The Heritage of a Civl War /From History of The Civil War

One of every five participants in the Civil War died in service. While 126,000 Americans died in World War I and 407,000 in World War II, more than 618,000 Americans were victims of the Civil War. The north lost a total of 360,022 men, of whom 67,058 were killed in action and 43,012 died of battle wounds. Extant records for the Confederacy do not provide complete statistics, yet certainly about 258,000 Southern soldiers died of all causes in the war. Approximately 94,000 of these were battle fatalities.

The biggest killers of troops in the 1860's were not bullets and shells but sickness and disease. Some 400,000 men perished from such maladies as diarrhea, dysentery, measles, small pox, chicken pox, typhoid fever, pneumonia, and gangrene. Intestinal disorders alone killed more than 57,000 Federal soldiers. Since proper food and sanitation were even more lacking on the Confederate side, the number of deaths among Southern troops from diarrhea and associated illnesses was proportionately higher. But the suffering does not stop there. At least 1,000,000 men were seriously wounded or severly ill during the war. Unquestionably, lingering effects of these disablements continued in most cases for years after the fighting ceased.

Human loss cannot be measured in terms of dollars. Materially speaking, the war cost the United States more than $15,000,000,000 in property destroyed, fields burned bare, material expended, and institutions both created and eliminated. The price tags of America's legacy of such items as a ruined South, military occupation, years of political corruption directly attributable to the war, partisan excesses, discrimination, and intolerance can never be computed.

The heritage of hate that the Civil War engendered mellowed appreciably with the passage of time. Veterans on both sides periodically gathered at the great battle sites to relive deeds of daring and to exchange anecdotes and compliments with former enemies. Their ability to forgive was an inspiration to future generations. In time, the whole nation came to revere the final survivors of the struggle. The last "Billy Yank," Albert Woolson of Duluth, Minnesota, died August 2, 1956 at the age of 109. The last "Johnny Reb," 117 year old Walter Williams of Houston, Texas, died December 19,1959.

The Civil War holds undying fascinatin for people all over the world.

Americans have probably read more about the war than the rest of man's history combined. More than 60,000 books and articles have appeared since the gun smoke cleared, and the stream of literary works shows no sign of drying up. For the Civil War was "our" war. It pitted American against American, brother against brother, father against son. The deeds of valor and sacrifice performed countless times by either Blue or Gray are heroics in which al Americans can take pride.

Moreover, the lines of dissension were never quite clear. Contestants in most wars appear vividly as either black or white. Yet the whole Civil War seemed to hover in gray shadows. Each side maintained that is was fighting for the America envisioned by the Founding Fathers. Delaware, a slave state, remained in the Union; antislaveryites Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson fought for the Confederacy. In 1861, future Confederate generals Joseph E. Johnston and James Longstreet were serving in the U.S. Army-while future general William T. Sherman was living in the South. Mrs. Abraham Lincoln had two brothers and a brother-in-law who gave their lives fighting under the Stars and Bars.

No nation has ever fought itself and, a scant 100 years later, been bound by so many ties of nationalism and brotherhood as now characterize America. The progress of the United States, after a war that would seem to have left wounds too deep for healing, is a memorial to Americans of every age and creed who were willing to bind up the nation's wounds and march ahead confidently into the future. A United States forged in the death and steel of Civil War battles continued its growth, developed its destiny, and ultimately fulfilled Lincoln's vision of an America that is "the last great hope of earth."

The Civil War by James I. Robertson, Jr.

Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis, first-and only-President of the Confederacy, faced the task of shaping a new nation while waging a defensive war. (Collections of the Library of Congress)

Shooting began because men grew tired of shouting. For forty years, Northerns and Southerners argued with increasing vehemence over such issues as slavery, state rights, the conflicting goals of a dynamic, industrializing North and a static agricultural South, and the falling from political power of the South that had since colonial days provided the national leadership. By the 1850's compromise, the necessary ingredient to American life, had vanished. Emotion replaced thought; sharp disagreements produced heat; and heat generated fire.

Historians still debate which spark actually produced the explosion. The oldest explanation for the coming of war is the "conspiracy thesis": an Abolitionist Conspiracy in the North, callous to the constituional designs of the Founding Fathers and interested only in its unrealistic goals, was arrayed against a Slave Power Conspiracy in the South,

diabolically resolved to spread slavery throughout the land until it enslaved all peoples, white, and black. by the turn of the century however, such historians as James Ford Rhodes had simplified the cause of the Civil War to a single ingredient: Slavery.

The 20th century has produced a rash of differing interpretations. Charles A. Beard regarded the war as a "second American Revolution" provoked by economic differences between North and South. Many Southern-based historians see the war as a climax to arguments over the supremacy of state rights. Others feel that "Southern nationalism" created a desire to preserve at all costs the South's way of life. Recent writers, such as James G. Randall, take a more psychological approach. To them the war came from the fanaticism of a group of hotheads on each side. The great mass of Americans succumbed to radicalism and therefore exhibited the traits of "a blundering generation." Such writers point to modern-day events in America as historical parallels to the coming of the Civil War.

Whatever the cause of war, the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States shattered the Union. Southerners were unwilling to live under a Republican administration dedicated to antislavery principles. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina officially severed its ties with the Union.

In turn, the states of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas quickly followed suit. A provisional capital was established at Montgomery, Alabama, and the newly elected Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, proclaimed to the world: "All we ask is to be left alone."

First state to secede from the Union was South Carolina. This placard appeared on December 20, 1860, on the streets of Charlston.

The Concise Illustrated History Of The Civil War

The Civil War by James I. Robertson, Jr.

The Civil War was the most traumatic experience in the life of the United States. Neither North nor South in 1861 could have envisioned the scope, or the horror, of that conflict. Some 3,000,000 men served in the armies; more than 2,200 engagements, ranging from Vermont to the Arizona Territory, occurred; an average of 430 soldiers died each day of the four-year holocaust. In the end, almost as many Americans had perished as in all of the nation's other wars combined.

