Civil War Times October 2016

I have read with interest the article by Tom Clemens in the June 2016 issue. This is because of my interest in Antietam dating to a three-week detail… to that park in June 1961. I walked the park, familiarized myself with the importance of the Carman Papers and prepared documentation for the Carman maps in the NPS Master Plan Format. This was a learning experience. Accordingly, I was deeply impressed by Clemens’ monograph titled “In Search of McClellan’s Headquarters.”…I was impressed to learn that the Pry House’s role as “Little Mac’s” headquarters was far more abbreviated than heretofore believed by Civil War scholars and buffs….Consequently, I believe that the trailside markers identifying the Pry House as McClellan’s headquarters should be modified to refer to it as McClellan’s command post, not as…

Amidst the debate over Confederate symbols, the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., announced on June 8, 2016, that two panes of stained glass depicting the Confederate battle flag would be replaced with clear glass. The banners, which appear in memorials to Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, were paid for in 1953 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, the Cathedral’s member of a task force on the issue, explained that “Instead of simply taking the windows down and going on with business as usual, the Cathedral recognizes that, for now, they provide an opportunity for us to begin to write a new narrative on race and racial justice at the Cathedral.…” Private funds will pay for the removal. A decision on the…

http://civilwargovernors.org In January 1864, “ loyal citizens of Christian County who have always been and expect ever to be for putting down the rebellion,” warned Kentucky Governor Thomas E. Bramlette that he must stop enslaved peoples from leaving the county. Farms were failing, work could not be completed, and the problem was increasing with each month. “In a word, our County is ruined if the evil is not stopped,” E.H. Hopper and 24 fellow citizens told him. They asked, “Shall we take the law in our own hands?” Surely, they argued, “loyalty & protection Should be inseperable [sic].” This letter is part of the “Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition” website (CWG-K) hosted by the Kentucky Historical Association. To date, about 10,000 documents are available at the site, though 23,000…

MAJOR GENERAL George B. McClellan’s spring 1862 Peninsula Campaign required nearly 400 vessels to haul more than 120,000 men and hundreds of artillery pieces of the Army of the Potomac from Washington to the peninsula formed by the York and James rivers. But Little Mac’s advance on Richmond from the east was slowed by the protracted April 5 to May 5 Siege of Yorktown. Convinced that the Colonial port was strongly held, the Union commander laboriously deployed 101 siege cannons and mortars. “Will the enemy be fools enough to wait...until we open fire from all the batteries?” wondered Union soldier Robert Sneden. The answer was no. The overmatched Confederates wisely withdrew from the town before most of the bomb throwers fired a shot in anger. McClellan took advantage of Yorktown’s…

IT HAS BECOME FASHIONABLE AMONG scholars to emphasize the “dark side” of the Civil War. Troubled by what they consider a literature gone stale with old questions and topics, these historians seek to revitalize the field by examining the conflict’s often disturbing underside. Among the genres that come under fire as repetitive and unfruitful are books that revisit storied campaigns and commanders, especially ones that deploy words such as “heroism” or “gallantry” in narrating tactical events. That kind of drums and bugle history too often cloaks the war in romantic trappings, insist the dark side advocates, as do studies that find a soaring purpose in a war for union or even one for union and emancipation. The overlooked war, they counter, featured brutality, atrocities, cowardice, vicious guerrilla activity, and physical…

UNION SOLDIERS went to war with canteens made of sturdy tin, but thousands of Rebel troops depended on wooden canteens, most often fashioned from cherry or cedar, to carry water. These vessels might seem quaint and outdated in a war where railroads and rifled guns made their mark, but they illustrate the hard-pressed nature of the South’s efforts to supply its troops, and also Confederate resourcefulness.…