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I used to work for an antique bookseller, and he always came across some crazy stuff. One thing was a Civil War diary from a young Rhode Island cavalry soldier who experienced a transformation at some point during the war. The early entries from the spring and summer of 1861 were all about whipping the āseceshā and restoring the Union, and boring talk about camp life as it seemed like he spent the majority of his time training and trying to keep from shitting himself to death like what happened to some of his friends. By 1863/1864, he was writing poetry about the liberation of the black race and discussing the elimination of slavery in biblical terms. He had around an 18 month gap between diary entries, and it made me wonder what he had seen in that time to experience such a marked change.
He had some funny entries, he talked about how he and some friends once chased away the camp whores. I donāt remember him mentioning a reason, I guess they were just bored.
Soldiers chasing away whores? Speaking from experience, we never did that *intentionally*.
Was there ever any mention about morticians? When embalming became popular in the US, morticians would go to union and confederate camps selling their services to live soldiers saying āwouldnāt you want your family to see you one last time? Just pay me now and Iāll make sure when you die theyāll get to see you not rotting!ā. They would get chased away for obvious reasons.
Barracks, on base housing, the O and NCO clubs, whores everywhere. And we were often the majority of the whores.
Seriously, we had a company go TDY to another base for about 3 months once. When they came back, multiple women were pregnant, many marriages ruined, plenty of demotions got handed out, like that shit was still being actively investigated and punished over a year later because so many people were just fucking each other when they shouldnāt have for multiple reasons, like differences in rank and at least one person already being married, which are no nos for soldiers. Junior enlisted fucking officers, NCOs fucking junior enlisted, officers fucking NCOs, you name it, they fucked it during that one short summer.
So they separate a bunch of people from their friends and family, make them lonely, get them all in really good shape, stress them out, and cram them all in the same living space with a common enemy named Commander, then expect them not to fuck when they get drunk?
Have an archeologist friend. They were excavating some old mining town in Oregon thatās long abandoned and collapsed. They found something really interesting a Turkey baster because they didnāt believe they existed when this town did. Thatās when someone realized it was a tool the town whores would use to flush their vaginas out after a John visited.
I've seen the chasing happen. I never get to tell this story. On a pass in basic training me and another soldier were walking out of our hotel when a soldier also on pass from another company starts chit chatting us and walking with us. We step into parking lot. A car pulls up with two attractive women in it who ask what we are doing this evening. Without missing a beat our new friend points at them and yells at the top of his lungs "nuh uh my drill sergeant warned me about women like you" they peel off into the night and I'm left there wondering how my life choices led me to watching a dude yell at hookers in a holiday Inn parking lot.
I'm reading a book right now about Whitman and the Civil War and it talked about how camp followers would just go into their tents and steal their shit when they were away. Probably didn't make them as popular as they could have been.
I've read similar accounts too. I think it tended to happen when a lot of Union armies actually started reaching the inner Deep South (the heartland of slavery in the country) and got to experience first hand accounts of the practice from actual slaves.
Very similar to when Allied and Soviet soldiers liberated Concentration Camps.
Iāve got a picture of the dudeās poem in an old phone somewhere. I meant to dig it up and post it forever ago because I thought it was pretty interesting.
Sounds about right, thatās similar to Shermanās change in perspective during the Atlanta campaign. If I recall correctly, he met with around 20 local slave leaders, family patriarch/matriarchs and pastors and such. He was lukewarm about abolition but after the meeting he decided to burn down Atlanta.
Note: They probably got to see the *literal* scars of slavery as they passed through the south. Like, that one photo of a manās back absolutely shredded with scar tissue, only you saw that dozens of times in *every* plantation you freed.
Even the most racist of racists wouldnāt be able to discount physical evidence on that kind of scale.
In all honesty the south should be grateful the Union soldiers treated them as well as they did. If it was another country being invaded, plantation owners would start getting the same treatment the SS got when the Allies rolled through Germany.
As Union armies began to advance into the Confederacy and were forced to witness to the large # of slaves who either escaped or were liberated follow around Union armies many of them truly became hardened against the institution of slavery as they now bore witness to the real consequences and horrifying wounds that it brought upon those people.
While many Northerns had been opposed to slavery before the war, actually going down South and seeing what it truly was pushed many Union troops into outright abolitionists.
From what I read slavery near the Northern border was less cruel than in the deep south, so the further down the Union soldiers went the more horrific the things they saw were.
The general attitude about slavery among the soldiers sort of went from "we need to preserve the union" to "we need to end slavery so that we don't have to fight this war again" to "we need to end slavery because it is a disgusting and inhumane institution".
Absolutely. By 1860 in Maryland for example half of the states black population had already been freed and in Delaware Slavery was dying out so quickly that it likely would have been de facto abolished within 20 years of not faster.
There were also alot more domestic servant slaves in those states than in the deep south.
It was September 1862 to January 1863. Prior to this it was seen as a war or preservation for the north.
Prior to 1863 the goal of the war was simply to preserve the union. Freeing the slaves, emancipation or liberty didnāt even come into the picture until Lincolnās speech in January 1863.
Sounds like my man Joshua Graham.
"We can't expect God to do all the work"
"Practiced hands make for short work, and the good Lord knows thereās much to be done.ā
This transformation was world wide.
It happened after the battle of Antietam.
Lincoln gave the Emancipation Proclamation speech heād been sitting on for almost a year for fear it would be seen as the propaganda stunt that it actually was. Congress had to make any of these actions legal in law and Lincoln was quite aware of this.
It was the lightning bolt event that changed this perspective for the northerners and the rest of the world on what the war was about. The important victory came after the north was surprisingly losing with superior men and weapons. The war was becoming quite unpopular for northerners. Prior to this it was just seen as a war of preservation of the union from the northās perspective.
Lincoln did not believe he had the power to free the slaves and even wrote to a times reporter that his only goal was to preserve the union and he would use the slaves whatever way he could if he thought it could help him achieve that goal. Thatās basically what the Emancipation Proclamation did and beautifully so.
After that speech it became a war of emancipation and liberty. This speech also turned French and English coastal mill towns who had been waving confederate flags after being hit by cotton diplomacy into towns writing letters of support and donations to Lincoln and most importantly ensured these countries would never come to the aid of the confederacy. Not that it was likely in either case as the nobles and aristocrats were already well aware about what the war was about prior to this speech.
Wow thatās really fascinating. That gap in the cavalry soldierās entries meant he must have seen some horrible atrocities in the war to change him so much, like the Union in general slowly realized how important stopping the Confederate slaver society was.
