Category Archives: Civil War

Holding the country together

Posted on November 2, 2010 | Comments Off on Holding the country together

23rdOhioI’ve always liked this old shot of some of the 23rd Ohio. Not that I fall for the notion that they were freeing the slaves. But they certainly held the country together and bless them for it.

Comments Off on Holding the country together

Posted in Civil War, Scribbles

Tagged ,

Master and slave, not comrades in arms

Posted on October 28, 2010 | Comments Off on Master and slave, not comrades in arms

400BlackConfederatesOne of the saddest Civil War photos I’ve ever seen, simply because it illustrates as no other the worst of the master-slave relationship. The cocky young seated aristo, one Lt. J. Wallace Comer of the 57th Alabama Regiment. The standing slave, Burrell, lately touted as a Confederate soldier because of the private’s tunic he wears, is curiously unarmed. Not so curious, really. Their expressions say it all. Burrell is a slave, not Comer’s comrade in arms.

Via Civil War Memory.

Comments Off on Master and slave, not comrades in arms

Posted in Blogosphere, Civil War

Tagged , , ,

The Confederate states rights fantasy

Posted on October 27, 2010 | Comments Off on The Confederate states rights fantasy

While I’m at it, on the subject of Civil War myths, might as well tackle the granddaddy of them all. The notion, first lofted about 1890 or so, that the South seceded from the Union in assertion of its states rights.

There was just enough of that involved in 1860-61 to make later claims of its primacy plausible for the forgetful. Now a new book hangs the Lost Causers with their own documents.

Historians have long preached the need to go to primary documents (sometimes government papers, often eye-witness diaries and letters) to understand history. Moreover, they want us to know that the study of history is an ongoing plunge, as sociologist/historian James W. Loewen wrote in his popular 1996 book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong into “arguments, issues and controversy.”

In his new book, The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader, Loewen quotes the original documents the seceding states and their prominent politicians issued in 1860-61 in which they expressly said that protection of slavery was their primary motivation for secession and that they were explicitly opposed to the “states rights” of Northern states to tamper with it by refusing to enforce the federal Fugitive Slave law.

Continue reading →

Comments Off on The Confederate states rights fantasy

Posted in Civil War, Library

Tagged , ,

The Black Confederate Soldier Fantasy

Posted on October 26, 2010 | Comments Off on The Black Confederate Soldier Fantasy

I have heretofore avoided joining in the liberal pile-on upon the Sons of Confederate Veterans (of which I am an inactive member) and the League of The South for their promotion of the ridiculous idea that thousands of slaves were carrying the rifled muskets of the Confederacy to fight for the freedom of their masters and mistresses.

I know where the idea comes from, i.e. the few servant/slaves who followed young Marster to the Rebel army and occasionally fired a musket at the enemy either to protect young Marster or just for the hell of it in the general excitement of battle.  And I can imagine why it’s being pushed nowadays: because it has become fashionable among so-called historians to insist that the Rebels were “fighting for slavery,” primarily because Confederate politicians and some generals said (and wrote) that they were doing so.

But I’m finally joining the pile-on now that there is an elementary school textbook, no less, being issued to Virginia fourth graders that claims: “Thousands of Southern blacks fought in Confederate ranks, including two black battalions under the command of Stonewall Jackson.”

Continue reading →

Comments Off on The Black Confederate Soldier Fantasy

Posted in Civil War, Genealogy, Scribbles

Tagged , ,

Early NASA effort

Posted on October 24, 2010 | Comments Off on Early NASA effort

nasaLittle known outside of a select few Civil War buffs was the early Union space program designed to put an abolitionist on the streets of Richmond, if not the moon. Heck, they’d take either one. It was for sure their generals weren’t getting it done. Didn’t work, of course, or history would have recorded it. Uh, maybe.

Comments Off on Early NASA effort

Posted in Civil War, Science/Engineering, Scribbles, Space

Tagged ,

Sidewheeler

Posted on October 3, 2010 | Comments Off on Sidewheeler

sidewheeler1860s-era photo I like. On the Mississippi River. St. Louis in the distance.

Comments Off on Sidewheeler

Posted in Civil War, Scribbles

The USS Alligator

Posted on August 20, 2010 | Comments Off on The USS Alligator

You’ve heard of the Confederacy’s prototype submarine CSS Hunley. But did you know that the Union had a similar one called USS Alligator?

“Consider their Civil War service:
The Confederate Hunley was credited with sinking a Union ship.
The Union Alligator aborted its first mission because it couldn’t dive in shallow river water.

“The Hunley was believed to have sunk in combat.
The Alligator went down in a storm while being towed to Charleston, S.C.
The Hunley sank with eight men aboard.
The Alligator was unmanned when it sank.

“The Hunley was the object of an extensive search [Discovered by Dr. E. Lee Spence in 1970] and an eventual recovery in 2000.
The Alligator until now had been largely forgotten.”

More here, with cool models of each submarine.

Via The Hunley Store.

Comments Off on The USS Alligator

Posted in Blogosphere, Civil War

Tagged , ,