Civil War Mystery Veteran

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

I was taking a walk yesterday in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, as I am wont to do, and I stumbled across this grave - one that I had never seen before. The person buried here, F. A. Whitehead, is clearly a veteran of Civil War United States Navy. The usual Internet searches yielded very little information...but now I have to know. Seeing that this is a veteran that somehow found his way to Los Angeles after the war, it might be worthwhile to find out who he was and exactly what he was up to.

If you know anything about this sailor fellow...please fill me in.

Peace,

Keith

Dogs of Honor

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

The other day, I pinned an image of the Irish Brigade Monument at Gettysburg featuring an Irish Wolfhound in repose. The picture was met with an enthusiastically positive response. So I thought for a while about other Civil War monuments featuring canine mascots and recalled this one.

The pup pictured here is Sallie - a pug-nosed brindle bull terrier presented as a gift in 1861 to the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment. Sallie saw plenty of action. Well drilled, she marched in formation with the men, and took her place in line of battle. Her first combat was a Cedar Mountain, where she stood resolutely by the regimental colors for the duration.

Rumor has it, that during an 1863 review, none other than President Lincoln offered an approving tip-o-the hat salutation to the 11th's mascot. And there are claims too, that Sallie was twice captured by Confederates -  and made her escape back to Union lines and her unit.

Sallie survived a neck wound received at Spotsylvania - but her luck would run out in February, 1865. On the 6th, the Pennsylvanians attacked the Rebel lines at Hatcher's Run. Sallie, always dutifully at her post, took at bullet in the head. She was killed instantly. The men of the 11th, still under fire, buried her where she fell.

In 1890, the veterans of the 11th dedicated a monument on Oak Ridge at Gettysburg - facing the direction of the attacking Rebels. There at the base you will find Sallie's bronze likeness. The next time you are in the neighborhood, stop by and leave a little treat.I think a biscuit would be a nice offering for a dog who helped save the Union. And I am sure Sallie would appreciate it.

Peace,

Keith

PS - I'll keep posting about Civil War mascots memorialized in this fashion - if you know of one you would like to see discussed here, please fill me in!

Thought for the Day

It [was] not a war to save the Union alone, it [was] a war to make the Union worth saving.
- William P. Hogarty

Jesse Rosten and Death in the Civil War

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

This is Building Houses, by Wesley Jensen. Director and Editor Jesse Rosten said of his video, "The thought of dying scares me to death. So I made this video hoping to convince myself it won’t be that bad. Turn it up, watch it full screen."

I wonder how that worked out for him. Comments welcome.

Peace,
Keith

Counting, Recounting, and Counting the Civil War Dead Again

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

A couple of days ago, the New York Times ran an article on demographic historian J. David Hacker's Civil War dead recount. I talked about this research in a post back in September, 2011. I am not saying that I got the drop on the Times, I did not - the original article ran in the Times Disunion series.

Rather than once again discussing Hacker's original article, I thought it might be useful to think about numbers specifically, the dead, and what that all means to modern observers. If you recall Hacker's estimation - 750,000 deaths -  inflated the generally agreed upon number of 600,000 by over 20%. I am perfectly willing to accept that Hacker's research was sound and that his new number is correct. Now what?

What does this mean in terms of remembering the war? Columbia University historian Eric Foner commented, saying what I suppose we all should say: “It even further elevates the significance of the Civil War and makes a dramatic statement about how the war is a central moment in American history. It helps you understand, particularly in the South with a much smaller population, what a devastating experience this was.”

And so with an extra 150,000 or so heaped upon the pile of mouldering Civil War corpses we can all collectively shake our head, understanding that the war was even more horrible than we thought it was before. Admittedly, this was my initial reaction. But after questioning my thoughts (a healthy exercise, by the way) I wondered if more deaths really makes a horrible war more horrible.