Cities were ravaged, farms were destroyed, and vast tracts of once-productive soil were laid waste by the indiscriminate appetites of war. Brothers opposed brothers; fathers and sons turned against one another. The continuing progress of the nation was delayed, if not set back, as almost an entire generation evaporated in the flames of battle. From the horror of that conflict emerged a new Union, plus freedom and the promise of equality for Negro slaves. America has never paid so high a price for a definition of its destiny.

Slavery was basically the cause of the Civil War.

To most northerners, the evil was callously compounded in the slave auction, where men and women were bid for like cattle, and families were broken up as their members were sold to separate buyers.

The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 made him a minority President and gave the "fire-eaters" of the South their excuse for secession. Like most Presidents, and more than most, he grew in stature as a man and a statesman during the four years of war that marked his administration. To the North he symbolize the cause for which it fought.

The Eagle That Went to War by Walter Oleksy

The Eagle That Went to War

It's not every eagle that marches off to war. And gets wounded twice in battle, is decorated for bravery, and becomes a national hero. But then Old Abe wasn't just any kind of eagle....

The eaglet was just a fledgling, barely able to fly, nesting in an emerald pine tree in northwest Wisconsin one mild spring morning in 1861. From his perch atop Flambeau Hill, he could look out over the rolling farm country.

An occasional rifle shot he heard was from a hunter, not Civil War gunfire.

Walking through the woods that morning came Chief Sky, an Indian of the Lac du Flambeau band of Chippewa. Even a chief seldom took a chance raiding an eagle's nest. But since there was just one fledgling and no full-grown birds in sight, he climbed the tree. The eagle nipped his finger, but the chief managed to slip a small sack over the bird's head. Taking his prize, he climbed down from the tree, ran to his canoe, and paddled swiftly off up the Chippewa river.

Two days later, Chief Sky came to a farm owned by Daniel McCann, hoping  to sell him the eaglet. The farmer was out working in his field, but his wife thought she'd like to keep the bird as a pet. She traded the chief a bag of corn and took the eaglet.

When Mr. McCann came home and saw the eaglet, he said the bird would have to go. It would be too much trouble to keep. The next day, he took the bird to the town of Eau Claire and showed him to some young Wisconsin recruits on their way to Camp Randall at Madison. One of them, a young man named Johnny Hill, took a special liking to the bird.

"We need a mascot in this war we're going to," Johnny told his comrades. "Let's buy him and take him along with us."

"How much?" the other recruits asked.

Mr. McCann decided that he wanted to be rid of the eaglet more than he wanted to make a lot of money, especially off of recruits going to war.

"Two dollars and a half?" he asked.

Johnny and his companions dug into their pockets and between them came up with the money. The sale was made and the eaglet now found himself going off to war. Johnny christened him Old Abe, after President Abraham Lincoln, and they took the eaglet in as a full fledged recruit in the Union Army.

A few days later, they marched into Camp Randall with Old Abe. They were a little afraid they might get their mascot killed and themselves courtmartialed for bringing a wild eagle into the army.

But the commander, knowing the importance of morale to a unit, thought an eagle for a mascot was a fine idea. A perch was made for Old Abe in the form of a shield on which the stars and stripes were painted along with the inscription, "Eighth Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteers."

The metal perch was mounted on a five-foot pole. A bearer, by setting the staff in a belt-socket, held up Old Abe at a station assigned him at the center of the line of march, behind the Union flag.

A short time later, the commander nicknamed the regiment "The Eagles," and Old Abe was formally sworn into the United States Army and bedecked in red, white and blue ribbons.

His fame already had begun to spread, and a businessman in St. Louis offered to buy Old Abe for $500.00 but he wasn't for sale.

Old Abe went with the Wisconsin Eagles on their mission to war. After he overcame initial surprise at the sound of enemy gunfire, he would scream fiercely, especially when the company advanced. He would jabber raucously and often soar overhead as if scouting, then return to his perch and call noisily, as if uring the men to action.

Everywhere it marched the regiment became famous, not only because of its mascot, but because of its bravery.  Old Abe was always there, in the thick of 36 battles and skirmishes, a symbol of courage to Johnny Hill and every other soldier.

One Confederate general remarked that he would rather capture "that sky buzzard" than a whole brigade of soldiers.

Old Abe suffered two minor battle wounds, at Corinth and Vicksburg, Mississippi, before the war ended.

When the Wisconsin Eagles returned to Madison, the soldiers marched through the streets carrying Old Abe bobbing on his perch, hale and hearty as ever. Crowds cheered him as a real hero, and he flapped his wings as a sign of recognition.

With the war over, Old Abe was presented to the State of Wisconsin and given a room in the basement of the Capitol, where a soldier comrade became his private caretaker. Johnny Hill, who also had survived the war, visited him often.

Thousands of people from all over the country came to see the famous war eagle that had survived so many battles and spurred so many soldiers on to victory. His moulted feathers sold for $5.00 a piece, and the famous circus owner P.T. Barnum offered $20,000 to feature him as a circus performer. But other work was in store for Old Abe.

By special act of the Wisconsin legislature in 1876, and with the governor's approval, Old Abe was exhibited at the United States Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.

His chaperone was none other than his old army buddy, Johnny Hill.

Returning from Philadelphia, Old Abe went on tours of the country. He helped raise thousands of dollars for war relief charity and became a national hero all over again.

Old Abe was almost twenty years old when he died. A granite statue of the valiant eagle stands over the arched entrance to Old Camp  Randall in Madison.

When you are in the Midwest on vacation, you can stop in and pay your respects to Old Abe. And next time you see a little brass eagle mounted atop a flag pole in a parade, remember Old Abe, the real live eagle that went to war.

