Conference smurf::civil_war

    There was a book published called, "Strange and Fascinating Facts
    About the Civil War."  Another, older one was called, "Our Incredible
    Civil War."
    
    The urine was rendered for its nitrates, which was used to make
    gunpowder.  Ladies were asked to save their "chamber lye."  The
    fellow who suggested the project was named John Harrelson, and I
    think he was working at the Selma Arsenal.  There were a series
    of poems circulated on broadsides about the project.  Federal soldiers
    did, indeed, joke about sniffing the powder smoke and finding
    themselves at "fixed bayonets," if you will.
    
    One of the poems contained the line (and this is all I can remember
    of it)  "What could make a Yankee soldier sadder than to get shot
    by a bullet from a pretty woman's bladder."
    
    Bell Wiley mentioned the poems, and hinted that they got REAL ribald!
    
    Wess

    At the investment of Suffolk in 1863, one fun loving reb took a spare
    butternut uniform and spent alot of time making a very lifelike dummy.
    He dubbed the dummy "Julius Caesar".  One night, he and a few comerades
    lashed Julius Caesar to a signal station in a very relaxed and non-
    chalant pose.  When the sun rose, a yank battery couldn't resist such
    an inviting target and opened fire on old Julius.  After several
    minutes of shelling, and the yanks getting more and more frustrated 
    by the reb signalman's irritating indifference to the tempest raging
    around him, the cry went up from the reb lines: "Three cheers for
    Julius Caesar!".  The yanks manning the battery immediately realized
    that they'd been had, and good naturedly joined in the cheers.
    
    Ziff

    During the truce at the Battle of Fredericksburg for the purpose of 
    collecting the wounded this story occurred.  As most of us realize, 
    the ANV's best quartermaster was the AoP, especially after a battle.
    One tall Alabaman from Jackson's command (I wonder if it was the 5th
    Alabama, eh Slammer?) was assigned as a stretcher bearer.  While in
    "no-man's land" between the lines he happened upon a brand new Enfield
    rifled musket.  He picked it up, worked the mechanism, checked the
    sights, and being happily satisfied slung it over his shoulder and 
    continued on his way.  A Federal Lieutenant happened to see this, ran
    up to the man and demanded that the rifle be dropped right there.  
    The Alabaman slowly circled the officer, eying him from head to toe;
    and then without a word continued on his way, rifle still slung.
    Enraged, the officer drew his sword and ran after him, emphatically
    ordering the soldier to drop that rifle.  Again the Alabaman slowly
    circled the lieutenant, eying him head to toe.  Then for the first
    time he spoke: "Tommorrow I'm gonna shoot you and take them nice new
    boots."  He then continued on his way, rifle still slung.  The officer
    didn't follow this time.
    
    Ziff

            Re: .3
    	Of course he was, he was probably looking over an officer from
    the 28th Mass. Them Irish Brigidiar's sure did dress pretty! Right fine
    set boots there, Yank!  Just my size, too!
    
    					The Alabama Slammer

    
    Offered in the spirit of provoking informative discussion, *not* any
    personal attachment to the claims below:
    
    From the JPL "Universe", October 13:
    
    DID CONFEDERATE ROCKET FIND ITS WAY INTO ORBIT?
    
    Who put the first piece of man-made rocketry or payload into orbit?
    
    There are those who mantain it was the Southern Confederacy during the
    Civil War.
    
    The historical research of Burke Davis, author of "Our Incredible Civil
    War" (Ballantine Books, 1960), provides a certain amount of
    documentation to support the claim.
    
    Wrote Burke: "A tale even more challenging to the imagination was
    offered Southern newspaper readers in 1958 by a Vienna correspondent
    signing as 'C.R. Johnson'. Late in the war, by this story, the
    Confederacy launched a two-stage rocket from near Richmond, aiming at
    Washington, about one hundred miles away."
    
    "The extraordinary missile was made possible by the work of a secret
    agent in England, who persuaded Lord Kelvin to liquefy oxygen (in
    advance of its accepted date of development), and enlisted the aid of
    the great German physicist, Ernst Mach, who contributed a small turbine
    and a gyroscopic stabilizer.  With British-built machinery for
    liqeufying oxygen and Mach's turbine, Confederate experts went to work
    in a shed on the banks of the James River."
    