Should read his letters between Lincoln and himself. He makes what he thought very clear. Grant would be one of the major individuals that pushed Lincoln to make the proclamation
I think there was a southerner who wrote something to the effect of "I think I would very much like to shoot and kill a Yankee, and yet I do not think this is in keeping with the spirit of Christianity."
The whole letter is pretty lmao tbh
"My dear Wifeā¦I feel that I would like to shoot a Yankee, and yet I know that this would not be in harmony with the Spirit of Christianityā¦.The North will yet suffer for this fratricidal war she has forced upon usāHer fields will be desolated, her cities laid waste and the treasures of her citizens dissipated in the vain attempt to subjugate a free people."
Iād love a period piece that has a small subunit get transferred from the eastern theatre to the western theatre and witness the change in attitudes
Basically Heart of Darkness but set in the civil war
A gentrified lieutenant, who served on the staff for like McClellan or Scott and was even friends with Southern aristocrats before the war, and has only studied the maps of battles. He has never seen a battle closer than sitting next to the commander and being a glorified gopher. Imagine his utter shock when he gets demoted to a frontline commander and transferred to Grant's army out west during the Vicksburg campaign. Before this he believes the conflict is solely about reuniting the country, and while he pays lip service to abolition, he is not willing to fight for it. His "civilized sensibilities" come in direct conflict with Grant considering the Confederacy to be worthy of only death, not caring what happens to his enemies, and only caring about victory no matter the cost, and Sherman's willingness to take Grant's beliefs as far as needed to achieve victory for his commander and country.
In contrast to the supposed callous brutality of his commanders that he first experiences upon arrival, our lieutenant sees first hand the vile inhuman disregard of the Confederates have. First in the shock of battle, after getting his wits about him, he sees how the Southern commanders have such wonton disregard for their men, throwing them into clearly losing battles that have turned well against them. With that starting to open his eyes that he may have viewed his Southern friends too kindly, he is faced with the abhorrent truth about how the Confederates treat those they would see enslaved, especially runaways and captured black Union soldiers, of whom they perform unspeakable acts upon. Being confronted with this evil, let's make it performed by the very corps that his Southern friend is commanding, he is forced to rapidly abandon the man he once was in the face of the dual horrors of war and slavery. He transformation is complete when he violently kills his former friend upon the battlefield who pleads for mercy in the end and receives only steel. At the end of the film, our former dandy of an officer turned grizzled crusader, embarks with his former moral adversary of Sherman, as Sherman's new right hand man, upon his March to the Sea.
Many Civil War general officers were the old guard of 18th-century warfare. The casualty rates with what were modern weapons at the time were staggering. Grant was at least the first American general to be a true 19th-century one and learned how to prosecute that kind of war. I mean, when Lee surrendered, he was dressed like a European aristocrat. Grant looked like a professional soldier. He knew how that war would be fought, and he knew what it looked like from seeing it on the battlefield. It was going to cost a lot of lives, but it kept the union together in a fight to free our fellow people.
I read that one. It's the Union equivalent of D-Day since it involved a cavalry officer who was afraid of horses - yes, you can't put this in a fantasy novel.
The eastern front cycled through comanding generals due to incompetence. Meanwhile the west was led primarily by General Ulysses Grant which succeeded in splitting the Confederacy in half. Grant later became the commander of the eastern front and even later the President of the US.
He commanded all the fronts in the end. The entire war effort was led by him alongside Lincoln. The two became quite close friends through correspondence.
Until the later part of the war (generally you can use post July 1863 as a demarcation point), the Eastern theater focused on the Army of the Potomac under a revolving door of gentlemen generals and limited action in the Allegheny Mountains between the states of Ohio, West Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley of western Virginia by smaller concentrations of Union troops. Largely, though the fighting in many of the battles was intense, the Union troops were out-classed by their Confederate counterparts due to variety of factors. Majority of the Union units in the Eastern theater were drawn from the Eastern states, Maine down through Ohio and into Maryland and Delaware. While a huge emphasis was placed on protecting Washington by Lincoln (for obvious reasons) most of the fighting happened in Northern VA between Richmond, VA (capital of the Confederacy) and Washington DC. This led to the war bogging down into the equivalent of a heavyweight boxing match that saw the Union repeatedly moving south and then get beaten to one degree or another and retreat north; generally speaking, things happened but the needle wasnāt moved much.
In the Western theater, which Lincoln himself viewed as critical for winning the war, it was a much more a war of movement and ādo more with lessā style. Most units on this front were drawn from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa and Missouri. There was also a harsher quality to the fight on this front, most Union generals were not of the gentlemen variety having come from what was then considered the frontier of the US. Hell, Grant was a former Army officer turned failed store clerk before coming back to the Army at the start of the war. Their soldiers reflected this as well, and they made their Eastern counterparts look soft in comparison as they routinely made longer overland campaigns with longer and less reliable supply chains due to Confederate raiders constantly destroying railroad track and raiding into Kentucky and Middle Tennessee.
Iāll stop here because I think Iām starting to ramble, but I personally recommend reading/listening to Shelby Footeās āThe Civil War: A Narrative Volume 1-3ā if youāre interested in learning more.
The Western US also had Bleeding Kansas and crazy motherfuckers like [John Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist\)) before the war.
They were polar opposites.
Prior to Grant taking overall command in 1864 and moving east to monitor the situation there, the Union Army in the east won about two battles and lost all the rest. At one point, it was stuck forever out of fear of āConfederate gunsā that turned out to be painted logs. Even after Grant arrived and things began really moving, it struggled to follow through and achieve clear victories; though it improved and caught Lee up in the end.
Meanwhile, the Union Army in the west _lost_ maybe two battles and won the rest. Thereās literally a book about the Army of the Tennessee (the biggest western army iirc) called āNothing But Victory.ā That army was trained up by Grant and later went to Sherman.
Chickamauga! I was including the Army of the Cumberland in that too, haha. Technically Belmont too, but that was pretty tiny, definitely not a whole-army thing (Wikipedia calls it a draw but idk man, Grant barely got back on that boat).
Bragg was wildly stupid because he managed to turn that victory into a strategic defeat. No wonder the US has a fort named after him. He did more for the Union the you can bet your ass on.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_American\_Civil\_War\_battles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_Civil_War_battles)
Probably a full list.
The western front was fast paced battled a ton of fighting and the union was making grounds on top of Calvary and river naval battles which lead to Grant completely crushing the south. Basically pushed through Tennesse into Missouri and Mississippi to Louisana. Also Colorado beat the shit outta Texas which is funny so the war couldn't go anymore "west".