Pictures from Gettysburg

Abraham Lincoln Quote

"You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot strenghten the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

You cannot further brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred.

You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."

"Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damages morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hung" Abraham Lincoln

"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God cannot retain it."

"Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters."

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can excercise their Constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it."

"Nothing will divert me from my purpose."

"The probablity that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."

"In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all and it often comes with bitter agony. Perfect relief is not possible except with time. You cannot now believe that you will ever feel better. But this is not true. You are sure to be happy again. Knowing this, truly believing it will make you less miserable now. I have had enough experience to make this statement"

"It is better to remain silent and thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."

"Whatever you are, be  a good one."

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."

"My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side..."

"Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiam."

"Every man's happiness is his own responsibility."

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free."

" I have alway found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice."

Abraham Lincoln Quotes

"Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow."

"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"

"The better part of one's life consists of his friendships."

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer."

"I laugh because I must not cry. that is all, that is all"

"You cannot escape the responsiblity of tomorrow by evading it today."

"My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it."



Abraham Lincoln His Essential Wisdom

You have been called upon to make a terrible sacrifice for the Union, and a visit to that spot, I fear, will open your wounds afresh. But oh! my dear sir, if we had reached the end of such sacrifices, and had nothing left for us to do but to place garlands on the graves of those who have already fallen, we could give thanks even amidst our tears; but when I think of the sacrifices of life yet to be offered and the hearts and homes yet to be made desolate before this dreadful war, so wickedly forced upon us, is over, my heart is like lead within me, and I feel at times, like hiding in deep darkness.

- Reply to a man who told Lincoln that his only son was lost at Gettysburg while Lincoln was on board the train taking him there to deliver his address, November 18, 1863 from Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguihed Men of His Time, edited by Allen Thorndike Rice

Taken through the glass with cell phone Brookgreen Garden South Carolina

Photograph Brookgreen Garden South Carolina

Sweet Madame Blue

Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,

Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause.

Life In Civl War America - Eastern Acorn Press

Wartime is by nature abnormal. As Americans learned most recently from their Vietnam experience, even a distant war deranges the routine of life at home. Men leave to fight, and some never return. Episodes of heroism and cowardice, sacrifice and exploitation color the moral landscape in extremes. Civil liberties usually taken for granted are suddenly challenged, even restricted. Nothing in life seems to move in its normal groove so long as the war continues.

Civil war compounds these problems and adds new ones. The conflict is not remote but fought within a nation's own borders. Every casualty is a citizen, every piece of damage a national loss. The struggle pits brother against brother, friend against friend. The carnage of war drenches familiar landscape, leaving scars and wounds that will not heal for generations. It is as if some form of madness has seized the land and wreaks bloody destruction until it drops at last of exhaustion.

Northerners and Southerners faced common problems during four years of madness: how did they cope with the horrors and uncertainties of Civil War?

For most northerns the war was a distant but not remote event. Except for Lee's brief invasions of Maryland in 1862 and Pennsylvania in 1863, some fighting in the western border states, and a few raids, their cities and farms escaped the devastation that blighted large areas of the South. Seldom did the din of combat reach their ears or the menance of invading troops disturb their daily routines. Life went on, not as usual, but at least with a minimum of disruption.

But distance from the battlefield could not protect Northerners from the effects of war. The ordeal of sustaining so massive a struggle intruded upon people's lives in countless ways. The most obvious of these was of course the absence of friends and kinfolk in the service. Every town and hamlet watched its young men depart for the front, some to die and others to return home with maimed bodies or broken spirits.

Concern for the safety of loved ones permeated households throughout the North.

The slowness with which accuate details and casualty lists reached home after a major battle aggravated their distress. In this was distance from the seat of war bred anxiety as well as security. The pain of loss often found expression in popular culture. Two Civil War composers, George F. Root and Henry Clay Work, depicted it in their songs. One immensely popular turn by Root included the following lyrics (written by Henry Stevenson Washburn):

At our fireside sad and lonely

Often will the bosom swell

At remembrance of the story

How our noble Willie fell;

How he strove to bear our banner

Through the thickest of the fight,

And uphold our country's honor

In the strength of manhood's might.

(Chorus)

We shall meet, but we shall miss him,

There will be one vacant chair;

We will linger to caress him,

When we breathe our evening prayer.

The presence of men in uniform, whether home on leave or forming into newly organized units, served as constant reminders to civilians. Soldiers could be found on the streets of towns and villages everywhere. In a city like Washington they were essential for keeping order, one report declared that without them, "This District would have been simply uninhabitable." Returning wounded also brought home stark evidence of their ordeal in combat. Rare was the town that did not welcome home a veteran minus an arm or leg or worse.

Hospitals filled with wounded had a similar effect. As the city nearest the eastern theatre, Washington endured the greatest crush of incoming casualties. Sick and wounded soldiers overflowed the hospitals into converted rooms in churches, the insane asylum, government buildings like the Patent Office and even the hallways of the Capitol. At times their number exceeded 50,000, "a population," Walt Whitman observed, "more numerousin itself than the Washington of ten or fifteen years ago." Creaking carts lumbered through the streets every night bearing their cargoes of dead to the cemeteries.

Some towns alsow housed army camps or prisoner-of war compounds. Another agent of war, the conscription officer, began appearing after 1862 once the enlistment enthusiam had passed. These officers became objects of loathing and often violence in many places, as did officers searching for deserters. During 1863 draft riots plunged New York City into turmoil, and in the lower midwest resistance to the draft led to riots, the murdering of several draft officers,and a string of "outrages, robberies, incendiary fires."