    "A deep hole in the riverbank was fitted with a tube made of
    dismembered barrels of naval guns. The celebrated Matthew Fontaine
    Maury, father of modern navigation, calculated the trajectory."
    
    "The rocket itself was to get its original thrust from guncotton fired
    at the bottom of the tube, and was made at the huge Tredegar Iron Works
    in Richmond. The missile was trundled through Richmond's streets to the
    launching site in early March, 1865. Men from the Torpedo Bureau worked
    around the clock to prepare the rocket; a steam pipe was fed into the
    launching tube to provide power for the stabilizing vanes."
    
    "The missile arrived with the letters CSA (Confederate States of
    America) cut into the nose cone, and President (Jefferson) Davis and
    other officials added their names before firing."
    
    " A network of scouts was spread in the country between Richmond and
    Washington as crude tracking station outposts, and when the rocket was
    fired by an electrical switch, men with telescopes saw it roar skyward,
    lose its first stage, and disappear from sight. The first stage, by
    this account, was recovered and returned to the torpedo shed."
    
    "A mystery developed: No eye saw the rocket come down, and since record
    books were destroyed with the fall of Richmond, the rocket's fate was
    unknown. The son of the Confederate agent in England, according to this
    folklorist or prankster, is now (circa 1959) in his nineties, and does
    not wish to be disturbed by publicity which would attend his producing
    the authentic records of this event. His will, it is said, provides 
    that these be made public."
    
    "Meanwhile, a fascinated audience ponders the fantastic prospect: Is
    there, somewhere in space, a veteran of almost one hundred years as an
    orbiting satelite, a missile bearing the outmoded initials CSA?"
    
    Editor's note: Apparently the "authentic records" have not come to
    light. [Further information welcomed.]
    
    
    					The Alabama (Armstrong) Slammer
      

    
    	A Monsieur Chillon, a French army veteran who had migrated to
    California, walked cross-country to war in 1861, through Indian 
    territory accompanied oly by his donkey, Jason, with whom he slept.
    	Chillon was welcomed by the French-speaking 3rd Louisianna of the
    Confederate Army and settled down. There was one trouble: the
    regiment's colonel bore a strong resemblance to old Chillon, and at
    bedtime jason invariably pushed into the commanders tent and tried to
    curl up next to the officer, to the joyous yelping of the troops.
    
    
    						The Alabama Slammer

    
    	In the Confederate retreat as the battle of Shiloh ended, three 
    gray-clad officers rode past Colonel A.K. Johnson, of the 28th Illinois
    regiment. Johnston chased and fired at one rider.
    	The victim slumped on his horse's neck, but Johnston, thinking this
    a feint, rode nearer and seized the Confederate by the hair to drag him
    from the saddle.
    	A tug brought him a trophy - a wig. The Confederate officer was
    dead, and soon toppled to the ground.
    
    						The Alabama Slammer

    RE .5:
    
    The biggest problem with this idea is that it requires _two_ jumps to
    have been made in technology:  first, liquefying oxygen, and second,
    developing the thermos bottle to keep it in.
    
    Liquid oxygen is _cold_, and it won't stay liquid unless it stays cold. 
    Until the late 19th Century development of the vacuum-insulated bottle,
    there wasn't any way to store the stuff long enough to fuel a rocket
    like the one described.  The added problem, of course, to the invention
    of the bottle is being able to make one _big_ enough - that's pretty
    sophisticated glass/vacuum pump technology.
    
    MikeR
    

    
    	The enduring nickname of Stonewall Jackson is classed as a bit of
    folklore by some historians, who point out that no proof exists that
    the famed "nom du guerre" was actually applied by General Bernard Bee,
    the South Carolinaian who died at First Manassas, soon after rallying
    his troops with the alleged cry: "Look, there stands Jackson like a 
    stone wall!"
    	In rebuttal, a South Carolina tradition insists that Bee did utter
    those words - but that he was excoriating Jackson for his failure to
    launch a charge with his troops, rather than hold them in position
    on his hillside. 
    
    						The Alabama Slammer 

As related by the PBS series "The Civil War", specifically, the segment
entitled "The Beast".

