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."