Our Very Own Civil War 1861-1865

 If you know me, you know that I am a serious Civil War buff.The Nation is in the midst of celebrating the sesquicentennial of the Civil War so I thought I'd post a bunch facts about the war. Some of these are taken from the internet, thanks to the History Channel and civil war.com, Gettysburg Stories and PBS Station WGBH amongst others, but a few of the facts I learned while working summer jobs at the Park service and reading Bruce Catton and E.B. Long as a kid. Check them out and just maybe you can become interested yourself to try to understand the motivations of these men both north and south.

When I was younger, I tried to live the life of a Confederate Soldier. I was a re-enactor for seven years. It was quite an experience, especially when I stumbled into one of my wife's cousins, Peter, while we re-enacting the Battle of New Market. I'm the Reb, he's the Yank. Those are 100% wool uniforms we were wearing and they were HOT!!!

• More than three million men fought in the war.

• Two percent of the population—more than 620,000—died in it. Extrapolating to days population it would mean 7,000,000 died

• In two days at Shiloh on the banks of the Tennessee River, more Americans fell than in all previous American wars combined.

• During the Battle of Antietam, 12,401 Union men were killed, missing or wounded; double the casualties of D-Day, 82 years later. With a total of 23,000 casualties on both sides, it was the bloodiest single day of the Civil War.

• At Cold Harbor, Va., 7,000 Americans fell in 20 minutes. Found in the diary of a dead Union soldier on the field, "June 4, 1864, I was killed."

• Senator John J. Crittendon of Kentucky had two sons who became major generals during the Civil War: one for the North, one for the South.

• Missouri sent 39 regiments to fight in the siege of Vicksburg: 17 to the Confederacy and 22 to the Union.

• In March 1862, the Monitor and Merrimack battled off Hampton Roads, Va. From then on, after these ironclads opened fire, every other navy on earth was obsolete.

• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., future chief Justice, was wounded three times during the Civil War: in the chest at Ball’s Bluff, in the back at Antietam and in the heel at Chancellorsville.

• On July 4, 1863, after 48 days of siege, Confederate General John C. Pemberton surrendered the city of Vicksburg to the Union’s General, Ulysses S. Grant. The Fourth of July was not be celebrated in Vicksburg for another 81 years.

• Disease was the chief killer during the war, taking two men for every one who died of battle wounds.

• North and South, potential recruits were offered awards, or "bounties," for enlisting, as much as $677 in New York. Bounty jumping soon became a profession, as men signed up, then deserted, to enlist again elsewhere. One man repeated the process 32 times before being caught.

• African Americans made up less than one percent of the northern population, but by the war’s end made up ten percent of the Union Army. A total of 180,000 black men, more than 85% of those eligible, enlisted.

• Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest had 30 horses shot from under him and personally killed 31 men in hand-to-hand combat. "I was a horse ahead at the end," he said.

• In 1864, Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General, a rank previously held by General George Washington, and led the 533,000 men of the Union Army, the largest in the world. Three years later, he was made President of the United States.

•By the end of the war, Unionists from every state except South Carolina had sent regiments to fight for the North.

• On May 13, 1865, after Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Private John J. Williams of the 34th Indiana became the last man killed in the Civil War, in a battle at Palmito Ranch, Texas. The final skirmish was a Confederate victory..

• The average casualty rate of a Civil War regiment was 30%. Several regiments suffered rates as high as 85% at Gettysburg and Antietam.

• The 1st Maryland Reg't CSA fought the 1st Maryland Reg't USA at Antietam.

• Mary Todd Lincoln, the USA First Lady had relatives who fought in the Confederate army.

• General Lewis Armistead of the Confederacy led the Confederate charge at Gettysburg which penetrated General Winfield Scott Hancock's line on Cemetery ridge. Hancock and Armistead were old friends from the old army. Hancock was wounded and Armistead was mortally wounded on that same day. Armistead's great Uncle fought in the War of 1812. He had command of Fort Henry of Star Spangled Banner fame

• USA General George Thomas known as the Rock of Chicamauga for his stand during that battle was virtually disowned by his Southern Relatives after the war.

• General Sedgewick a corps commander at the Battle of Spotsylvania was cautioned to be careful as Confederate sharpshooters were known to be in the area by a red barn. a few minutes later he was shot in the head by a Confederate sharpshooter at about an 800 yard range, this after he exclaimed that they could not hit an elephant at this distance.

• The H.L. Hunley a Confederate submersible was the first submarine in history to sink an enemy warship (The USS Housatonic) in combat  in Charleston Harbor.

• 83 Confederate Generals were killed in action, 47 Union Generals died.

•Wesley Culp, formerly of Gettysburg,  as of 1863, Shepherdstown, Virginia,  joined the Confederate army.  On the move near Winchester, he encountered a friend from Gettysburg, Jack Skelly from the Union Army who was mortally wounded. Skelly requested of Wesley that he deliver a note to his fiance back in Gettysburg. Skelly’s fiance was a woman that Wesley also knew.  Jennie Wade, who happened to be the only civilian casualty in the three-day battle that took place in early July of 1863. Wesley took the note from his dying friend and vowed to see the task through. Except that Wesley Culp never completed the task since he was killed on the 2nd day of the battle on Culp's hill, his own families farm. Side note, when my father was a child, he stuck his finger in the bullet hole in Jenny's kitchen door. It took a lot of butter but he was freed :-)

•During the Battle of Fredricksburg, Va. as night fell, the cries of the suffering Union soldiers on the plains before them so bothered Confederate Sergeant Richard Rowland Kirkland that he volunteered to go over the stone wall with full canteens to succor the wounded Federals. He was nick named the Angel of Maryes Heights and was Killed in action at Chickamauga 6 months later.

Are you hooked yet?