Conference smurf::civil_war

    Such a summary, even a *brief* one, would require thousands of lines
    unless all it did was to list by name the people, and list by name and
    date the events.  Maybe I'll drag out my encyclopedia and scan in its
    dozen or so pages...  :-)
    
    -dick

    Maybe the chronology (130 years ago today) would suit your
    purpose(?)  Also, depending upon your level of interest, it
    might also be tediously detailed.
    
    r�

    		AMERICAN CIVIL WAR


1861.

Rich Mountain, 11 July 1861
Bull Run, 21 July 1861
Wilson's Creek, 10 August 1861
Lexington, 18 September 1861
Ball's Bluff, 21 October 1861


1862.

Mill Springs, 19 January 1862
Roanoke Island, 7 February 1862
Fork Donelson, 15 February 1862
Pea Ridge, 7-8 March 1862
Hampton Roads, 8-9 March 1862
Yorktown, 5 April 1862
Shiloh, 6-7 April 1862
New Orleans, 16 April 1862
Williamsburg, 5 May 1862
Fair Oaks, 31 May - 1 June 1862
Memphis, 6 June 1862
Cross Keys, 8 June 1862
Port Republic, 9 June 1862
Secessionville, 15 June 1862
Vicksburg, 24 June 1862
Seven Days Battle, 25 June - 1 July 1862
    - Mechanicsville, 26 June 1862
    - Gaines' Mill, 27 June 1862
    - Savage Station, 28 June 1862
    - Glendale (Frayser's Farm), 30 June 1862
    - Malvern Hill, 1 July 1862
Cedar Mountain, 9 August 1862
Sudley Springs, 29 August 1862
Richmond, 30 August 1862
Bull Run, 30-31 August 1862
South Mountain, 14 September 1862
Harpers Ferry, 15 September 1862
Antietam, 17 September 1862
Corinth, 3-4 October 1862
Perryville, 8 October 1862
Prairie Grove, 7 December 1862
Fredericksburg, 13 December 1862
Chickasaw Bluff, 29 December 1862
Murfreesboro, 31 December 1862


1863.

Charleston, 6 April 1863
Chancellorsville, 1-4 May 1863
Port Hudson, 25 May - 9 July 1863
Winchester, 14 June 1863
Vicksburg, 9 January - 4 July 1863
Gettysburg, 1-3 July 1863
Chickamauga, 19 - 20 September 1863
Bristoe Station, 14 October 1863
Chattanooga, 24-27 November 1863
Nashville, 15-16 December 1863


1864.

Ocean Pond, 20 February 1864
Mansfield, 8 April 1864
The Wilderness, 4-8 May 1864
Spottsylvania, 10-12 May 1864
New Market, 15 May 1864
Coldharbour, 1 June 1864
Chickohominy, 3 June 1864
Petersburg, 15-18 June 1864
Kinnesaw Mountain, 27 June 1864
Peach Tree Creek, 20 July 1864
Petersburg, 30 July 1864
Opequan, 19 September 1864
Fisher's Hill, 22 September 1864
Cedar Creek, 19 October 1864
Franklin, 30 November 1864


1865.

Five Forks, 1 April 1865
Appomattox River, 9 April 1865

    Re .3
    
    Excellent.  Next we need the principal people, say the top 30 or 40,
    with one line each of ID.  :-)
    
    BTW, you look like a Yankee sympathizer.  I allus thought you Brits was
    Southern sympathizers.  :-)

    Dick
    
    Re you comment below, how do you come by this from a list of battles?
    
    < BTW, you look like a Yankee sympathizer.  I allus thought you Brits was
    < Southern sympathizers.  :-)
    
	
    Mike

	Union
	------
	
	   o  George B. McClullen - "Little Mac" or the "Little Napolean".  
		Commanded the Army of the Potomac from the Peninsula Campaign of
		1862 until just after Sharpsburg (Sept 7-9, 1862).  Ran for
		President of the US against Lincoln in 1864.

	   o  Ulysses S. Grant -  "Unconditional Surrender Grant".  Gained 
		military prominence in the Western Theater that lead to his
		appointment to command all the armies of the Union in 1864. 
		Became President of the US after the War serving two terms.

	   o  Abe Lincoln -  Perhaps the United States greatest President.
		Was assinated by John Wilkes Booth in April, 1865.  Credited
		with "freeing" the slaves (but in actuality it was a military
		tactic).

	   o  William T. Sherman - Grant's Right-Hand man.  Along with Grant,
		he manufactured victory upon victory in the Western Theater.
		Sherman's "March to the Sea" from Atlanta to Savhanna, Georgia
		highlighted his tactic of "Total Warfare".  After 'Beast' Butler
		Sherman was the most hated man in the Southern Confederacy.

