Posted on 05/30/2011 6:23:09 AM PDT by Upstate NY Guy
Charleston was in ruins.
The peninsula was nearly deserted, the fine houses empty, the streets littered with the debris of fighting and the ash of fires that had burned out weeks before. The Southern gentility was long gone, their cause lost.
In the weeks after the Civil War ended, it was, some said, "a city of the dead."
On a Monday morning that spring, nearly 10,000 former slaves marched onto the grounds of the old Washington Race Course, where wealthy Charleston planters and socialites had gathered in old times. During the final year of the war, the track had been turned into a prison camp. Hundreds of Union soldiers died there.
For two weeks in April, former slaves had worked to bury the soldiers. Now they would give them a proper funeral.
The procession began at 9 a.m. as 2,800 black school children marched by their graves, softly singing "John Brown's Body."
(Excerpt) Read more at postandcourier.com ...
On the track's infield, they built a 10-foot fence and dug 257 graves. Most of the soldiers who died at the Race Course prison had been malnourished or exposed to the elements too long to survive. They had been buried together in shallow graves, without coffins, behind the judge's stand.
The efforts to bury them were coordinated by freed slaves and missionaries and teachers working with the freedmen's relief associations...These former slaves were joined by several Union regiments, including the 104th and 35th "colored regiments," as well as the famous 54th Massachusetts. These companies marched around the graves in solemn salute....After the picnic, the crowd drifted away at dusk. They had spent the entire day at the new cemetery.
Channel surfing on the radio this morning, I came across NPR’s tribute to Memorial Day: members of the National Guard who commit suicide after being deployed, especially Hispanics.
Disgusting, as per the course for state-run radio.
NPR consumes $450 million in tax revenue each fiscal year. It needs to be defunded.
I did not know this about this area of Charleston. Sad this happened. By the end of the war, no one had much food, and enemy soldiers were not a high priority. Too bad a prisoner exchange deal was not brokered.
Yes, very sad. Thanks for the reply. A lot a great men lost their lives in the conflict. It's a wonder our country survived at all.
I have ancestors who fought on both sides. My West Virginia ancestors, formerly Virginia, choose the wrong side invested all they had in the Confederate cause. They lost it all.
I wish I had more time to study the Civil War, hopefully when I retire... One thing I do not understand though is about the food. Sherman's men cut their Union supply lines and they still found more than enough to eat in their march through Georgia. In fact they burned and destoyed far more than they consumed. So there was plenty of food in Georgia prior to the march. And yet 45000 men died in the Andersonville, GA prison, mostly because of starvation. I suspect some real Yankee hatred was going on as well.
Juxtapose this with the posh treatment Rebel POWs recieved at Pt. Lookout. /sarc
If any current US Army commander in Iraq or Afghan tried to do what the "Torch" did in GA & SC circa 1864/65 he would be tried for war crimes.
Probably true. But at the same time Sherman began what is now known as "modern war" and what he called "total war". Military historian B. H. Liddell Hart famously declared that Sherman was "the first modern general".
Well..for one...there was prolly not enough manpower in the entire state left to harvest and transport that food to Andersonville. Second...that food was confiscated from folks farms. Sherman was at war with these civilians and therefore had no problem taking their food...the confederate army was not.
NY, I hope to one day visit the "first modern generals" grave and piss on it.
Looking at the picture of it I am "moved" to visit the bathroom.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=951
There it is.. perhaps we could form an organization to go there yearly to piddle on this bastitch.
"We're approaching a tipping point," Greene said. "The irony of the story is that Charleston is the cradle of the Confederacy, but the memorial was for Union soldiers. It shows the richness of Charleston history."
The irony is also those knuckle-draggers who have issues with incontinence and petty obsessiveness. Memorial Day should be a day to pay respect to all of our courageous servicemen. FReepers who cannot suspend their bigotry for even a moment of respect are beneath contempt.
Thanks for the reply. I did not know the posting would provoke a negative reaction. I just though it was real cool to learn the actual origins. Like I say, I have ancestors who fought on both sides. My Confederate ancestors lost a great deal but I do not harbor any anger toward those who took it from them. It was war. Not something one should choose to go into lightly.
Well if that gives you some great satisfaction, or sense of vindication, then I guess you should go for it. Whatever turns you on.
1. Sherman's troops stole the food, the Confederate government had to try to buy it with almost worthless Confederate money.
2. Union troops took everything while Confederates had to leave the civilians enough to live on.
3. The Yankees ate or destroyed the food as they went, the Confederates had to transport it to military and prison camps over damaged railroads.
And yet 45000 men died in the Andersonville, GA prison, mostly because of starvation
39,000 Confederate prisoners died in union POW camps of starvation, disease and exposure. The North had no excuse of lack of food, medicine, clothing or transport.
Food had been transported for over great distances for centuries before the invention of railroads. And the food destroyed by Sherman such as grain, corn, bacon, smoked ham would have survived shipping just fine. And the South was an agrarian society, more than the North. Plus they had free slave labor to work the fields. So you had all this food in Georgia (and maybe other Southern states as well) but Lee's men were starving in Virginia. Something just doesn't add up to me.
I may have to dig a little more. Thanks again for the reply.
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