After New Orleans fell Gen. Benjamin F. Butler was placed in command of
the occupying Federal forces and went right to work.  Hung a guy for
alledged desecration of the US flag, closed a secessionist newspaper, 
confiscated all sorts of property from folks that refused to sign a
loyalty oath, etc.  Apparently, the Union troops were routinely insulted
by the women of New Orleans, but it was when one of them dumped the
contents of her chamber pot onto Admiral Farragut that Ben "The Beast"
Butler issued General Order 28:

"As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to
repeated insults from the women calling themselves ladies of New Orleans,
it is ordered that hereafter, when any female shall by word, gesture, or
movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the
United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as
a woman of the town, plying her avocation."

Went over like the proverbial lead baloon, and chamber pots, with 
Butler's picture lining the bottom, became the rage.

Scott

    In New Orleans, Butler was known as widely as "Spoons" as he was "the
    Beast."  The former moniker referred to his having liberated an
    incredible quantity of fine silverware and shipped it north as personal
    baggage.
    
    -dick

    
    	It is not well known that the Union General William Tecumseh
    Sherman, the "Scourge of Georgia", had close ties with the South before
    the war. Altogether, Sherman lived in the South for about twelve years
    before the war broke out. In 1860 he found his calling as head of a new
    school in Alexandria, Louisianna, called The Louisiana State Seminary
    of Learning and Military Academy.
    	Not long after the Civil War broke out and Sherman threw his lot
    with the Union. This school moved to Baton Rouge in 1869, and a year
    later changed its name to Louisiana State University.
    	Thus, Sherman could be rightfully called a founder of one of the 
    South's leading colleges. However, any attachments he formed from his
    southern connections were obviously not enough to stop him from "making
    Georgia howl" in 1864.
    
    					The Alabama Slammer
    
    
    

    
    	Pvt. Henry Morton Stanley (1828 - 1904), 6th Arkansas Infantry,
    1st Brigade, Confederate III Corps. Captured at Shiloh, Stanley
    enlisted in the Union Army as a "galvanized Yankee". 
    	He later found Dr. Livingston in Africa and became a famous
    explorer.
    
    						The Alabama Slammer

    
    
    A world famous English journalist who had covered the Crimean War
    extensively, visited a Union Army camp at the start of the war. He was
    impressed at first by the size of the army but wanted to know more
    about the soldiers' training. He got his answer when on a tour he was
    shown the gunpowder room by a sergeant. It was dark inside so the
    sergeant calmly lit a match so they could see better! The
    journalist, after a hasty exit to the nearest latrine, wrote that it
    was going to be a VERY short war. 

    
    From what I gather, Sherman was reasonably respected in the South
    until he published his memoirs. In this, he made plain that he
    considered secession both a treasonable conspiracy and an act of
    lunacy. When Southerners realised that their respect for Sherman 
    was not reciprocated, his place as the South's "bete noir" was
    ensured for ever.
    
    A footnote - in the early 1900's a group of West Point cadets
    undertook to retrace Sherman's campaigns on horseback. No one
    took much notice until Teddy Roosevelt appointed Sherman's son
    Tom (a Catholic priest) as the group's chaplain and mentor. 
    There was an instant outcry from the South - one editor wrote
    frankly encouraging Southerners to stop the cadets by force.
    Apparently, even the thought of the hated Sherman's son was too
    much. The planned expedition was cancelled.
    
    Not all Southerners hated Sherman - it is said that Joe Johnston
    died as a result of attending the funeral of his old foe on a 
    wet day. In his own way, Sherman also loved the South, but to 
    paraphrase Oscar Wilde on Edward Carson: "He fought the South 
    with all the venom of an old friend"
    
    Toby

    re .15
    
    It was a rainy day, and Jonston refused to put his hat on.  He did this
    out of respect for his old friend.  As a result, he caught pneumonia.
    
    Ziff

    Johnston and Sherman had been friends  before the war, but what really
    made Uncle Joe love his enemy so was the terms that Sherman gave the
    Army of Tennessee at Bentonville. Sherman essentiallyl said, "Y'all
    settle down and go on home."  I have read that some regiments were 
    not even relieved of their muskets, but that seems pretty hard to
    swallow!  The assasination put a halt to such magnanimit, and the 
    Yankee congress ordered Sherman to inflict somewhat more harsh terms
    on the AOT.
    
    
    Wess

    I just read about this over the weekend and it was the first that I 
    had heard of it.  The version I read (I think it was Bruce Catton's 
    American Heritage History of the Civil War) said that Sherman's 
    negotiations with Johnston followed a strategy that Sherman thought 
    was in line with Lincoln's reconstruction plans laid down during the 
    famous shipboard meeting near City Point (the River Queen???).
    
