Bad News in the West

Greetings Cosmic Americans

As we rocket toward June, 2012 I would like to point out just how bad things were for the Confederacy 150 years ago..especially in the western theater. I do so not to explore the vast details of the military operation in the first handful of months in 1862, but to ponder with great interest the tenacity of the Confederate population. Despite some of the worst possible news they held firmly to their cause.

So here is the bad news roll call for 1862:

February - Forts Henry and Donelson fall to Union forces through a combined US Army and Navy operation. Nashville, a major Confederate industrial center, also falls to Union forces

April - Confederates suffer crushing loss at Shiloh, Albert Sidney Johnson, a man to whom people looked for military victories, is dead. PGT Beauregard relieves himself of command due to illness, US navy captures New Orleans

May - Corinth, a vital rail center in Mississippi, falls to Union forces.

June - Memphis, a major port city on the Mississippi River, falls to Union forces.

So...the Confederate losses piled up pretty high in the West in the first half of 1862. Two of the biggest cities in the South - gone. The upper and lower reaches of the Mississippi River - gone. Vital shipping, communication, rail, and industrial centers - gone. The two highest ranking Confederates in the West - dead or incapacitated. Jefferson Davis was at something of a loss for what to do, and the situation was not looking so great in the East either for much of 1862...Joseph E. Johnston slowly retreating toward Richmond, with George B. McClellan cautiously following. The only bright spot for the Confederacy at this point was Stonewall's aggressive maneuvers in the Shenandoah Valley. Of course, we know that militarily, events would soon change dramatically with the ascension of Robert E. Lee in the East and the battles of late June.  But we'll have to wait for another post for that. Until then, if anyone is attending sesquicentennial events in the western theater - please send a full report.

Peace,

Keith

[caption id="attachment_2729" align="aligncenter" width="694" caption="The annihilation of the Rebel fleet - June 6, 1862"][/caption]

The Contemplative Sort

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

A while back, I got a question from Robby, one of my former University of Virginia students - actually...one of my very best former University of Virginia students. He wanted to know when the war became "real" for me - when I got it...when it clicked. I have been reading about the war since I was a kid - but that did not necessarily mean that I "got it," for lack of a better phrase. In fact, I am not sure that I do now. But I feel as though I am closer.

Civil War memory - a topic close to my heart - is a lived experience. It was so for the generation who lived through the war and its aftermath, and it is for us today. At least this much I understand - while I may not entirely get the war from the perspective of a participant (none of us ever really will) - I have made my personal connections beyond the books. Keep in mind, I don't generally write about myself (much) - my work has a purpose beyond hipsteresque narcissism and hyper-inflated self importance so typical of the blogosphere broadly defined. But I will from time to time divulge a few autobiographical lines, especially when asked. I believe my personal experiences will sound familiar to many of you - and that in this instance they are worthy of note.

Strangely, while I have been reading about the war most of my life, I did not live the memory of it until recently - 1999 to be exact. I was born in Birmingham Alabama, a steel town that was not founded until 1871 - so not much in the way of Civil War action there. I grew up in Southern California - even fewer Civil War attractions there. But in the summer of 1999 I got it together to take my first Civil War vacation, so to speak, in the deep South. Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina - and I even made a trek to Western Tennessee and Kentucky...all the way to Perryville. The war became real, I suppose, on the Shiloh battlefield. There I walked in the footsteps of my ancestor, Andrew Jackson Holbert, who fought alongside the men of his Alabama regiment. I stood at or near the spot where he was shot - a chest wound that he miraculously survived.

I was fortunate that it was August, the middle of the week, extremely humid and around 98 degrees. Suffice to say, I had the battlefield to myself. So I got a chance to think about what it must have looked like in 1862 sans twentieth-century distractions (I didn't even have a cell phone yet). Perhaps I have a particularly vivid imagination - it is very difficult to describe with words....but I felt the war all around me. Not an isolated incident, I had the same experience two years later (by then I had a cell phone...but rarely used it)  - while on a trip with my UCLA undergraduate comrades to Gettysburg. I woke up before sunrise on a June morning and headed out to explore the Union positions of July 1, 1863. I was quickly reminded that thinking while all alone in such an evocative place clarifies a great deal about the war. As you might guess, this scene has repeated itself over and over during the last several years - my time in Virginia...and the subsequent trips east since I left.