The conflict had its psychological effects as well. In 1863 the superintendent of the Illinois State Hospital for the Insance argued tha the strain of war had brought a "vast invigoration of the American Mind...national athleticism on a grand scale." But the shocks and dislocations of wartiem did not find true reflection in mental instituions, partly because so few of their victims ended up there. A more perceptive judgment came from historian H.C. Hubbart, who conclued that "the West and the nation as a whole was torn by war-strain, indecision, party faction and demagogism,anxiety, sacrifice, devotion, suffering, insanity, and death. Democracy was in convulsion."

Apart from its advantage in men and guns, the northern war effort depened upon its superior industrial and agricultural might. In terms of productivity the war was fought as much at home as on the battlefield, and this struggle enlisted men, women, and children alike. The increased demand for goods, coupled with the drain of man power for military service, meant that there were fewer people to do more work. Farm and factory responded to thi need by increasing their use of machinery to replace human labor and by putting more women and children to work.

The North relied upon its staple crops both to feed its people and army and to produce surpluses which could be sold abroad for badly needed gold. As thousands of men left their farms to fight the war, women, children and older men took up the field work. As a popular song enjoined:

Just take your gun and go;

For Ruth can drive the oxen, John,

And I can use the hoe!

Revelation after revelation rocked the public, prompting the New York Herald in June 1864 to denounce the "gross corruption prevailin in nearly every department of the government." Large commissions went tomen whose only service was to obtain lucrative government contract for firms.

On the stock and gold exchanges, speculators thrived on the uncertainties of wartime. Gold and security prices, like public morale, fluctuated with ebb and flow of news from the front. Hordes of speculators, including some women braving ridicule in a traditonally male arena, plunged into the treacherous currents of Wall Street seeking a quick fortune. One crafty manipulator, Daniel Drew, recalled that "Along with ordinary happenings, we fellows in Wall Street had the fortunes of war to speculate about. ...It's good fishing in troubled waters." Another financier put the case more bluntly: "The battle of Bull Run makes the fortune of every man in Wall Street who is not a natural idiot."

Not all northern businessmen were dishonest, and not all made fortunes. But the war created a free-wheeling atmosphere that invited opportunism and abuse. It is important to remember that not all northerns bothered to fight the war or evern tender it active support. Some people lacked strong interest in the conflict and either ignored it as best they could or resented it as an intrusion into their private affairs.

Among this group were men who found the wartime situation a golden opportunity for self-advancement. These ambitious young entrepreneurs used the war years to establish themselves while their peers were absent at the front. Some made fortunes even before the war ended, while others planted the roots of what were to be long and prosperous careers.

Within this group could be found a surprising number of the business titans who were to dominate the economy, and therefore much of American life, during the next half century.

To most of these men wartime opportunities brought financial nest eggs from which huge fortunes later hatched. For them as for many others who advanced their prospects during these years, prosperity was anything but illusory.

Society reflected this mood of prosperity, especially in the cities. As the war dragged on through month after weary month of bloody battles that produced defeat or indecision, northerns grasped eagerly at diversions to dispel the gloom of uncertainty that clouded the future. So frenetic did the pursuit of gaiety and amusement become that public spirited citizens periodically denounced this apparent indifference to the suffering and hardships endured by soldiers at the front. Even a foreign observer, the correspondent for the London Times, expressed his disgust in 1863:

There is someting saddening, indeed revolting, in the high glee, real or affected, with which the people here look upon what ought to be...agrievous national calamity. The indulgence in every variety of pleasure, luxury, and extravagence is simply shocking. The jewelers' shops in all these cities have doubled or trebled their trade; the love of fine dresses and ornaments on the part of women amounts to madness. They have the money, well or ill gotten, and must enjoy it. Every fresh bulletin from the battlfield of Chickamauga during my three weeks stay in Cincinnati brought a long list of the dead and wounded...many of whom, of the officers, belonged to the best families in the place. Yet the signs of mourning were hardly anywhere perceptible; the noisy gayety of the town was not abated one jot.



National Soldiers Home continued

In the beginning veterans were supplied surplus Civil War uniforms when they entered the Home. They drew two pairs of blue pants, two pairs black shoes, four pairs of socks, three pairs of drawers, three shirts, a military dress blue coat, a pair of gloves, hat, cap, and suspenders. The barracks were organized essentially military in nature with "companies" of men supervised by Captains and Sergeants. The full time staff had military officer rank and also wore uniforms. The organizational style persisted until World War  II.

During the period 1919-1921, veterans were coming home from Europe and World War I with lung scarring from gas attacks, tuberculosis outbreaks, and a worldwide epidemic of influenza. Space had to be made to accommodate their medical needs. At the Mountain Branch Civil War veterans were encouraged to move into the community so the space could be utilized for these new veterans. Large porches were built into the barracks because of the belief that fresh mountain air would have a healing effect on these young men. this began the change from the original residential concept to a medically focused facility. At this same time the Branches underwent an official name change, now being called "National Sanitariums". As wars came and went, changes took place in the social fabric of this country and the need for domiciliary care changed too. Today we have community resources available that were not possible 100 years ago. We have assisted living facilities, community nursing homes, Social Security benefits, VA pensions and compensation, personal retirement programs, all of which were not available to our veterans when President Lincoln conceived the National Homes. The lessening demand and need for such facilities has greatly reduced the number of beds taxpayers are asked to support.

As health care changed, so has the domiciliary. We have come from the concept of a "Home" where veterans lived because there were no other community options, to a shortterm residential faciltiy supporting our hospital with its mission of providing health services. Veterans come to Johnson City preddominantly from Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina to reside while receiving treatment for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other diseases. Many come to the "Mountain Home Branch because they live too far from medical care in their own communities and have nowher to live while seeking treatment. Veterans then return to their communities as soon as clinically approved by medical staff.