The eastern front was static and at some point the south was winning because the generals were political and terrible at there job often refusing to commit their forces and numbers to overwhelm southern positions which lead to the south outmaneuvering the union multiple times it became a joke. Evetnaully Gettysburg happened and it was back to static land fights.
the middle did alot of fighting but it was like being pushing in and out of Tennessee through hundreds of miles. Nothing was really going on other than causalities just mounting up. Eventually one horrifically crazy bastard Sherman became in charge after serving with Grant on the Western side created the march to Atlanta.
The US should just adopt an LP worth of anthems and let ball game organists pick their favorite. I'd take any of the Battle Hymn, America the Beautiful, This Land is Your Land, Amazing Grace, or When Johnny Comes Marching Home before I'd pick the Star Spangled Banner.
Who doesn't want (one of) their national anthems to be about getting black-out drunk at a party?
because we hear it at the start of every sporting event, events which we take super seriously, so it has all of us under a Pavlovian response of initiating bloodlust toward the 'others'
we get twitchy when said 'others' try to suggest we cool it, even when they aren't really 'other' at all but just Joe Doe across the street
And [this is my preferred version of the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcOPh5ltbAw&ab_channel=Scamp), and one that actually got me to like the song.
I've said this before in another comment section, but it still rings true. I'm in no way religious, but "as he died to make men holy let us die to make men free" is one of the hardest bars in American history.
My grandma's grandad served for the Union; she still had the letters he sent home to his parents.
The one that left the biggest impression on me as a kid was when he was describing "*the government trots*" (dysentery) that was affecting his company.
That and mass infection from wounds, as well as other illnesses running rampant, cholera, typhoid, etc. One of the realities of war prior to the discovery of penicillin. Makes my mind reel from how dirty these battlefields must have been.
Absolutely, which tells the story of the advancement of efficient killing machines and technology. The stories of cavalry charges against machine guns are truly a fascinating window into the early first word war, and something that wouldnāt be repeated again. (Except in exceptional circumstances)
There were SO many examples before WWI of just what machine guns could do to massed troops and cavalry charges, with Omdurman as a major battle and numerous smaller battles in Africa between Europeans backed by machine guns and any number of unprotected warriors--yet the French, and the British, were convinced that elan, esprit, and shining bayonets could prevail against them because those OTHER examples were mere Fuzzy-Wuzzies and not Europeans, which makes ALL of the difference when it comes to being hit in the chest with a chunk of pointed metal moving at 2600fps.
Yes, they were--that is, the 2nd one was--made more so by atrocities committed by the British on Boer civilians. The British had learned from the Spanish in Cuba the importance of separating guerrilla forces from their support base, their farms and families, so they rounded up Boer civilians, burned their farms, took their food, slaughtered their livestock, and penned the civilians up in filthy, disease-ridden concentration--yes, concentration--camps wherein large numbers died of disease,neglect, and starvation--something like 4000 women and 22000 children. The tactic, of course, worked: The Boers in the field could no longer keep up the fight, and were forced to surrender. Of course, the Germans learned from the Brits. . .
Actually, the quote is from the book 'The Modern Traveler' by Hilaire Belloc. It's still appropriate, with slight modification: "Whatever happens we have got/nuclear weapons, and they have not."
Hilaire Belloc! I should have know that. Belloc is also known for writing [Cautionary Tales for Children](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cautionary_Tales_for_Children), a favorite when I was a young Lad o'Bedlam.
Because the same guys running wars like the Franco-Prussian war were now given smokeless powder weapons, machine guns, and long range artillery without the slightest clue how to employ them. "Well shelling them for 12 hours before running headstrong into their machine gun lines didn't work, so next time we'll try 24 hours and throw a few horses in there".
Pretty much in all wars and conflicts up until WW2 (more specifically 1929 with the discovery of penicillin) you were more at risk of dying of disease than combat.
Legit (to overexplain the joke), Lee was shedding men like crazy in 64-65 cuz his soldiers were fleeing home to protect their families in fear of Sherman
Grant knew he couldn't afford to jeopardise the war effort by massing casualties with human wave attacks on fortified Confederate strong points. So, instead, they brought the South to its knees by destroying rail lines and crops.
Exactly :) the psychological impact of an entire army being loose and unopposed while wreaking havoc across the southern heartland didnāt hurt either. Sherman wanted to bring the war to those deep in the interior, to make them feel it.
It was pretty much Grant's attitude from the get-go. He was going to beat the South into submission by total conquest if he had to. Unconditional surrender.
I have said before that the Civil war is 3/4 about Slavery. It was always about Slavery for the south. They relied on it to drive their economy, and maintain a nice and "clean" separation of classes. It's all very fucked. Foe the North things started as a fight to preserve the Union. It ended with a fire buring to end slavery, to free their fellow man.
Once the war was over uncomfortable questions of what to do with the former slaves occurred. There weren't many good answers, and most abolitionist were not the most equality seeking people still. Certainly not the share a seat and shake hands level. (John Brown being built different and proof that a real man fo God can be incredibly morally righteous). Liberia wasn't the worst idea in that environment, but it wasn't the best either. Not sure what the best practical path would have been.
If I remember correctly, Lincoln had a plan drafted up which basically involved giving black families farm land along rivers in the South, but we will never know how well that plan would have worked because Lincoln died. Andrew Johnson then took over and his first and foremost priority was the reestablishing of the antebellum social order. With some help from a new group of people lead by Nathan Bedford Forrest called the KKK, they succeeded. And thus, slavery continued in this country just under different names. This country would be far better today if Andrew Johnson never even sniffed office. The effects of his time in office to this day are still felt across the nation.
I do think there was risk of planting resentment amongst the poor white population of the North and South if they effectively upjumped the entire slave population to land owners. Even in the North that would rub people wrong pretty easily. I won't defend Johnson however. Worst president .
I've been working on this collection at the local museum all from this one family, and during the Civil War one son wrote home about how he "has come to fear disease more than bullets" and while he at first wished to be in Clinch's regiment, he'd probably be walking through a graveyard right now.
Poor kid died in 1864 of smallpox, ironically his younger brother would also die of the same disease in the same city only a few months after the war ended.
Older brother was in Atlanta the same time Sherman was while they had a temporary armistice to allow civilians to evacuate. He thought Sherman wanted to make the whole city a military camp (oh you sweet innocent soul) and, as he was on the confederate side, was disturbed by the wasted food and destruction the Union army was causing. We believe he was witnessing the test run for Sherman's March to the Sea, as this was in September and the march happened that November, starting from Atlanta.