	   o  David Farragut -  Captured New Orleans, Louisianna thus denying
		the Confederacy the full use of the Mississippi River early in
		the War.  Along with David Dixon Porter, he probably was the 
		most prominate Union Navel officer of the War.

	   o  George Thomas -  "The Rock of Chicamauga".  His steadfastness at
		the 1863 Battle of Chicamauga almost singlehandedly allowed the
		Union Army of the Tennessee to escape to Chattanooga.  Thomas'
		military greatness also showed though in the Battle of Nashville
		in 1864 allowing Sherman to continue his "March to the Sea".

	   o  George Gordon Meade - "The Old Snapping Turtle".  Meade commanded
		the Union Army of the Potomac from Gettysburg until the end of
		the War.  A meanspirited man, he became jealous of Grants 
		popularity with the Lincoln administration even though he 
		delivered the Union's greatest victory at Gettysburg.

	   o  Alan Pinkerton -  A Railroad detective before the war, Pinkerton
		created a vast spy network and has been credited with the 
		creation of many techniques used in detective work (finger-
		printing for one).  Helped uncover many 'secret plots' aimed
		at disrupting the war effort in the North.

	   o  Phil Sheridan -  "Little Phil" was probably the Unions most 
		able Cavalry leader.  Also practiced  Sherman's "Total Warfare"
		concept especially in the Shennendoah Valley of Virginia late
		in the War.  

	   o  Joshua Chamberlin -  Probably the most prominent Union soldier,
		other than a General, of the War.  He led the defense of Little
		Round Top at Gettysburg and was the author of the most famous
		bayonet charge in the history of modern warfare.

	   o  Ambrose Burnside - "Old Wiskers" commanded the Army of the Potomac
		at the debacle that was the Battle of Fredricksburg, Virginia in
		1862.  An able Corps commander, Burnside led troups in both 
		theaters of the War.  He knew his limitations though and had at	
		first refused the offer of command from Lincoln after the 
		Sharpsburg Campaign. 		

	   o  Ben Butler - "The Beast of New Orleans".  Butler (a native of 
		Lowell, MA) was a political General who infuruaited the South
		when he confiscated Slaves (as contriband of war) and issued a
		proclimation announcing that all women found on the streets of
		New Orleans after dark would be considered to be 'plying their
		trade' (ie Prostitution) and would be dealt with as such.

	   o  Joe Hooker - "Fighting Joe" Hooker commended the Union Army of the
		Potomac during the Chancellorsville Campaign of 1863.  Hooker
		was a good organiser and is credited with the ensignia system
		adopted by the Union Army to distinquish between Corps.  Also,
		the camp followers (women) of his army became known as 'Hookers'
		which is the American slang for Prostitute.

	   
	This is from memory and I probably got a lot of spelling wrong. Of 
	course, anyones Top 10 can be different than my Top 10 but I tried to
	give it a mix among different branches of the service and the Political
	front.  I will enter the Confederate picks in the next note.

	Regards,

	Chuck April	

	Confederate
	-----------

	o  Robert E. Lee - "Marse Robert" Lee was probably the most known figure
	 	of the Civil War.  Lee was the epitomy of the Southern Gentleman,
		sired from Aristocratic stock (His father was 'Light House' Harry
		Lee, a signer of the Declaration of Independance and a Cavalry
		leader of the Reveloutionary War) Lee was originally offered
		command of all the Union Armies prior to Virginia's Seccession.
		When Virgina went out of the Union she brought with it her 
		greatest treasure.  Lee commanded the famous Confederate Army of
		Northern Virginia from the 7 Days Battle until the end of the
		War.  It was said that after the Battle of Gettysburg, the 
		soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia no longer fought for
		the Southern Confederacy but for Bobby Lee.  It was said that
		the Northern soldiers revered and loved Lee almost as much as
		his own men !  Grant, upon his arrival in the East, was appalled
		at the tone his officers and men spoke of about Lee.  A fearsome
		fighter and taker of risk, it was once said of Lee that his
		middle name was 'Audacity'.   

	o  Thomas Jackson - "Stonewall" or "Old Blue Eyes".  Jackson was the
		architect of the Shennendoah Campaign  of 1861-62 where he
		reeled off a score of victories against numerically superior 
		numbers and essentially practiced the art of 'divide and conquer'
		to it's ultimate end.  It was Jackson who devised the famous 
		end-around attack at Channcellorville that shattered the Union
		Army's right flank and added to the Confederate string of 
		victories that marked the Army of Northern Virginia from the
		7 Days Battle until the defeat at Gettysburg in 1863.  Jackson
		was shot and killed by his own men at Channcellorville in an
		accident that probably cost the Confederacy it's best fighting
		general.