Today the James H. Quillen Veterans Affairs Medical Center is a full service hospital with 111 beds, nursing home with 120 beds and a domicillary with 348 beds. an annual operating budget of $137million includes 81 million in salaries. Over 1255 employees work 24 hours a day giving excellent care to veterans. New construction has been going on at the Medical Center since 1990 with a new domiciliary, clinical services building, and emergency room. In the fall of 2003, the Mountain Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers will celebrate 100th year of service to America's veterans.

National Soldiers Home

Over 1,000 workers were employed for the three-year initial construction period and a total of 3 million dollars in construction costs were spent in Johnson City during that time.  After the facilty was occupied in 1903, it was estimated that visitors to the Branch alone spent $30,000 annually in the village while the soldiers spent $40,000 in pensions. The grounds of the original Branches quickly became tourist attractions and the Mountain Branch was no exception. A hotel was built near the present post office to accommodate visitors. It had a barbershop and restaurant  to serve veterans and visitors alike. This Branch sported a zoo housing bear, elk, deer, and peacock. There were two large lakes, swans, a tennis court, and cultivated rose garden. A full time horticulturist was employed to constantly refresh the grounds. Veterans of the Home and traveling semi-professional baseball teams utilized the newly built baseball field complete with grandstands.  The gazebo was the site for weekly concerts by the Branch Band, which were very popular with Johnson City citizens on Sunday afternoon.

The originalo construction included 37 buildings. There were 8 barracks for 2500 men, a mess hall (the Clock Tower), a 4 ward infirmary, officers/surgeons quarters (homes), administrative building, power house, laundry, ice house, hotel, chapel, theatre, bandstand(gazebo), jail, and morgue. Other buildings were added until the project was completed in 1910.

Mr. Brownlow wrote Andrew Carnegie and asked for a contribution to assist in building a library, something not included in the original proposal. Mr. Carnegie responded with a note that said, I'm pleased to comply with your request" and sent a check for $25,000 which covered the cost of the complete building. Mr. Brownlow wrote the major publishers of the day and asked them to donate books. They complied with 16,000 volumes. He also wrote the leading music companies and secured all band instruments for the Home band. As an added bonus, Congressman Brownlow petitioned the Johnson City Commission to extend the trolley lines out to the Home. This was approved in November 1901. The trolley ran 10 hours per day and cost five cents each way.

The Branches were designed as domiciles rather than hospitals. Each had an infirmary to care for the members who became acutely ill, as the concept of veteran's hospitals had not been fully developed. Most of the labor to run the Branch was furnished by the veterans living there. This was common among all Branches including the Mountain Branch. The veterans admitted to all Soldiers Home were expected to work, within confines of their physical abilities. The Branch had a 250 acre farm with dairy cattle, a coal fired power plant, a dining hall feeding 2500 people per day and an infirmary watching over the sick. The residents grew produce in the garden, produced flowers in the greenhouse for the infirmary and cemetery, ran the fire department, laundry, steam plant, and security force. Those refusing to work were expelled from the Home. There was a "member-guard" force to enforce the rules and regulations as well as a jail for confinement. There was no shortage of work assignments for the residents of the Home. 

National Soldier's Home

Brownlow along with the Johnson City Board of Trade (similar to today's Chamber of Commerce) distributed 10,000 copies of the Board's report to Congress and Brownlow's comments, to members of the Grand Army of the Repbulic (early version of the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans and Veterans of Foreign Wars). Brownlow was able to secure 7,000 signed petitions from members of the GAR, which were forwarded to Congress.  In 1900, Brownlow's bill passed Congress unanimously.

Initially Brownlow asked Greeneville which they would prefer: a federal courthouse or the recently approved Branch of the Soldiers Home. Greeneville, home of former President Andrew Johnson, was a larger more populated town than Johnson City and the Congressman felt their voters deserved first choice. They selected the courthouse because of its status and importance at the time.

In 1901, Johnson City was a village of 5,000 inhabitants. The total assessed value of all property in the village was $750,000 Mr. Brownlow's project was being estimated to cost over 2.1million dollars. In the three years it took to build the facility, Johnson City's property value and population doubled. 475 acres of farmland was purchased from four families (Lyle, Miller, Hale, Martin) at a price of $50.00 per acre. the Board of Governors chose the site for its view of the mountains and its access to fresh water. The property spanned an area from Tennessee Street, along the railroad line all the way to the National Guard Armory, a distance in excess of one mile. The site was just over one mile from the Johnson City Limits.

National Soliders Home - Johnson City, Tennessee/ Part 1

I was doing some ancestry research I found out that my Great Great Grandfather served in Co "B" 1st regiment Md. Infantry Volunteers. He died in the Mountain Branch of National Home for "Disabled Soldiers in Johnson City, TN.

I did some searching on the home and this is what I found and wanted to share.

Approved by an Act of Congress on January 28,1901, the Mountain Branch of the National Home for Disables Volunteer Soldiers was created through the work of Tennessee Congressman Walter P. Brownlow (1851-1901). Known locally as Mountain Home, the original site comprised 447 acres and opened in October 1903. Peak enrollement reached over 2,500 Civil War and Spanish-American

War veterans. In 1930, the National Soldiers' Home system became part of the Veterans Administration.

The early efforts to reward this country's war veterans were based on England's policy of giving land grants to the victors. During the first part of the Civil War, it was the concern of women in northern states that led to the first civilian sponsored "homes" for disabled veterans. Men were being discharged by the hundreds to the streets with physical problems that kept them from finding employment. Some were so severe; they later died from complications of their wounds. Such "homes" were created in Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago. These ladies raised funds to operate the "homes" and raised community interest in the plight of the disabled veteran. "With malice toward none; with charity toward all; with the firmness in the right, as God gives us the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." With these few words in the Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln established a benchmark and pointed this coountry in a new direction related to the federal government's responsiblity toward our veterans. His legislative agenda for this second term (1865) included a National Soldiers Home with several branches spread across the United States.

President Lincoln was assassinated before he could put this idea into law but a grateful nation did not forget. The National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers was established by Congress in 1865 with the first Branch built by 1867. Eleven board members, appointed by Congress governed the "Home" and eight original Branches were built (Togus,Maine: Hampton,Virginia; Dayton, Ohio; Marion, Illinois; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Leavenworth, Kansas; West Los Angeles, California; and Danville, Illinois). After these Branches were built, Congress decided that individual states could finance their own Soldier's Homes if they wished but there would be no more Federal funding for new Branches.

Congressman Walter P. Brownlow represented the people of the First District of Tennessee (an early version of Jimmy Quillen). He had already secured federal funds to build bridges and roads in this area as well as the National Fish Hatchery in Erwin and the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery in Greeneville. He was determined to have a branch of the National Soldiers Home built in this District. The Board of Governors mentioned earlier refused to give him an audience reminding Brownlow of the national policy (No New Branches!). He requested five minutes of their time and actually took only three. In those three minutes he reminded the Board of three things: (1) East Tennessee furnished the Union 30,000 volunteers, more than any other state in the South. There were currently 18,250 Union pensioners living in the First District. (2) The Board had already built a Branch in Hampton, Virginia, a state where there were no Union Volunteer soldiers of record and (3) The Congress had recently approved the construction of a million dollar federal prison in Atlanta. Weren't our volunteer Union soldiers deserving of as much as these convicts? The Board took an immediate vote and recommended to Congress that a Branch be built in the First District.

Description of New Jersey Brigade

Atop a wooded knoll overlooking the George Weikert farm, the forty foot "watchtower" of the 1st New Jersey brigade was erected twenty-five years after the battle of Gettysburg. During the fighting on this end of the field, the brigade, consisting of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 15th New Jersey Infantry regiments, remained in reserve, ready to participate in defending the line wherever needed.

The brigade's Veteran's Association purchased the entire Weikert farm to preserve the positions the units held during the battle. Rather than erect individual regimental monuments to each one, the large tower design was chosen to commemorate the services of all. The site selected was a point located in the rear of the center of the brigade's battle line. The illusion of a tower is heightened by the columns on each side which hint at an entranceway. Window-like embrasures on the side and around the top enhances this image. Each course of the tower consists of a single stone seven feet in diameter. On either side of the shaft are bronze medallions honoring two of the unit's commanders: General Philip Kearny, the original organizer of the brigade, and General Alfred T.A. Torbert, its commander duing the battle. The contract for erecting the watchtower also included small, individual markers to note the approximate position of each unit on July 3. These can be found at the base of the little knoll on which the brigade monument stands today.

Location: Sedgwick Avenue

Dedication: June 30,1888

Cost: $5,700

Designer Contractor: New England Monument Co. Bureau Brothers

Material: Gettysburg Granite

Quincy Granite

Hallowell Granite

Standard Bronze

New Jersey Brigade

" A few appropriate remarks" at Gettysburg

Andrew G. Curtin, governor of Pennsylvania, visited Gettysburg immediately after Robert E. Lee had withdrawn his battered Confederate army from the vicinity. He found conditions chaotic. Practically every public building and many private homes had been turned into hospitals. The wreckage of war was strewn over several square miles.

The governor was most shocked at the way in whick some 6,000 dead of both armies were buried in shallow trenches or, in some cases, not buried at all. Before returning to Harrisburg, he commissioned David Wills, a prominent, 32 year old Gettysburg lawyer, to form a committee and buy land for the reburial of the Union dead. On July 24, just three weeks after the battle, Wills submitted a plan, which Curtin approved, for the loyal states to cooperate in the establishment of a fine cemetery.

On August 14, Wills reported to the governor:

The chief executive of 15 of the 17 states have already responded, pledging their states to unite in the movement...I have also at your request selected and purchased the grounds for this cemetery...The grounds embrace about 17 acres on Cemetery Hill, fronting on the Baltimore Turnpike and extending to the Taneytown Road...

Wills paid $2,475.87 for the land. He engaged William Saunders, a prominent landscape artist, to lay out the grounds. And he let a contract to F.W. Biesecker to remove the Union dead and rebury them, at $1.59 per body, in the new "national Soldiers' Cemetery."

With these important details settled, he turned to the dedication ceremony, originally set for October 23. Edward Everett was among the most popular speakers of that time. At 69, he had been president of Harvard University, both U.S. representative and senator from Massachusetts as well as governor of that state, ambassador to Great Britain, unsuccessful candidate for the vice presidency of the United States. He was a natural choice to deliver the dedicatory oration.

Dr. Everett accepted the invitation on condition that the ceremony be postponed to November 19.

Printed invitiations were sent to many public officials-congressmen, diplomats, state officials, and President Abraham Lincoln. No one really expected Lincoln to come. When he accepted, Wills and his committee had no alternative but to suggest that "after the Oration, you, as Chief Executive of the Nation, formally set apart these grounds to their sacred use by a few appropriate remarks. "In a separate letter sent the same day, November 2, Wills invited Lincoln to "stop with me" while in Gettysburg.

Thaddeus Stevens, the Republican floor leader in the House of Representatives and a former Gettysburg resident, declined to attend. When he heard that Lincoln had accepted, he remarked that it was a case of "the dead going to bury the dead." He though Lincoln would lose the presidential election the next year. Salmaon P.Chase, Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, who hoped to succeed Lincoln as President, gave "imperative public duties" as his excuse. Secretary of War Edwin McM. Stanton likewise begged off attending.

Why did Lincoln accept? No one knows for certain, but these are several theories.

First, the cemetery was a pet project of Governor Curtin and here was a chance to please him without offending the opposing Republican faction in Pennsylvania.