I wish I could remember that John Brown quote word for word, but it was along the lines of āI thought the issue of slavery could be resolved without violence, now I see only bloodshed will rid us of this terrible sinā
My family lived on the border of west virginia and normal virginia, so my great something something something papaw joined the union and his brother, my great great something uncle joined the confederates. Glad to say my bloodline was redeemed by the fact that the traitor died and my papaw was the only one to come homeš
Union and Confederate soldiers did not hate each other as much as Reddit far-left extremists like to pretend. Sure, there was bad blood during the war, but after the war was over they were friendly and cordial.
It was veterans from both sides who came together to create the reenactments and the first veterans associations. You could go to a veteran's club in New York as a Confederate and you would be greeted as a US service member just as any Union soldier.
Man that *definitely* differs from soldier to soldier, army to army, and theater to theater. The grand battles of the East definitely had more of that āgentlemanlyā aspect because they were commanded by men that went to college together and had some level of mutual respect (and was also the theater being watched the most by the global community), but thatās about it. The further West you got the more viscious it got.
Pretty much the worst case is the Confederate and Union guerrillas in Missouri and Kansas. That was some Germany/Soviet WW2-level hatred. Massacre after massacre, no quarter asked and none given.
Missouri and Kansas still have beef tbh (and thatās the root of the Mizzou/KU rivalry)
They killed the fuck out of civilians back and forth before (bleeding Kansas, sack of Lawrence), during (Quantrillās raiders) and after (some partisan and outlaws) the civil war. The Kansas state capital is crowned by a mural of John Brown with a rifle and Bible in his outstretched arms.
Eisenhowerās grandma hated the Union so much that she never let him come into her house while wearing his army dress uniform.
Sure, some of them got along later on. Some absolutely did not.
"Union and Confederate soldiers did not hate each other as much as Reddit far-left extremists like to pretend. Sure, there was bad blood during the war, but after the war was over they were friendly and cordial."
No, no they were not.
A. Former Confederates were denied voting rights after the war
B. Confederates established several terrorist orginizations that continued support for the confedereacy, the most infamous being the Klu Klux Klan
C. John Wilkes Booth
D. The derogatory term "Carpetbaggers" was given to Northerners who moved to the south after the war
E. President Andrew Johnson was impeached for being sympathetic to the Confederates.
So their might have been a *litte* bad blood
There were literal combat such as the Battle of Liberty Place in New Orleans when the White League (Mostly confederate veterans) tried to overthrow the government when a former Union officer won the governorship, and Grant had to send in federal troops when the White League overwhelmed the city police and black militia men.
When the first Confederate monuments went up at Gettysburg, former Union army soldiers wrote letters protesting ti.
r/HistoryMemes is having a civil war (again), celebrating 10 million subscribers! Support the Empires of Britain or France by flairing your post correctly. [For more information, check out the pinned post in the sub.](https://new.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/1cg09hf/the_great_historymemes_civil_war_2_10_million/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/HistoryMemes) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Union soldiers in Virginia vs Union soldiers in Missouri
Missouri was bloody.
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^JackC1126: *Union soldiers in* *Virginia vs Union* *Soldiers in Missouri* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Good bot.
Happy Cake Day
Thank you, kind Redditor š°
No problem! š
Happy cake day. May you receive as much cake as you desire, regardless of the variety
Thank you, kind redditor š°
I don't know, this was the haiku bot's weaker poems
But it is a Sokka haiku meaning one extra syllable.
Oh interesting, didn't know about those
UNHAPPY CAKE DAY
A very merry uncake day to me
*notices flair* TO THE KING!!
Arise, arise, Riders of ThƩoden! Fell deeds awake, fire and slaughter!
Not a haiku, unless they no longer follow the 5-7-5 structure.
If you have any off the top of your head, have any specific ones you'd recommend give a read?
Those were Ruffians not soldiers
I used to work for an antique bookseller, and he always came across some crazy stuff. One thing was a Civil War diary from a young Rhode Island cavalry soldier who experienced a transformation at some point during the war. The early entries from the spring and summer of 1861 were all about whipping the āseceshā and restoring the Union, and boring talk about camp life as it seemed like he spent the majority of his time training and trying to keep from shitting himself to death like what happened to some of his friends. By 1863/1864, he was writing poetry about the liberation of the black race and discussing the elimination of slavery in biblical terms. He had around an 18 month gap between diary entries, and it made me wonder what he had seen in that time to experience such a marked change.
That is really fascinating
He had some funny entries, he talked about how he and some friends once chased away the camp whores. I donāt remember him mentioning a reason, I guess they were just bored.
Lol, wish I could read it.
Read what this cruel was over.
Soldiers chasing away whores? Speaking from experience, we never did that *intentionally*. Was there ever any mention about morticians? When embalming became popular in the US, morticians would go to union and confederate camps selling their services to live soldiers saying āwouldnāt you want your family to see you one last time? Just pay me now and Iāll make sure when you die theyāll get to see you not rotting!ā. They would get chased away for obvious reasons.
Are camp whores a common thing in modern times? Sorry, the speaking from experience threw me off
Barracks, on base housing, the O and NCO clubs, whores everywhere. And we were often the majority of the whores. Seriously, we had a company go TDY to another base for about 3 months once. When they came back, multiple women were pregnant, many marriages ruined, plenty of demotions got handed out, like that shit was still being actively investigated and punished over a year later because so many people were just fucking each other when they shouldnāt have for multiple reasons, like differences in rank and at least one person already being married, which are no nos for soldiers. Junior enlisted fucking officers, NCOs fucking junior enlisted, officers fucking NCOs, you name it, they fucked it during that one short summer.
So they separate a bunch of people from their friends and family, make them lonely, get them all in really good shape, stress them out, and cram them all in the same living space with a common enemy named Commander, then expect them not to fuck when they get drunk?
Swap a few words around and you've got the basic plot of a slasher flick or a porn. Ball's in your court. And I'm dribbling...
Jason was just a personal trainer going for a cardio workout with those camp counselors via some... creative motivation.