Well, it was certainly more horrible for the previously uncounted 150,000 and their families. But I find it difficult to believe that modern observers can qualify these abstractly large numbers - growing greater and greater with each series of revision - in any manner of degree. Indeed - I am not convinced that people are capable of conceptualizing this sort of numerical cost.

What if yet another recount reveals that 1 million died? What if we throw on a few more that died from complications of their wounds in say...1877? Or that later committed suicide as a result of psychological trauma? When will the war become so devastating - as Foner describes - that we stop thinking about it altogether?

I pose new questions to replace the counting, recounting, and counting again. Is it our macabre sensibilities that make us so inclined to seek out greater numbers of Civil War dead? Do we feel a need to make the war more horrible - as a sort of perverse lesson? And finally - how much more devastating can devastating be?

Peace,

Keith

The Bixby Letter

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

You have probably heard of the Bixby letter - Abraham Lincoln's letter to a bereaved mother of five sons killed fighting for the Union cause. Many have pointed to this letter to illustrate an example of Lincoln's finest prose...some suggesting that it stands with the Gettysburg address as a masterpiece in the English language. And of course, it was used in the film Saving Private Ryan as - shall we say - motivational literature.

Like with many stories concerning Lincoln, the Bixby letter story has been questioned, critiqued, and even surrounded by a little controversy. Yes, Lydia Bixby had five sons in the Union army, but may have indeed supported the Confederacy - seems odd, but I read it somewhere on the Internet - so it must be true (snicker). Further, it turns out that three of Bixby's sons died after the war. What's more...some have argued that the letter was actually written not by Lincoln, but by his secretary, John Hay.

Who knows? But however you slice it - it is quite a remarkable note. The original has gone lost to the ages, but the letter was reprinted and widely distributed. A Cosmic America Facebook friend sent me an image of this engraving. If you find it difficult to read - below is the transcription:

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

Heavy stuff, wouldn't you say?

Peace,

Keith

Reconciliation in Grant's Memoirs

Greetings Cosmic Americans!

There are a number of ways to define the reconciliationist sentiment of general/president/citizen Ulysses S. Grant. His magnanimity at Appomattox would be a good place to start. Speaking of his Confederate prisoners, he noted: "we did not want to exult over their downfall." And there is evidence suggesting that his generous terms of surrender won him, if not admiration, at least at modicum of respect among defeated Confederates.

His 1868 presidential campaign rested on the cornerstone of reconciliation. the campaign slogan, "Let Us Have Peace," undeniably furthered the desires among many members of the Republican party to extend a hand of friendship across the Potomac. The slogan became so associated with the Grant's campaign, presidency, and life that it found a prominent place on Grant's tomb in New York.

One can find Grant's most clearly articulated vision of reconciliation in his two-volume memoirs. This enormously popular work - that restored his family's fortune after a financial disaster destroyed it - does more to promote friendship between sections than any other work in the reconciliationist literature broadly defined. “I feel that we are on the verge of a new era,” he wrote shortly before his death, “where there is to be great harmony between the Federal and Confederate. I cannot stay to be a living witness to the correctness of this prophecy; but I feel within me that it is to be so.”

But we must be careful not to accept Grant as a reconciliationst and leave it at that. It would be foolish to assume that reconciliation necessarily meant that what men had fought for was simply forgotten. Coupled with Grant’s reconciliationist bent was a steadfast devotion to the Union cause of freedom. Soon after the war, Grant acknowledged in a rousing speech honoring general Daniel Butterfield that Confederates had sowed the “germ of treason, in the vain attempt to overthrow this Government, that slavery, despotism, and sin might thrive upon its ruin.” He later affirmed in his memoirs, “the cause of the Great War of the Rebellion against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery” and reminded Americans that the Confederate cause was “one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.”

So was Grant a reconciliationist? Without question. But one who made sure to promote reconciliation on northern terms - acknowledging that former Confederates were countrymen once again, but that they had fought with brutal determination for disunion and the preservation of slavery.

Peace,

Keith

PS - if you haven't already, be sure to check out the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant.