Union shell tore into the kitchen of the family home and ruined the dinner being prepared for Beauregard and his staff. During and after the battle, McLeans property was used to house Union and Confederate wounded. After the battle, McLean returned alone to his farm and found it ravaged. Once again in Manassas at the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862, McLean sought quieter—and less belligerent—pastures. In the fall of 1863 McLean moved his family 120 miles southwest to the quiet hamlet of Appomattox Court House on the other side of Virginia. He purchased a substantial house, originally built as a tavern in 1848, along the Lynchburg-Richmond State Road and regularly traveled on the nearby Southside Railroad to tend to his business supplying sugar to the Confederate army. In spite of his hopes for solitude, the Civil War incredibly arrived at his front door again on April 9, 1865, when Confederate Colonel Charles Marshall rode into Appomattox Court House and asked the first man he spotted—McLean—to assist him in finding a suitable home that could host a meeting between the Union and Confederate commanders. History was made in McLean’s front parlor as Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his forces to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, marking the beginning of the end of the Civil War. McLean’s homes had become a pair of bookends to the four-year war. After Lee's surprising surrender, Union soldiers took souvenirs from the home. McLean’s cane-bottomed chairs and cut upholstery strips from his sofas as mementoes. As compensation, the soldiers shoved money into the hands of the unwilling seller and threw it onto the floor when he refused to accept it. Wilmer McLean had the Civil War literally start in his front lawn and end in his parlor four years later.

    https://www.history.com/news/how-the...-wilmer-mclean

    https://maps.roadtrippers.com/storie...-in-his-parlor
    Pictures of the estates

  7. #27
    Civil War Fact #17

    Desertion on both sides during the Civil War was a common occurrence. Disease and death were a constant concern for all soldiers but nothing was as demoralizing as men abruptly leaving their post. It was considered traitorous and cowardly, punishable by death. Despite thousands of men deserting their ranks, few on both sides were executed for the crime. Its documented that the Union executed fewer than 150 men for desertion during the conflict. Lincoln would write countless letters and endorsements reducing the sentences of a soldier’s action from death to labor during the war. Even though the issue of desertion was a serious one, Lincoln found it difficult to shoot his own men. “I had ordered his punishment commuted to imprisonment during the war at hard labor, and had so telegraphed,” wrote Lincoln, ending the message stating, “I did this, not on any merit in the case, but because I am trying to evade the butchering business lately.” The Confederates executed a reported 229 soldiers for desertion. As the war continued on and Northern troops traveled further south, Confederate soldiers were receiving letters from fearful family and friends urging them to come home.

    https://www.fords.org/blog/post/civi...he-union-army/

    https://uncw.edu/csurf/explorations/...014/franch.pdf
    Very good read

  8. #28
    Civil War Fact #18

    Ever since the Civil War, technology continues to shape the modern battlefield. People think that developments such as hand grenades, land mines, torpedoes, rotating armored gun turrets on ships, submarines, booby traps, and railroad-mounted artillery are relatively recent because they all have been common elements of 20th-century warfare, but they originated in the Civil War. Likewise, amphibious assaults, naval camouflage, repeating rifles, trench warfare, and aerial observation, which are still commonplace on the modern battlefield, first made their appearance on Civil War battlefields. Born out of urgency from a conflict noone predicted to be so bloody, combined with the advancement of weaponry and old military tactics; the Civil War was a conflict of "firsts". Both sides were forced to find ways to deal with the influx of wounded and dead soldiers, some lay unattended on battlefields for weeks. Ambulance corps and triage units were first implemented. Clara Barton would later start the Red Cross in 1881 from her experiences helping wounded soldiers in the Civil War. The use of rifled barrels, conical bullets, repeating rifles, turreted cannons, ironclad ships, hot air balloons to scout enemy positions all were firsts for the Civil War. The CSS Hunley was the first submarine credited with sinking an enemy vessel, though at the peril of its crew. The railroad was an important factor used in the transportation of troops and supplies, along with the telegram, both proved essential for victory. Advancements in photography brought the viciousness of combat home, documenting images that are still revered today. The Civil War brought many changes to the country, one was how America would fight wars in the future.

    https://www.warhistoryonline.com/ame...civil-war.html

    https://civilwarhome.com/civilwarfirsts.html
    basic list

    https://erenow.net/exams/the-civil-w...dummies/31.php

  9. #29
    Civil War Fact #19

    The State of Mississippi seceded from the Union on January 9, 1861. On May 4th, nearly the entire student body and many of the professors at the University of Mississippi formed ranks on the grounds in front of the Lyceum, left school and enlisted in the Conferderate Army. Only four students reported for classes in fall 1861, so few that the university closed temporarily. Their name "University Greys" derived from the gray color of the men's uniforms and from the fact that almost all of the Greys were students and faculty at the university. Nearly the entire student body (135 men) enlisted in the 11th Mississippi company A. The University Greys fought many engagements during the Civil War. The most famous engagement of the University Greys was at Pickett's Charge during the Battle of Gettysburg, when the Confederates made a desperate frontal assault on the Union entrenchments atop Cemetery Ridge. The remaining Greys penetrated further into the Union position than any other unit, but at the terrible cost of sustaining 100% casualties—every soldier was either killed or wounded. Following Gettysburg, what was left of the company A merged with company G, the Lamar Rifles, and fought until the end of the war. Sadly, more attention has been given to the removal of Confederate monuments around the University in recent years.

    http://www.4thalabamacavalry.com/the-university-greys/

    https://hottytoddy.com/2013/04/30/the-university-greys/

    https://olemiss.edu/depts/general_li...mage_index.htm

    https://civilwartalk.com/threads/11t...tysburg.86278/
    more about the 11th Mississippi
    Last edited by Smears; 02-26-2020 at 04:10 PM.

  10. #30
    Civil War Fact #20

    About three weeks after the Battle of Antietam a farmer was plowing his field and came across a severed arm. The farmer decided to keep the arm in a container of brine solution. After six months he decided to turn over the relic to a local doctor who kept it preserved and wrapped in cloth, hidden in his attic until his death. In the 1960's the arm was put on display at a local museum. After the small, private museum closed down the arm has several owners until it was donated to the NMCWM (National Museum of Civil War Medicine). Upon further examination by pathologists, the arm is believed to belong to a white male between the ages of 16 to 19 possibly from the Ohio area. The arm was not amputated, it appeared to be sheered off while still attached to the Union soldier. A small reminder of what soldiers endured during one of the bloodiest days of the Civil War.

    http://guardianoftheartifacts.blogsp...eed-mummy.html

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/maryland-...rm-a-good-look
    Last edited by Smears; 03-09-2020 at 02:16 PM.

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