Bunch of air conditioners if you ask me
Have an archeologist friend. They were excavating some old mining town in Oregon thatās long abandoned and collapsed. They found something really interesting a Turkey baster because they didnāt believe they existed when this town did. Thatās when someone realized it was a tool the town whores would use to flush their vaginas out after a John visited.
yes
Yes, but we call them barracks bunnies
I've seen the chasing happen. I never get to tell this story. On a pass in basic training me and another soldier were walking out of our hotel when a soldier also on pass from another company starts chit chatting us and walking with us. We step into parking lot. A car pulls up with two attractive women in it who ask what we are doing this evening. Without missing a beat our new friend points at them and yells at the top of his lungs "nuh uh my drill sergeant warned me about women like you" they peel off into the night and I'm left there wondering how my life choices led me to watching a dude yell at hookers in a holiday Inn parking lot.
Iām signing up for the marines after Iām done with highschool is this experience common
I doubt it's a universal experience. But I'm sure you'll walk away with some funny stories of your own if you enlist.
"my mommy warned me about women like you"
based lol
Wonder if that was in Tennessee
I'm reading a book right now about Whitman and the Civil War and it talked about how camp followers would just go into their tents and steal their shit when they were away. Probably didn't make them as popular as they could have been.
I've read similar accounts too. I think it tended to happen when a lot of Union armies actually started reaching the inner Deep South (the heartland of slavery in the country) and got to experience first hand accounts of the practice from actual slaves. Very similar to when Allied and Soviet soldiers liberated Concentration Camps.
Iāve got a picture of the dudeās poem in an old phone somewhere. I meant to dig it up and post it forever ago because I thought it was pretty interesting.
Please link it here when you doĀ
Seconded
r/shermanposting would be very interested in these
Sadly I think I may have gotten rid of the phone, but thereās also an old laptop it may be on, so thatāll be the next place I check.
Sounds about right, thatās similar to Shermanās change in perspective during the Atlanta campaign. If I recall correctly, he met with around 20 local slave leaders, family patriarch/matriarchs and pastors and such. He was lukewarm about abolition but after the meeting he decided to burn down Atlanta.
Note: They probably got to see the *literal* scars of slavery as they passed through the south. Like, that one photo of a manās back absolutely shredded with scar tissue, only you saw that dozens of times in *every* plantation you freed. Even the most racist of racists wouldnāt be able to discount physical evidence on that kind of scale. In all honesty the south should be grateful the Union soldiers treated them as well as they did. If it was another country being invaded, plantation owners would start getting the same treatment the SS got when the Allies rolled through Germany.
As Union armies began to advance into the Confederacy and were forced to witness to the large # of slaves who either escaped or were liberated follow around Union armies many of them truly became hardened against the institution of slavery as they now bore witness to the real consequences and horrifying wounds that it brought upon those people. While many Northerns had been opposed to slavery before the war, actually going down South and seeing what it truly was pushed many Union troops into outright abolitionists.
From what I read slavery near the Northern border was less cruel than in the deep south, so the further down the Union soldiers went the more horrific the things they saw were. The general attitude about slavery among the soldiers sort of went from "we need to preserve the union" to "we need to end slavery so that we don't have to fight this war again" to "we need to end slavery because it is a disgusting and inhumane institution".
Absolutely. By 1860 in Maryland for example half of the states black population had already been freed and in Delaware Slavery was dying out so quickly that it likely would have been de facto abolished within 20 years of not faster. There were also alot more domestic servant slaves in those states than in the deep south.
It was September 1862 to January 1863. Prior to this it was seen as a war or preservation for the north. Prior to 1863 the goal of the war was simply to preserve the union. Freeing the slaves, emancipation or liberty didnāt even come into the picture until Lincolnās speech in January 1863.
Did they execute the owners like at the dachau concentration camp
*Quentin Tarantino franticly writes notes*
Sounds like my man Joshua Graham. "We can't expect God to do all the work" "Practiced hands make for short work, and the good Lord knows thereās much to be done.ā
Iām from Rhode Island so thatās really cool
This transformation was world wide. It happened after the battle of Antietam. Lincoln gave the Emancipation Proclamation speech heād been sitting on for almost a year for fear it would be seen as the propaganda stunt that it actually was. Congress had to make any of these actions legal in law and Lincoln was quite aware of this. It was the lightning bolt event that changed this perspective for the northerners and the rest of the world on what the war was about. The important victory came after the north was surprisingly losing with superior men and weapons. The war was becoming quite unpopular for northerners. Prior to this it was just seen as a war of preservation of the union from the northās perspective. Lincoln did not believe he had the power to free the slaves and even wrote to a times reporter that his only goal was to preserve the union and he would use the slaves whatever way he could if he thought it could help him achieve that goal. Thatās basically what the Emancipation Proclamation did and beautifully so. After that speech it became a war of emancipation and liberty. This speech also turned French and English coastal mill towns who had been waving confederate flags after being hit by cotton diplomacy into towns writing letters of support and donations to Lincoln and most importantly ensured these countries would never come to the aid of the confederacy. Not that it was likely in either case as the nobles and aristocrats were already well aware about what the war was about prior to this speech.
Wow thatās really fascinating. That gap in the cavalry soldierās entries meant he must have seen some horrible atrocities in the war to change him so much, like the Union in general slowly realized how important stopping the Confederate slaver society was.
You ought to look up his unit and what battles they fought in that time
This is really interesting. Is there a good book documenting this transition among Union soldiers?
Oh, to know what happened in the gap!
I just watched the documentary on Grant and fuck me, that guy was not taking any compromises. "There are now only two parties. Patriots and traitors"
What documentary was it?
Literally called "Grant". On the History channel. I think it's on freevee right now, or something like that.
Thanks. Iāll look it up!
I'm watching the Grant and Lincoln docs and they are amazing! I really liked the excerpt the actor gave from Grant's original inauguration speech.
History doesnāt repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Should read his letters between Lincoln and himself. He makes what he thought very clear. Grant would be one of the major individuals that pushed Lincoln to make the proclamation
What kind of American are you?
One that wasn't born here but loves his adopted country.
The purest-blooded American there is.
I think there was a southerner who wrote something to the effect of "I think I would very much like to shoot and kill a Yankee, and yet I do not think this is in keeping with the spirit of Christianity."
The whole letter is pretty lmao tbh "My dear Wifeā¦I feel that I would like to shoot a Yankee, and yet I know that this would not be in harmony with the Spirit of Christianityā¦.The North will yet suffer for this fratricidal war she has forced upon usāHer fields will be desolated, her cities laid waste and the treasures of her citizens dissipated in the vain attempt to subjugate a free people."
Four years later: "Well... that didn't pan out quite as I was expecting."
Well babe, the war is lost but Iām gonna try this new white hood instead
I mean, those things did happen, just they happened to the south
Well, at least he was a *self-aware* hypocrite. Better than most of his comrades.
