New book gives glimpse of civil war

Kansas.com ^ | Oct. 28, 2002 | LAWRENCE L. KNUTSON

[stainlessbanner]

WASHINGTON - The American Civil War consumed at least 620,000 lives over more than 1,400 days and has been scrutinized, discussed and interpreted ever since.

The war has captured popular imagination and marched into the domain of novels, drama, art, film and television documentaries. There are Civil War reenactments not only on the sites of battles but in places where battles were never fought. Scholars spend their careers studying and writing about the war and the people who lived through it.

Now, the Library of Congress, the repository of millions of Civil War letters, photographs, books, diaries, drawings, and war maps, sets out in a single 949-page book to gather the strands of the war under a single tent.

"The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference" is both a warehouse of information and a map for further exploration of what historian James McPherson calls "the most dramatic, violent and fateful experience in American history."

McPherson supplies the foreword of the new book, compiled by Civil War scholars Gary W. Gallagher and Paul Finkelman and Library of Congress editor Margaret E. Wagner. He says their efforts provide material unavailable in any other source. And since the book is organized in chapters, he notes that it itself can be read as a history of the war and its times.

The book tracks the major battles but also follows the supply wagons and the troop trains and listens to the taps of the telegraph keys reporting events. It records advances in mapping, the use of intelligence and examines newspaper coverage of the war and its politics. It traces advances in military surgery and identifies disease, not combat, as the war's deadliest killer.

"It is estimated that two-thirds of the war's fatalities were attributable to diseases such as diarrhea, dysentery, pneumonia, typhoid, malaria," the authors state.

The book tracks the building of military railroads and bridges, notes conditions on the home fronts North and South, and documents the use of black soldiers. It begins with a history of American slavery and the sectional divisions tearing at the nation. It ends with a history of reconstruction.

Time lines inserted at intervals contain the experiences and thoughts of people on both sides of the battle lines. Here, for 1862, are some of them:

• April 1862: "We caught a rebel spy in our camp last week, disguised as a newspaper vendor. Papers were found in his boots that convicted him beyond doubt, and he was hanged by the neck with very little ceremony." Sgt. Warren H. Freeman, 13th Massachusetts Volunteers.
  
  
• May 1862: "My horse's head was blown off and falling so suddenly as to catch my foot and leg under the horse. The regiment, seeing me fall, supposed I was killed or wounded and began to falter ... I grasped it (the flag) and called upon them to charge!" Confederate Lt. Col. Brian Grimes.
  
  
• June 1862: "The most saddening sight was the wounded at the hospitals, which were in various places on the battlefield. Not only are the houses full but the yards are covered with them." Dr. Spencer Glasgow Welch, Confederate surgeon.
  
  
• August 1862: "Here too, I saw what I had never seen before: men pinning strips of paper with their names, company and regiment to their coats so they could be identified if killed." Capt. Charles Minor Blackford, Second Virginia Cavalry.
  
  
• September 1862: "The rebels were pouring a murderous current of shot and shell upon us, we returned the compliment; there (sic) uniform being the color of dirt, we could not see them very well, but we kept them at bay ..." Pvt. John W. Jacques, Ninth New York State Militia, describing the Battle of Antietam.
  
  
• October 1862: "It is not for you and I, or us & our dear little ones alone, that I was and am willing to risk the fortunes of the battlefield, but also for the sake of the country's millions who are to come after us." Sgt. Joseph Chaney. U.S. Army. The book itself is dedicated to Sgt. Chaney.
  
  
• December 1862, from London: "The great body of the aristocracy and the commercial classes are anxious to see the United States go to pieces ... the middle and lower class sympathize with us (because they) see in the convulsion in America an era in the history of the world out of which must come in the end a general recognition of the right of mankind to the fruit of their labor and the pursuit of happiness." U.S. Minister to Great Britain Charles Francis Adams.

[stainlessbanner]

Dixie bump!

[Bahbah]

Back when people could actually write.

[Non-Sequitur]

Thanks, my wife has been bugging me about what I want for Christmas. This beats socks any time.

[Graewoulf]

Thank you for bringing this post to FR. This sounds like a valuable reference book.

It is in our best interests to learn the reality of our Nation's past so that we may behave in the present, and the future, in such a manner as to avoid the mistakes of the past.

[billbears]

McPherson supplies the foreword of the new book

Well imagine that!! Commentaries be Dubois and Sandburg included somewhere in there to I suppose?

and documents the use of black soldiers.

I bet it doesn't

[Non-Sequitur]

Don't you have a 'Dole for Senate' rally to attend, bill?

[stainlessbanner]

This beats socks any time.

So does a purty CBF - add that to your list, Non!

[billbears]

LOL. Good one

[TomServo]

Thanks for the ping! Dixie Bump!

[Non-Sequitur]

Hang one in my house and it won't be a stainless banner for long.

[Constitution Day]

...I grasped it (the flag) and called upon them to charge!" Confederate Lt. Col. Brian Grimes.

Just a minor point, I think that is Bryan Grimes they are referring to.

"Bryan Grimes was born at Grimesland, N.C. in 1828. He graduated from the University of N.C. in 1848, and was a member of the state convention of 1861 that adopted the ordinance of secession.
He entered service for the Confederate army as a major in the Fourth N.C. Regiment. Grimes eventually rose to the rank of major general. He participated in battles at Seven Pines, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg.
He was at Appomattox, Virginia when Robert E. Lee surrendered his army in 1865. Grimes was killed from ambush by an assassin while driving from Washington, N.C. to his nearby home on August 14, 1880."

[Non-Sequitur]

So come on, bill, is she going to do it or will she fold in the stretch? All of a sudden Zogby is saying it's a horse race. Can the Creature from the Clinton Lagoon knock off the Queen of Brittle?

[billbears]

No comment but she's now wanting to give teens drug testing before they can get their driver's license. This on top of the all the other fine things we have to do in the car thanks to her

Here

[Non-Sequitur]

So much for states rights, huh? I swear to God there are times when I wish you had won.

[STONEWALLS]

thanks Stainless!.....here's some info from the Library of Congress website:

" "The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference," a 949-page hardcover book, with more than 100 photographs, drawings and maps, is available for $45 in bookstores nationwide and the Library's Sales Shop (credit card orders: 888-682-3557)."

Good luck to everybody!

Stonewalls

[stainlessbanner]

Actually the Stainlessbanner is named because of it's white shield - for the purity of the Southern Cause. It is also called the "Jackson Flag" b/c the banner was draped over Gen. Jackson's coffin upon his death at Chancelorsville

[stand watie]

the ACTUAL number of DEAD from the WBTS was about ONE MILLION! many of them INNOCENT CIVILIANS.

for TRUTH & dixie,sw