Second, the previous year Lincolln had visited the Antietam battlefield in Maryland and a rumor had been spread that he had called on his crony, Ward Hill Lamon, to sing a bawdy song as he toured the scene. The report hurt Lincoln's feelings and, according to the theory, he wanted to demonstrate his respect for the Union dead.

And, he was eager for an opportunity to restate his faith in the rightness of the Union cause and to destroy any belief that he might give in to Copperhead pressure and make peace on the confederacy's terms of absolute independence.

Despite Stevens' scoffing remarks or suspicions of his motives, there can be no doubt that Lincoln took seriously the little speech he was to deliver. His friends realized that he was concerned about speaking from the same platform as an orator of Dr. Everett's experience and polish. And his anxiety wasn't relieved when Everett sent him a newspaper proof of the main oration twelve days before the ceremony.

Dr. Everett wasn't the old windbag some twentieth-century accounts have made him appear. Even in manuscript his speech was a meaningful document. It presented, for the first time, a clear and accurate account of the "Battles of Gettysburg," based on reports of Union commanders. It marshaled a battery of both logical and emotional arguments against making peace with the Confederacy.

Lincoln would have fallen flat had he tried to emulate the master orator. Instead, as we know now, he fashioned a small gem to fit into Everett's large setting of golden oratory.

Just when, where, and how Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address remains as debatable as why. It appears that he prepared part of it in Washington. One phrase,"of the people, by the people,"etc., was reminiscent of an impromptu speech he made on the White House lawn just after the Gettysburg victory. Evidently, however, he did not complete his address until he reached Gettysburg.

As for reaching Gettysburg, Lincoln left the details to Secretary of War Stanton, who arranged for a special train to leave Washington early on Thursday, November 19, and arrive just in time for the ceremony. Lincoln overruled Stanton, syaing that he didn't want "to run a gantlet," and ordered that the train leave at noon on the eighteenth.

Evidence of Lincoln's complete sincerity in wanting to speak at Gettysburg came just before departure time. His youngest son, Tad became ill. The Lincolns were perhaps unduly anxious about him. their son Willie had died the previous year. Still, Lincoln didn't back out. And he didn't let his concern becloud his sense of humor.

Stanton sent Provost Marshall Gen.James B. Fry to be Lincoln's military escort, but when that officer arrived at the White House, the President wasn't ready. When Lincoln finally appeared, Fry urged him to hurry... which reminded the President of the story of a man about to be hanged. On his way to the gallows, the man observed people rushing to get a good view of the execution and shouted to them, "Boys, you needn't be in such a hurry; there won't be any fun till I get there."

At the Baltimore and Ohio station, Lincoln found that the rear third of the last car of the four-car train had been reserved for him. At Baltimore. the train was transferred to the Northern Central Railway. A baggage care was added to serve as a dining room for the President and his entourage, which inclued a number of Washington officials, diplomats, and others. Again at Hanover Junction, Pennsylvania, the car was shifted to the Hanover Junction and Gettysburg line. Along the way, people gatered to see the President. One little girl who brought him a bouquet got a presidential kiss and the compliment that she was a "sweet little rosebud herself."

The train arrived in Gettysburg about dusk and a carriage was waiting to take Lincoln to the home of David Wills, which faced "The Diamond," or public square. There he was given a bedroom on the second floor. Secretary of State William H. Seward was lodged next door at the home of Robert G. Harper, owner of The Adams Sentinel.After eating supper and conversing with Wills and the other guests, Lincoln withdrew to his bedroom to work on his "little speech." It turned out this wasn't easy to do.

Gettysburg was in a gala mood, or at least the several thousands of visitors were. Bands palyed in the streets. Crowds tramped up and down, shouting and calling upon the various dignitaries to make speeches. One group halted below Lincoln's window and he stuck his head out to acknowledge their cries. They wanted a speech but he was too wrapped up in what he would say on the morrow to make one that night. So he made a few off-the-cuff remarks about how it was better to say nothing if you had nothing to say and the crowd went off grumbling next door, where Seward obliged them with a longer speech.

Lincoln worked on his speech for approximately an hour. About 10p.m., he took the manuscript next door to show Seward. He and his cabinet member talked for more than half an hour. By the time Lincoln was ready for bed, evidently he had his "few appropriate remarks" ready for delivery the next day.  That was one worry off his mind. Another was concern for his son's health, and that was relieved by a telegram from Secretary of War Stanton saying, "On Inquiry, Mrs. Lincoln informs me that your son is better this evening."

And so Abraham Lincoln turned in at the home of David Wills unaware that the words he would utter the next day would become immortal.

The next morning, after breakfast, Lincoln again retired to his room to go over his speech. Arrangements called for a procession to leave the square at 10 a.m. and for the ceremony to begin as soon as the dignitaries reached the cemetery. It was a mild autumn day.

Dressed in his familiar stovepipe hat, black suit, and white gloves, the President went out and found a horse saddled and waiting for him. It was a nice enough steed but of only average size according to most accounts. But Lincoln, six feet four wearing a high silk hat, made the horse look more like a pony. The spectacle made some onlookers titter as Lincoln mounted the horse and waited. Evidently parades in 1863 were like parades in 1963 never on time. This one was an hour late in beginning. While he waited astride the horse, Lincoln chatted and shook hands with the people who crowded about.

At last the parade started. Out Baltimore Street it moved to the Emmitsburg Road (now Highway 15) and thence to the Taneytown Road up Cemetery Hill-a distance of about three-quarters of a mile. Minute guns posted along the way signaled the President's approach. From the spectators cam cries of "Hurrah for Old Abe" and "We aare coming, Father Abraham," all of which amused Lincoln.

The procession took 15 minutes. By this time, about 11:15a.m., most of the estimated 15,000 spectotors had already crowded about the speaker's platform, which stood in the center of the semicircle of grave plots.