If anything, my experiences....surely like those of many, validate the cause for battlefield preservation - not only as places of study, but of contemplation. One can understand so much about the war at the places where the issues of the day were decided by arms. Do battlefields resonate with the voices of those long past? I dare not answer definitively...for fear of treading the ground of the theologian - hardly my area of expertise. I will say, however, that for the contemplative among us, the war lives and breathes at these sites of memory. On an experiential level, one can indeed sense - maybe even obliquely grasp - the war in all its realness.

Peace,

Keith

Spirit of the South

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

How were things shaping up for the Confederate cause by April 1862...one year into the war? Meh - not so great. Both the battles of Shiloh and Ft. Pulaski ended in Confederate defeat. By the middle of the month, Union forces were in motion against New Orleans and the Virginia Peninsula. Stonewall was kicking up a fuss in the Shenandoah Valley but otherwise, things looked pretty bleak.

Still - I believe there were signs that spirits were high, especially in the press. Here is a little snippet from the Richmond Times-Dispatch from April 17, 1862 concerning Confederate patriotism and sympathy for the cause across the Potomac in Georgetown.

We learn that on a recent occasion in Georgetown when the clergyman of one of the churches read the prayer of thanksgiving for Northern victories, most of the congregation rose from their knees, and some of them left the church. The flame of patriotism is still burning brightly in the very strongholds of despotism.

In a matter of months, Robert E. Lee would take the helm of Rebel forces outside of Richmond and really give the Confederate populace something to cheer about. But for now....a little patriotism would have to go a long way.

Peace,

keith

What is Your Favorite Civil War Battlefield?

[caption id="attachment_1553" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The Union line on Cemetery Ridge"][/caption]

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

I will never miss a chance to go to Gettysburg. I love it there...I really do. And here's why. For a historian who focuses on Civil War memory, Gettysburg is sort of like the remembrance epicenter. Veterans of the war certainly saw it that way - in the decades following the war, they flocked there to walk in their 1863 footsteps, hold reunions, and dedicate monuments.

Former soldiers from both sides emphasized the "turning point" theme - a problematic issue to be sure, but one that they seemed eager to employ in speeches and monument dedications. The overwhelming number of monuments on the field today were dedicated by Union veterans. Reading through the thousands of monument inscriptions leaves one with little doubt that the preservation of Union was paramount. For those who wish to peel back a few layers of Civil War memory, there are many speech transcriptions available in the Gettysburg archives (and elsewhere) that accent emancipation - a cause veterans celebrated with often equal importance.

If you are lucky, you can make the time here to walk out on the battlefield when all the tourists have gone back to their hotels for the evening. I did this very thing back in late June. I managed to find myself all alone on the Union line (at the Pennsylvania monument) shortly after the sun went down. With no other human in sight, I heard a group of visitors off in the distance shouting a few huzzahs. It was a Civil War moment like none other.

The town of Gettysburg is worth the visit as well. Pretty much everything is built around the tourist industry, and it is likely that you will run across a number of people in period dress just walking around. I like to strike up conversations with these folks just to see what they are up to - and to find out what they find most compelling about the Civil War era. You will discover that most are very happy to tell you.

A close second on my list of must-see battlefields is Shiloh. Now this is a completely different experience. The field is much more isolated from civilization, as it were, and there will generally be fewer visitors stomping around...especially if you choose to visit on

[caption id="attachment_1566" align="alignright" width="144" caption="The Alabama monument at Shiloh"][/caption]

a weekday in mid August or something. My advice is to brave the oppressive heat and humidity and have the battlefield pretty much to yourself. At Shiloh I can walk in the footsteps of my own Civil War ancestors who fought with the 16th Alabama infantry (Hardee's Corps). I know of one who was wounded there - Andrew Jackson Holbert. As the family legend goes, having enough of fighting, he walked home to Lawrence Country, Alabama after the battle to nurse his wound. Later he reenlisted (read: conscription caught up to the intrepid private Holbert) and wound up fighting with the 27th Alabama until the end of the war.

[caption id="attachment_1570" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="The Stonewall Jackson monument at Manassas"][/caption]

Of course, I enjoy myself whenever I visit any Civil War battlefield. Antietam and ColdHarbor rank high in my book. Manassas makes the short list too (two battles for the price of one!). Maybe it's because I like getting hopelessly lost for several hours in the Virginia heat with a limited water supply. Or maybe it's because I like the Stonewall equestrian monument - where both Jackson and his horse look like comic book super heroes (this is my wife, Coni's favorite).

I imagine you will have your own reasons for visiting a Civil War battlefield. I just say go whenever you get the chance.

Keith