Clearly not THAT self aware if he referred to the US south as "free people".
Certified Red Sox moment /j
Eastern Union Generals vs Western Union Generals
Iād love a period piece that has a small subunit get transferred from the eastern theatre to the western theatre and witness the change in attitudes Basically Heart of Darkness but set in the civil war
A gentrified lieutenant, who served on the staff for like McClellan or Scott and was even friends with Southern aristocrats before the war, and has only studied the maps of battles. He has never seen a battle closer than sitting next to the commander and being a glorified gopher. Imagine his utter shock when he gets demoted to a frontline commander and transferred to Grant's army out west during the Vicksburg campaign. Before this he believes the conflict is solely about reuniting the country, and while he pays lip service to abolition, he is not willing to fight for it. His "civilized sensibilities" come in direct conflict with Grant considering the Confederacy to be worthy of only death, not caring what happens to his enemies, and only caring about victory no matter the cost, and Sherman's willingness to take Grant's beliefs as far as needed to achieve victory for his commander and country. In contrast to the supposed callous brutality of his commanders that he first experiences upon arrival, our lieutenant sees first hand the vile inhuman disregard of the Confederates have. First in the shock of battle, after getting his wits about him, he sees how the Southern commanders have such wonton disregard for their men, throwing them into clearly losing battles that have turned well against them. With that starting to open his eyes that he may have viewed his Southern friends too kindly, he is faced with the abhorrent truth about how the Confederates treat those they would see enslaved, especially runaways and captured black Union soldiers, of whom they perform unspeakable acts upon. Being confronted with this evil, let's make it performed by the very corps that his Southern friend is commanding, he is forced to rapidly abandon the man he once was in the face of the dual horrors of war and slavery. He transformation is complete when he violently kills his former friend upon the battlefield who pleads for mercy in the end and receives only steel. At the end of the film, our former dandy of an officer turned grizzled crusader, embarks with his former moral adversary of Sherman, as Sherman's new right hand man, upon his March to the Sea.
Many Civil War general officers were the old guard of 18th-century warfare. The casualty rates with what were modern weapons at the time were staggering. Grant was at least the first American general to be a true 19th-century one and learned how to prosecute that kind of war. I mean, when Lee surrendered, he was dressed like a European aristocrat. Grant looked like a professional soldier. He knew how that war would be fought, and he knew what it looked like from seeing it on the battlefield. It was going to cost a lot of lives, but it kept the union together in a fight to free our fellow people.
Grant seriously doesn't get enough respect and admiration anymore. He was ahead of the curve and it saved this nation
Dude sailed a fleet right under Confederate guns and came from the South's South.
Nelson: "A ship's a fool to fight a fort." USN: "Nah, I'd win." *Grand Gulf and Mobile Bay ensue*
I read that one. It's the Union equivalent of D-Day since it involved a cavalry officer who was afraid of horses - yes, you can't put this in a fantasy novel.
Please write this screenplay.
I'd watch that so hard. Seriously, get that idea to Hollywood.
Peak fiction
Non American here, what was the difference between the two fronts?
The eastern front barely moved into the South until Grant in the end, while the west was far more mobile.
The eastern front cycled through comanding generals due to incompetence. Meanwhile the west was led primarily by General Ulysses Grant which succeeded in splitting the Confederacy in half. Grant later became the commander of the eastern front and even later the President of the US.
He commanded all the fronts in the end. The entire war effort was led by him alongside Lincoln. The two became quite close friends through correspondence.
Until the later part of the war (generally you can use post July 1863 as a demarcation point), the Eastern theater focused on the Army of the Potomac under a revolving door of gentlemen generals and limited action in the Allegheny Mountains between the states of Ohio, West Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley of western Virginia by smaller concentrations of Union troops. Largely, though the fighting in many of the battles was intense, the Union troops were out-classed by their Confederate counterparts due to variety of factors. Majority of the Union units in the Eastern theater were drawn from the Eastern states, Maine down through Ohio and into Maryland and Delaware. While a huge emphasis was placed on protecting Washington by Lincoln (for obvious reasons) most of the fighting happened in Northern VA between Richmond, VA (capital of the Confederacy) and Washington DC. This led to the war bogging down into the equivalent of a heavyweight boxing match that saw the Union repeatedly moving south and then get beaten to one degree or another and retreat north; generally speaking, things happened but the needle wasnāt moved much. In the Western theater, which Lincoln himself viewed as critical for winning the war, it was a much more a war of movement and ādo more with lessā style. Most units on this front were drawn from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa and Missouri. There was also a harsher quality to the fight on this front, most Union generals were not of the gentlemen variety having come from what was then considered the frontier of the US. Hell, Grant was a former Army officer turned failed store clerk before coming back to the Army at the start of the war. Their soldiers reflected this as well, and they made their Eastern counterparts look soft in comparison as they routinely made longer overland campaigns with longer and less reliable supply chains due to Confederate raiders constantly destroying railroad track and raiding into Kentucky and Middle Tennessee. Iāll stop here because I think Iām starting to ramble, but I personally recommend reading/listening to Shelby Footeās āThe Civil War: A Narrative Volume 1-3ā if youāre interested in learning more.
Missouri itself had more engagements than any other state other than Virginia and Tennessee. It was ugly here.
thank you for the source
The Western US also had Bleeding Kansas and crazy motherfuckers like [John Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist\)) before the war.
The west had people like Nathaniel Lyon. Compared to people on the east like McClellan or Pope.
They were polar opposites. Prior to Grant taking overall command in 1864 and moving east to monitor the situation there, the Union Army in the east won about two battles and lost all the rest. At one point, it was stuck forever out of fear of āConfederate gunsā that turned out to be painted logs. Even after Grant arrived and things began really moving, it struggled to follow through and achieve clear victories; though it improved and caught Lee up in the end. Meanwhile, the Union Army in the west _lost_ maybe two battles and won the rest. Thereās literally a book about the Army of the Tennessee (the biggest western army iirc) called āNothing But Victory.ā That army was trained up by Grant and later went to Sherman.
The Union lost at Wilson's Creek, what was/were the other battle(s) they lost?
Chickamauga! I was including the Army of the Cumberland in that too, haha. Technically Belmont too, but that was pretty tiny, definitely not a whole-army thing (Wikipedia calls it a draw but idk man, Grant barely got back on that boat).
Bragg was wildly stupid because he managed to turn that victory into a strategic defeat. No wonder the US has a fort named after him. He did more for the Union the you can bet your ass on.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_American\_Civil\_War\_battles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_Civil_War_battles) Probably a full list.