	o  James Longstreet - "Old Pete".  Longstreet was Lee's concious.  
		Longstreet was a great tactician and a superb leader of men who
		probably should have been given independent command rather than
		have him aligned with Lee.  It was Longstreet (and his men) who
		came West to the Battle of Chicamauga and blew open the hole
		in the Union center that won the South it's greatest (and last)
		major victory of the Western Theater.  It was Longstreet who 
		tried to caution Lee about attacking the Union center on the
		3rd day at Gettysburg (to no avail).  After the War, Longstreet
		became highly unpopular with the people of the South because he
		criticized Lee's tactics during the war.  

	o  A.P. Hill - Hill commanded the 3rd Corps of the Army of Northern 
		Virginia.  He seldom went into battle without wearing a peculiar
		red shirt that peeked out from under his jacket.  Hill was a
		headstrong fighter who both committed Lee's army to battle
		prematurely (It was Hill's men that went looking for shoes that
		fatefull day in July at Gettysburg) and alternately rescued 
		Lee's army (Hill double-quicked his men from Harper's Ferry to
		Antitem Creek to arrive at the penultimate time to crush 
		Burnside's attack on the Confederate right wing on the 2nd day
		at Sharpsburg).  Hill's name was on both Lee's & Jackson's lips
		when they died indicating his prominance among his superiors.


	I've got a meeting to go to .... will continue later.

	Chuck

   o  Jefferson Davis - The *only* president of the Confederacy.  Jefferson
	Davis was a 'commander-in-chief' at heart and a politician second.
	Unfortunately, his military decision making left a lot to be desired
	(replacing Joe Johnson with John Bell Hood on the eve of the Battle for
	Atlanta) and his coddling of inept Generals who were favorites (like
	John Pemberton and Gideon Pillow) was meddlesome.  Davis, however, was
	almost the closest thing to a benevolent dictator that America has seen.
	He truely loved the South and it's 'right' to secede from the Union.
	Davis was captured in the Pine Barrens of Georgia while attempting to 
	flee to the Far Western Confederacy in May of 1865.  He was jailed and
	was threatened to be hanged for treason.  He was pardoned by Andrew 
	Johnson and became the symbol of the 'Lost Cause' to the people of the
	South.

   o  Joseph E. Johnson -  Joe Johnson was a defensive specialist who's views
	of fighting a war where the North would tire of aggresion was opposed
	by the South's political leaders including Jefferson Davis.  Johnson
	was commander of what was essentially the beginning of the Army of 
	Northern Virginia when he was seriously wounded outside of Richmond,
	Virginia prior to the Seven Days.  Johnson, upon healing, was assigned
	to the Western Theater where he attempted to create a force to relieve
	John C. Pemberton's Army of the Mississippi which was besieged in 
	Vicksburg by Union forces under Grant.  Johnson then fought a magnificent
	defensive campaign a year later in Georgia delaying and contesting the
	advance of William T. Sherman's forces into Atlanta.  Johnson's strategy
	of defensive positioning and only attacking where he could post an
	absolute advantage failed to impress Davis who relieved him of command.
	Johnson finished his Southern service by commanding remnents of the
	once great Southern Army of the Tennesse at the Battle of Bennington,
	in North Carolina in 1865.  

   o  JEB Stuart -  "Fancy" Stuart was the 'Gallant Knight on Horseback' of the
	Southern Cavalry Corps.  His penchant for the gallant gesture and the
	risky adventure made him a hero in the eyes of the Southern people.  
	His 'Ride around MacClullan' on the eve of the Seven Days Battle made
	him famous.  However, when he attempted to duplicate this successfull
	raid by riding around Meede's Army of the Potomac in the days preceeding
	the Battle of Gettysburg, he cost Lee his most valuable asset in a 
	military offensive - his cavalry scouts.  Stuart was killed in action
	at the Battle of Yellow Tavern attempting to blunt a cavalry raid on
	Richmond in 1864.  Lee was said to have cried profusely when told of 
	Stuarts death as Lee loved his Cavalry leader despite all his flaws. 
	In fact, Stuart was the only officer Lee would address by his first name.

