Posted on 05/24/2025 6:47:02 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Special Dispatch to the New-York Times.
WASHINGTON, Tuesday, May 23, 1865.
The Army of the Potomac has passed in review. The first day's pageant is over, and to the correspondent falls the duty of depicting a scene almost devoid of incident, save in its grand aspiration. Every circumstance has combined to make it a complete success. The weather has been magnificent; the air, delightfully tempered by the rains of the past week, is cool and fragrant, and dust is for the time subdued.
Washington has been filled as it never was filled before; the hotel-keepers assert that the pressure upon their resources never was so great, and thousands of people have been nightly turned away to seek a place of rest where best they might.
The train which left New-York on Monday evening consisted of twenty-one overcrowded cars, and only reached Washington at ten o'clock this morning, an hour after the grand column had begun to move. Still are the crowds pouring in, particularly from the West, with the friends and admirers of SHERMAN's great armies, which pass in review to-morrow.
Though the city is so crowded, it is yet gay and jovial with the good feeling that prevails, for the occasion is one of such grand import and true rejoicing, that small vexations sink out of sight. With many it is the greatest epoch of their lives; with the soldier it is the last act in the drama; with the nation it is the triumphant exhibition of the resources and valor which have saved it from disruption and placed it first upon earth.
So the scene of to-day (and that of to-morrow) will never be forgotten, and he who is privileged to be a witness will mark it as a white day in the calendar,
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
First session: November 21, 2015. Last date to add: May 25, 2025.
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Link to previous New York Times thread
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4318693/posts
Review of the Armies: Propitious Weather and a Splendid Spectacle – 2-6
Jeff. Davis Locked Up: Landing of the Late Confederacy at Fortress Monroe – 6
The Yellow Fever Plot: Dr. Blackburn Admitted to Bail – 6
The Pacific Coast: Trial of Rebel Pirates by a Military Commission – 6-7
Surrenders in Florida: The Cities of St. Marks and Tallahassee Give up the Contest – 7
Trial of the Assassins – 7
From Washington – 7
Editorial: The Acquisition of the Rebel Archives – 7-8
Gen. Sherman and His Superiors – 8
Editorial: The Underground Railroad – 8
Decline in the Price of Coal – 8
Sale of Land in Westchester County – 8
A “ splendid spectacle “ shouts the New York Times headline.
Celebrating the end of a completely unnecessary war, which murdered and maimed over 800,000 men, women, and children.
Horrible wars are always a “ splendid spectacle “ for those who observe from afar.
My understanding is that most or all Confederate records were lost or destroyed, so very little is now known about the inner workings and ideas of Confederate leadership.
This editorial suggests something quite different.
What do you know about it?
Just what I learned from a post on one of my threads. I don't remember if it was from Civil War Notebook or an excerpt from one of the histories. I will chew on it and try to recall the source.
You don’t think there will be war over abortion? 70 million n9t enough? Guilt and greed brought the ladt civil war, and will bring the next.
I found this article from the May 23 NYT thread. “North Carolina” on page 4 there or here=> https://www.nytimes.com/1865/05/23/archives/north-carolina-the-records-of-the-rebel-war-departpartment-captured.html?searchResultPosition=1
The story goes that when the Prussian Ambassador saw the Army of the Potomac pass in review he was struck by their military bearing and vigor, saying “This army could beat the world!” The next day, when Sherman’s Army of the West, a little more ragged and tattered from hard fighting and rough bivouac for many months, but in fine meddle and military discipline marched past, he exclaimed, “This army could whip Hell itself.”
Since the war was so terrible, its end should well and rightly be celebrated, but most especially so by the victors. One of my wife’s ancestors was in the kitchen washing dishes in Ohio, and when her son returned, she stood frozen, and dropped a dish, breaking it. I am sure that mothers in Tennessee and Alabama reacted quite the same way.
BJK to Homer_J_Simpson: "My understanding is that most or all Confederate records were lost or destroyed, so very little is now known about the inner workings and ideas of Confederate leadership.
This editorial suggests something quite different."
Homer_J_Simpson: "I found this article from the May 23 NYT thread. “North Carolina” on page 4 there or here=>"
Among others, I notice one box marked, "Papers and Books, Gen. LEE's Headquarters."
This box contained the original drafts of LEE's reports of battles and campaigns, and other papers of the same description.
The original report of the Gettysburgh campaign was found in it, besides several other manuscripts in Gen. LEE's own handwriting..."
Noteworthy in the latter category, it seems, is anything implicating Jefferson Davis in John Wilkes Booth's plot to assassinate Pres. Lincoln.
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