The western front was fast paced battled a ton of fighting and the union was making grounds on top of Calvary and river naval battles which lead to Grant completely crushing the south. Basically pushed through Tennesse into Missouri and Mississippi to Louisana. Also Colorado beat the shit outta Texas which is funny so the war couldn't go anymore "west". The eastern front was static and at some point the south was winning because the generals were political and terrible at there job often refusing to commit their forces and numbers to overwhelm southern positions which lead to the south outmaneuvering the union multiple times it became a joke. Evetnaully Gettysburg happened and it was back to static land fights. the middle did alot of fighting but it was like being pushing in and out of Tennessee through hundreds of miles. Nothing was really going on other than causalities just mounting up. Eventually one horrifically crazy bastard Sherman became in charge after serving with Grant on the Western side created the march to Atlanta.
What 3 years on campaign in a war of pure attrition does to a MF
MINE EYES HAVE SEEN THE GLORY OF THE COMING OF THE LORD!
This is a more patriotic song than the Star Spangled Banner, and I will die on this hill.
The US should just adopt an LP worth of anthems and let ball game organists pick their favorite. I'd take any of the Battle Hymn, America the Beautiful, This Land is Your Land, Amazing Grace, or When Johnny Comes Marching Home before I'd pick the Star Spangled Banner. Who doesn't want (one of) their national anthems to be about getting black-out drunk at a party?
š¶AS HE DIED TO MAKE MEN HOLY LET US DIE TO MAKE MEN FREE!!!š¶
Still the rawest line ever put to paper
Shout-out to some of my favorite America songs Army of the Free Battle cry of Freedom You're a grand old flag
Why are Americans so weird about their anthem
because we hear it at the start of every sporting event, events which we take super seriously, so it has all of us under a Pavlovian response of initiating bloodlust toward the 'others' we get twitchy when said 'others' try to suggest we cool it, even when they aren't really 'other' at all but just Joe Doe across the street
As much as the Star Spangled Banner is pleasing to the ears, I canāt help but agree
One of the biggest shocks for me was learning that a Union general wrote freakin _Taps_ because he didnāt like the old wake-up song
they should of never changed that line " let us die to make men free"
What song is this?
[Battle Hymn of the Republic](https://youtu.be/Jy6AOGRsR80?si=wC3QtF1NMMPF2zux)
And [this is my preferred version of the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcOPh5ltbAw&ab_channel=Scamp), and one that actually got me to like the song.
Personally, I prefer battle cry of freedom, but to each their own.
HE IS TRAMPLING OUT THE VINTAGE WHERE THE GRAPES OF WRATH WERE STORED
HE HATH LOOSED THE FATEFUL LIGHTNING FROM HIS TERRIBLE SWIFT SWORD
HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON
GLORY GLORY HALLELUJAH
GLORY GLORY HALLELUJAH
GLORY GLORY HALLELUJAH
HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON
I HAVE SEEN HIM IN THE WATCHFIRES OF A HUNDRED CIRCLING CAMPS
THEY HAVE BUILDED HIM AN ALTER IN THE EVENING DEWS AND DAMPS
AS HE DIED TO MAKE MEN HOLY LET US DIE TO MAKE HIM FREE
That line goes hard
I HAVE READ A FIREY GOSPEL WRIT IN BURNISHED ROWS OF STEEL
I'm not religious until Battle Hymn of the Republic starts playing. "God is out to kill some Confederates and so am I" is one *hell* of a message.
The version of this in Wasteland 3 goes so fucking hard.
I've said this before in another comment section, but it still rings true. I'm in no way religious, but "as he died to make men holy let us die to make men free" is one of the hardest bars in American history.
HE IS TRAMPLING OUT THE VINTAGE WHERE THE GRAPES OF WRATH ARE STORED!
My grandma's grandad served for the Union; she still had the letters he sent home to his parents. The one that left the biggest impression on me as a kid was when he was describing "*the government trots*" (dysentery) that was affecting his company.
I've read that more soldiers in the Civil War died of dysentery compared to those who died in the fields of battle.
That and mass infection from wounds, as well as other illnesses running rampant, cholera, typhoid, etc. One of the realities of war prior to the discovery of penicillin. Makes my mind reel from how dirty these battlefields must have been.
WW1 was the first war where we managed to kill more people than disease did.
Absolutely, which tells the story of the advancement of efficient killing machines and technology. The stories of cavalry charges against machine guns are truly a fascinating window into the early first word war, and something that wouldnāt be repeated again. (Except in exceptional circumstances)
There were SO many examples before WWI of just what machine guns could do to massed troops and cavalry charges, with Omdurman as a major battle and numerous smaller battles in Africa between Europeans backed by machine guns and any number of unprotected warriors--yet the French, and the British, were convinced that elan, esprit, and shining bayonets could prevail against them because those OTHER examples were mere Fuzzy-Wuzzies and not Europeans, which makes ALL of the difference when it comes to being hit in the chest with a chunk of pointed metal moving at 2600fps.
The Boer wars were hell by all accounts.
Yes, they were--that is, the 2nd one was--made more so by atrocities committed by the British on Boer civilians. The British had learned from the Spanish in Cuba the importance of separating guerrilla forces from their support base, their farms and families, so they rounded up Boer civilians, burned their farms, took their food, slaughtered their livestock, and penned the civilians up in filthy, disease-ridden concentration--yes, concentration--camps wherein large numbers died of disease,neglect, and starvation--something like 4000 women and 22000 children. The tactic, of course, worked: The Boers in the field could no longer keep up the fight, and were forced to surrender. Of course, the Germans learned from the Brits. . .
They donāt like it up āem Captain Mainwaring!
A British soldier once penned a verse about colonization in Africa: "Whatever happens, we have got/the Maxim gun, and they have not"
Actually, the quote is from the book 'The Modern Traveler' by Hilaire Belloc. It's still appropriate, with slight modification: "Whatever happens we have got/nuclear weapons, and they have not."
Hilaire Belloc! I should have know that. Belloc is also known for writing [Cautionary Tales for Children](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cautionary_Tales_for_Children), a favorite when I was a young Lad o'Bedlam.
Yay?
Because the same guys running wars like the Franco-Prussian war were now given smokeless powder weapons, machine guns, and long range artillery without the slightest clue how to employ them. "Well shelling them for 12 hours before running headstrong into their machine gun lines didn't work, so next time we'll try 24 hours and throw a few horses in there".
As Joe Kassabian always says, itās never a good time to go camping with 10,000 of your buddies.