Again Lincoln had to wait. Dr. Everett had wanted to make a last minute check of the battlefield terrain with Prof. Michael Jacobs of Pennsylvania College and it was nearly noon before he arrived and the ceremony could begin with a prayer by the Rev. Thomas H. Stockton, chaplain of the U.S. Senate, the text of which later filled a column of type in the Adams Sentinel. Then the band played Luther's "Old Hundredth" hymn and Benjamin B. French, custodian of public buildings in Washington, introduced Dr. Everett.

Apparently Dr. Everett used neither notes nor manuscript during the next two hours. He harkened back first to Greek history and then to more recent European history. He reclled the events of July 1 to 4 at Gettysburg.

He ripped into the arguments for secession and absolute states' rights. He appealed to anti-Confederate sentiment in the South and ended his oration with praise for the dead of Gettysburg.

A hymn written by the same Benjamin French who had introduced Everett was then sung by the Baltimore Glee Club. Then Col. Ward Hill Lamon, marshal of the day, and a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, presented the President.

Memories of men are unreliable instruments. To this day-or especially in this day-it cannot be said for certain whether Lincoln read his speech verbatim, glanced occasionally at notes or whether he followed Everett's example and repeated it from memory.

We do not know whether his voice boomed out so that every one of the 15,000 heard him or whether they had to strain to hear. The Associated Press story noted applause several times and some present said later that the applause was frequent and thunderous. But others said the response was an awed hush. And still others said the speech made no impact at all.

There were about 270 words in the speech. It took Lincoln perhaps two minutes to say them.

A dirge was sung, the benediction pronounced, and history had been made without those present being aware of it. And that included Abraham Lincoln, who turned to his friend Lamon and commented that "the thing won't scour, meaning his speech had been a flop.

To where the damned have howled away their hearts, And where the blessed dance...

There are worlds, access to which we are no longer allowed. Worlds just inches from us, as we stand in our own world. Invisible, they contain not only the present, but the past, and some say, the future as well. Other generations of other ages apparently have been able to see into them: ancient shamans: some mystics in our age have; suffering saints, because of their strict aestheticism, have God's permission to go there; sometimes poets, who often suffer as much as saints, can peer into them as well. But we, convinced by those in our world that other worlds do not exist, have then convinced ourselves otherwise. And prison-pent we suffer the most exquisite torture of wondering...... Page 10 of Mr. Mark Nesbitt's book



Rudyard Kipling

We have done with Hope and Honor,

We are lost to Love and Truth,

We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,

And the measure of our torment

Is the measure of our youth.

God help us, for we knew the worst too young!

Louisiana State Memorial

Location: West Confederate Avenue

Dedicated: June 11,1971

Cost:$100,000

Sculptor: Donald DeLue

Contractor: Cast in Italy

Material: Polished Green Granite Bronze

The erection of the Louisiana State Memorial, one of the more recent on the field, culminated a movement begun by the Louisiana Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1966. One of the three southern state monuments designed and sculpted by Donald DeLue, this one consists of a bronze statue of two figures. The first, a nine-foot long, reclining artilleryman represents a member of the Washington Artillery of New Orleans. Fallen, perhaps mortally wounded, a comrade covered his chest with a Confederate battle flag which the dying man has clutched to his heart. The second figure, a ten -foot tall female represents the "Spirit of the Confederacy" soaring over her dead soilders. A dove of peace is nestled in the reeds beneath the women.

In her right hand held aloft is the flaming cannonball symbolic of ordnance and artillery. This perhaps lends greater credence to a variant exlanation of the soaring figure. It has often been said that it represents St. Barbara, the patron-saint of artillerymen. She was a woman who lived in Asia Minor about 300 A.D., the daughter of a very wealthy man. Her conversion to Christianity infuriated her father who promptly took her before the province's prefect for judgement. There she was condemned to death by beheading, her own father carrying out the sentence. As he returned home after the execution, the legend states that he was struck by a lightning bolt which consumed his body. Because of the fate befalling her executioner, Barbara came to be regarded as the patron to be called upon to protect one in a storm. Gunpowder's invention, and the frequent accidental explosions that resulted from its use led to St. Barbara gaining the additional role as the artilleryman's patron.

This monument envokes the emotion of sacrifice, peace and protection at least that is how it speaks to me.

I believe you have to put this one on your list of must see monuments.

Your names are inscribed on fames immortal scroll

Location: South Confederate Avenue

Dedicated: November 12,1933

Cost: $12,000

Sculptor: Joseph W. Urner

Alabama was the third southern state to erect a state memorial on the field at Gettysburg. Inspired by the Alabama Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, funds were approved out of state revenues in 1927.

The memorial was designed to honor the gallantry and sacrifice of Alabama soldiers who served here. General Evander Law's Alabama brigade, positioned on the extreme right of the Army of Northern Virginia, was centered about where the monument now stands.

The central figure of the sculpture represents the spirt of Alabama. The two soldiers on either side symbolize the "Spirt" and the "Determination" of all Alabama soldiers. On the left, the wounded figure is being comforted by the female figure at the same time she urges the other soldier on. To indicate the continuance of the struggle, an ammunition pouch is being passed on to the soldier continuing the fight. The monument was dedicated seventy years after the battle.

All information obtained comes from Gettysburg: Stories of Men and Monuments As Told By Battlefield Guides By Frederick W. Hawthorne - I strongly recommend this book I purchased it in a gift shop in Gettysburg sometime ago, because I was looking for a monument that I couldn't locate, it was either the History Recording or the Irish Brigade Monument, but it's nice to know that if I am looking for a certain monument and or the meaning of some of the symbolism of the monument I can get that from this book. I still like to just drive around and uncover things in my own way from time to time but this book has really helped me understand the monuments and thats why I feel compelled to use the descriptions for my pictures that I have taken of the monuments.