    In short, Sherman's terms were more liberal than those extended at
    Appomattox.  As I recall, one difference was that the soldiers were
    instructed to return to their respective state capitals in order to lay
    down their arms, rather than lay them down on the spot as was done at
    Appomattox.
    
    The biggest objection to Sherman's terms as I recall had to do with
    politics, not war.  He made some mention of allowing state governments
    to continue ruling as is, and the swearing of allegiance to the Union
    was less emphasized in Sherman's terms than in Grant's.  All in all,
    with Lincoln's death, Sherman was in no position to petition the
    President for a ruling on whether or not his terms were indeed in step
    with Lincoln's plans.  Stanton and Seward were incensed, and only
    Sherman's victories kept him out of REAL hot water.  
    
    The terms were re-written to mirror Grant's, and Sherman was disgusted
    enough to shun politics for the rest of his life.  The book also
    mentioned that Johnston was deeply touched by Sherman's compassion, and
    their mutual respect as enemy generals turned into a warm and lasting
    friendship culminating in Johnston's death resulting from his
    attendance at Sherman's funeral.
    

    
    I remember reading an article on the Stanton/Sherman controversy many
    years ago in CWTI.  They also mentioned that their were some very 
    nervous politicians in Washington when Sherman's army was encamped
    around the city prior to the Grand Review.  The thoughts of Sherman
    becoming a military dictator due to political meddling was something 
    to think about.  Sherman's army adored him and who knows what could
    have happened with a lesser man in charge.
    
    
    

    The bloodshed would have been indescribable, but talk about the 
    Super Bowl of American military power:  The Army of the Potomac
    vs. the Army of the Tennessee for control of Washington!
    
    Boggles the mind, eh?
    
    
    Wess

Well, since spring is just busting out all over, I decided to reaquaint
myself with Jackson's valley campaign of 1862.  So I dug out "Stonewall
in the Valley", by Robert G. Tanner and dived in.  I believe the following
incident took place in the summer of 1861, before first Bull Run, when
Jackson was putting his forces in order in the valley.

From page 32...

     "Imboden also returned in time to see Jackson swing into action
on another front.  By some unwritten detente, the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad had been allowed to continue its service across the Valley's
tip to the Allegheny coal fields.  The railroad was shuttling coal to
Washington at capacity along this route, and Jackson decided to stop it.
From Point of Rocks, some miles east of Harper's Ferry on Maryland's
Potomac shore, to Martinsburg the B & O was double tracked, that is, had
separate lines allowing traffic to pass in opposite directions.  Both
tracks crossed the Potomac at Harper's Ferry.  Jackson, making a veiled
threat, warned company officials that racket from the never-ending trains
disturbed his camps and must cease.  The railroad agreed to his demand
to funnel its traffic through Harper's Ferry between 11 AM and 1 PM.
When the B & O timetable was readjusted to give the town the busiest
railroad in America two hours a day, Jackson pounced.  At 11 AM he
began barricading the east bound lane at Point of Rocks while permitting
westerly traffic as usual.  He had the reverse done at Martinsburg.
At 1 PM Jackson tore up all ends of the double track and stranded more 
than 400 locomotives and cars.
     This man Jackson got things done.  In three weeks he had hammered
a mob into the rudiments of an army and hoodwinked one of the Union's
major railroads out of the war."


I love it.

Scott

    r *.5
    I read a variant of this story in an anthology entitled "The Fantastic
    Civil War" edited by S.M.Stirling. One of the stories was entitled
    "Death Angel" and was about a three stage Confederate Rocket designed
    by Lord Kelvin. The Rocket was launched on Inaguration Day and killed
    Lincoln, and all his cabinet save Stanton who later took over the govt.
    and made a terrible revenge upon the Confederacy which lost anyway.
    
    BTW I recommend the above anthology for those of you War buffs who are
    also science fiction fans. The longest story was a short novellete by
    Ward Moore entitled "Bring the Jubilee" which dealt with a variant of
    the battle of Gettysburg which was won by the Conferderacy in the time
    line of the story, however the protagonist goes back and while walking
    along the Emittsburg Tpk causes a troop of Conferdate cavalary to take
    fright and they *dont* take Little Round Top. This time the Union wins
    and we have the world we know and love.
    
    
    Conan The Librarian