   o  Nathan Bedford Forrest -  "That Devil" Forrest as W.T. Sherman called him
	was the only soldier in either army that rose from the rank of private
	to Brigadier General during the War.  Forrest, a slave trader and owner
	of over 50 slaves before the war, became the most feared cavalry leader
	of either side during the War.  His tactics have been copied by military
	leaders of all wars since the Civil War.  He personally was credited with
	over 2 dozen hand-to-hand 'kills'.  He commanded a virtually independent
	cavalry force loosely assigned to the area of Norhtern Mississippi, 
	Alabama, Northern Georgia, and East Tennesse.  After the war, Forrest
	was credited with becoming the first Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan
	but the association was vehemetly denied by Forrest himself.  

   o  John Bell Hood - John Bell Hood was the opposite of James Longstreet,
	although he served under Longstreet during his early years with the Army
	of Northern Virginia, 'attack immeadiately if not sooner' was his motto.
	Hood was wounded several times in his career and had an arm and a leg 
	amputated.  Hood succeeded Joe Johnson as commander of the Army of the
	Tennesse in front of Atlanta largely on the promise to Jefferson Davis 
        that he would retreat no further.  He did not.  What he did do was wreak
	the once proud Army of the Tennesse in three seperate offensive assaults
	on entrenched Union forces outside of Atlanta.  After losing approximate-
	ly half his fighting force, he retreated to Northern Georgia after giving
	up Atlanta to Sherman.  Hood did not learn his lesson, and repeated his
	inept ways by frontal attacks in the Battle of Franklin and the Battle
	of Nashville in late 1864.

    o Albert Sydney Johnson -  Unfortunately for the Confederacy, Johnson was
	 killed at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862 thus denying them their best 
	overall military mind in the Western Theater.  Johnson was reponsible
	for establishing the River Defense System that allowed the Confederacy 
	to hold onto a fifteen hundred mile front running from Kentucky to 
	Mississippi early in the war.  His actions probably led to the Seccesion
	of Tennessee.

    

	Well, that seems to be a good start on names and places .... anybody
	have any others ?

	Chuck

    Re .5
    
    Easy, Mike.  I just looked at the way you named battles. 
    
    Yankee Name		Southern Name
    -----------		-------------
    Bull Run		Manassas
    Shiloh		Pittsburg Landing
    Antietam		Sharpsburg
    
    :-)
    
    -dick
    
    Ps.  Nit picking time.  You misspelled Spotsylvania and Kennesaw. 
    Ain't I a royal pain?  :-)

    RE .8, .9:
    
    	A couple of minor notes that happened to catch my eye as I read
    through -
    
    	Nathan Bedford Forrest rose to the rank of Lieutenant General in
    the Confederate Army, not just Brigadier General.  (He got from private
    to Colonel by being elected - yes, elected - head of his regiment in
    late '61 or early '62.  After that, he just kept winning battles...)
    
    	James Longstreet was _also_ responsible for delaying the attack on
    the Union left on the second day of Gettysburg, which probably kept the
    ANV from capturing Little Round Top.  He deliberately disobeyed orders
    from Lee to attack.  While he was right about Pickett's attack on the
    third day, he was wrong the day before.
    
    MikeR
    

    Dick
    
    Thanks for the corrections.  I can update my database.  It just goes to
    show that most history books are written by the victors (apart from
    Vietnam!!).
    
    Mike.

    
    Thanks for the info. it's exactly the sort of stuff i was requiring.
    One thing though, was there no actual declaration of war between the
    North and South eg On a certain date war was declared and battle
    commenced...
    
    Thanks again 
    Alan

    There had been a certain amount of activity even under Buchanan's
    presidency, including the capture of the Indianola, Texas, Federal
    force, some detachments along the Rio Grande, and the New Orleans,
    Louisiana sub-treasury.  Lincoln had foreborn to return the hostility. 
    The attack on Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861, might be interpreted as a
    Southern declaration of war.  But no "official" document was ever
    published to declare a state of war.
    
    There was no "official" Northern declaration of war as such because the
    Union treated the Confederacy not as another country but as a group of
    rebellious states.  On April 15, after the fall of Fort Sumter, Lincoln
    called on the states to provide a total of 75,000 militia to suppress
    "combinations...too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of
    judicial proceedings."  This call had the same effect as a declaration
    of war without the formality of such.  On April 18 he announced a
    blockade of Southern ports.
    
    In May he called to increase the regular army by 20,000, the navy by
    18,000, and the volunteer force by something over 42,000.  Along with
    these actions he had Northern telegraph offices raided to seize copies
    of telegrams sent during the past year (for examination as possible
    seditious correspondence), suspended habeas corpus, and commenced
    imprisoning suspected treachers without formal charges or trial.  At
    the same time, he took  millions in capital and handed it over to
    private contractors for the purpose of assembling the implements of
    war.  On July 4, he addressd the Congress, which bowed its collective
    head in assent.