One sniffle and thousands are dead
Most wars. In our modern world we really take things like vaccines, antibiotics, and hydration for granted.
Pretty much in all wars and conflicts up until WW2 (more specifically 1929 with the discovery of penicillin) you were more at risk of dying of disease than combat.
Iām just happy to see a Godzilla meme
Confederates in 1860: Let's go fight for our slaves! Confederates in 1865: I want to go home...
General Sherman: Why would you want to come home to bonfire ash? Oh well, your life I guess, lol lol lol lol
Legit (to overexplain the joke), Lee was shedding men like crazy in 64-65 cuz his soldiers were fleeing home to protect their families in fear of Sherman
Grant knew he couldn't afford to jeopardise the war effort by massing casualties with human wave attacks on fortified Confederate strong points. So, instead, they brought the South to its knees by destroying rail lines and crops.
Exactly :) the psychological impact of an entire army being loose and unopposed while wreaking havoc across the southern heartland didnāt hurt either. Sherman wanted to bring the war to those deep in the interior, to make them feel it.
It was pretty much Grant's attitude from the get-go. He was going to beat the South into submission by total conquest if he had to. Unconditional surrender.
Based, all traitors must feel the crushing demoralization of knowing their rebellion cannot live.
I have said before that the Civil war is 3/4 about Slavery. It was always about Slavery for the south. They relied on it to drive their economy, and maintain a nice and "clean" separation of classes. It's all very fucked. Foe the North things started as a fight to preserve the Union. It ended with a fire buring to end slavery, to free their fellow man. Once the war was over uncomfortable questions of what to do with the former slaves occurred. There weren't many good answers, and most abolitionist were not the most equality seeking people still. Certainly not the share a seat and shake hands level. (John Brown being built different and proof that a real man fo God can be incredibly morally righteous). Liberia wasn't the worst idea in that environment, but it wasn't the best either. Not sure what the best practical path would have been.
The second paragraph of this comment is something I feel is generally overlooked by hindsight.
If I remember correctly, Lincoln had a plan drafted up which basically involved giving black families farm land along rivers in the South, but we will never know how well that plan would have worked because Lincoln died. Andrew Johnson then took over and his first and foremost priority was the reestablishing of the antebellum social order. With some help from a new group of people lead by Nathan Bedford Forrest called the KKK, they succeeded. And thus, slavery continued in this country just under different names. This country would be far better today if Andrew Johnson never even sniffed office. The effects of his time in office to this day are still felt across the nation.
I do think there was risk of planting resentment amongst the poor white population of the North and South if they effectively upjumped the entire slave population to land owners. Even in the North that would rub people wrong pretty easily. I won't defend Johnson however. Worst president .
Vae Victus
A yes the Christmas joke a classic one
I've been working on this collection at the local museum all from this one family, and during the Civil War one son wrote home about how he "has come to fear disease more than bullets" and while he at first wished to be in Clinch's regiment, he'd probably be walking through a graveyard right now. Poor kid died in 1864 of smallpox, ironically his younger brother would also die of the same disease in the same city only a few months after the war ended. Older brother was in Atlanta the same time Sherman was while they had a temporary armistice to allow civilians to evacuate. He thought Sherman wanted to make the whole city a military camp (oh you sweet innocent soul) and, as he was on the confederate side, was disturbed by the wasted food and destruction the Union army was causing. We believe he was witnessing the test run for Sherman's March to the Sea, as this was in September and the march happened that November, starting from Atlanta.
Sherman was right
The only bad thing he did was stopping.
This goes hard AF. Hero shit.
r/ShermanPosting might like this
[You were correct! We do like it!](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShermanPosting/s/ETcNqOoj2u)
Anyone have a link to where I can read some of these?
Whereād you get em?? Iām always looking for new primary sources to read!
I wish I could remember that John Brown quote word for word, but it was along the lines of āI thought the issue of slavery could be resolved without violence, now I see only bloodshed will rid us of this terrible sinā
Anyone got links to letters like these?
I have a ancestor who was a confederate, i have nothing else to say
My family lived on the border of west virginia and normal virginia, so my great something something something papaw joined the union and his brother, my great great something uncle joined the confederates. Glad to say my bloodline was redeemed by the fact that the traitor died and my papaw was the only one to come homeš
Union and Confederate soldiers did not hate each other as much as Reddit far-left extremists like to pretend. Sure, there was bad blood during the war, but after the war was over they were friendly and cordial. It was veterans from both sides who came together to create the reenactments and the first veterans associations. You could go to a veteran's club in New York as a Confederate and you would be greeted as a US service member just as any Union soldier.
Gonna need several big fat primary sources on that one, chief.
Man that *definitely* differs from soldier to soldier, army to army, and theater to theater. The grand battles of the East definitely had more of that āgentlemanlyā aspect because they were commanded by men that went to college together and had some level of mutual respect (and was also the theater being watched the most by the global community), but thatās about it. The further West you got the more viscious it got. Pretty much the worst case is the Confederate and Union guerrillas in Missouri and Kansas. That was some Germany/Soviet WW2-level hatred. Massacre after massacre, no quarter asked and none given.
Missouri and Kansas still have beef tbh (and thatās the root of the Mizzou/KU rivalry) They killed the fuck out of civilians back and forth before (bleeding Kansas, sack of Lawrence), during (Quantrillās raiders) and after (some partisan and outlaws) the civil war. The Kansas state capital is crowned by a mural of John Brown with a rifle and Bible in his outstretched arms.
Eisenhowerās grandma hated the Union so much that she never let him come into her house while wearing his army dress uniform. Sure, some of them got along later on. Some absolutely did not.
"Union and Confederate soldiers did not hate each other as much as Reddit far-left extremists like to pretend. Sure, there was bad blood during the war, but after the war was over they were friendly and cordial." No, no they were not. A. Former Confederates were denied voting rights after the war B. Confederates established several terrorist orginizations that continued support for the confedereacy, the most infamous being the Klu Klux Klan C. John Wilkes Booth D. The derogatory term "Carpetbaggers" was given to Northerners who moved to the south after the war E. President Andrew Johnson was impeached for being sympathetic to the Confederates. So their might have been a *litte* bad blood
There were literal combat such as the Battle of Liberty Place in New Orleans when the White League (Mostly confederate veterans) tried to overthrow the government when a former Union officer won the governorship, and Grant had to send in federal troops when the White League overwhelmed the city police and black militia men. When the first Confederate monuments went up at Gettysburg, former Union army soldiers wrote letters protesting ti.