@Ken Anderson Colt issued among it's Commemorative Revolvers offerings a Nathan Bedford Forrest revolver, gold plated, beautiful gun. I traded it and several other commems to a dealer in 1981 who had an arm I simply HAD to have: Ingram MAC-10. Frank
The Civil War was a sad time. The only thing I liked about it was a bunch of good stories came afterwardsand our migration west. I don'd think most Americans see waras a sad time. We seem to jump into one every chance we get. Trouble is,we don't seem to know how to get out of one.
Slightly off topic but a point.... But The claim that the troops in the civil war could only kill the enemy(both sides) because once in a hundred times because being poor shots brings to mind the saying" Could not hit a barn door at ten feet" But forty years before when you finaly got the British out in 1815 it was the sharpshooters who won the day. They said that after the battle was over, half the British dead troops stood up and surrended. Most of the dead ones had a musket ball just below their eye. http://wkms.org/post/remarkable-kentuckians-sharpshooter-broke-british-new-orleans
Although Florida joined the Confederate States of America at the start of the Civil War, representing a third of the original seven states to secede from the Union, only 15,000 Floridian troops participated in the war, due to its low population. The state contributed more as a supplier of goods since its long coastline was difficult for Union troops to monitor, and the Confederacy controlled the interior. At the start of the war, the Confederates seized most of the state’s forts, although the Union retained control of the main Florida seaports. Throughout the war, Union troops held Forts Jefferson, Pickens, and Zachary Taylor. Only one major conflict took place in Florida, that being the Battle of Olustee in 1864. Deserters from both sides took refuge in Florida, as a reduction in Southern morale led several Florida counties to become havens for Florida deserters. In early 1862, the Confederate government pulled General Braxton Bragg’s small army from Pensacola, after a series of Southern defeats in Tennessee and New Orleans, sending them to the Western Theater for the rest of the war. The only Confederate forces remaining in Florida were independent companies, some infantry battalions, and the 2nd Florida Cavalry. When Union control was reestablished in May 1865, Florida Governor John Milton shot himself.
Ken, I'm impressed and filled with admiration of your Civil War knowledge. General Lee: "General Pickett...you may reform your Division." General Pickett: "General, I have no Division!" From the film "Gettysburg". Hal
Some of it's knowledge because I have read a whole lot of books, and viewed documentaries about the Civil War, since that war has always interested me. But another part of it has to do with the fact that I have purchased a bunch of these books, have them in my library, and refer to them.
A House Divided Four of Abraham Lincoln's brothers-in-law wore Confederate uniforms, and one of them (David P. Todd) was charged with brutality to Union prisoners in Richmond. Mary Lincoln's brother, Dr. George R.C. Todd, a Confederate surgeon, referred to Abraham Lincoln as "one of the greatest scoundrels unhung." Ben Hardin Helm, a Confederate general killed at Chickamauga, was married to one of Mary Lincoln's sisters. He had rejected a commission offered by President Lincoln to serve in the Union army. Mary's other two sisters were also married to Confederate officers. Senate members of the Committee on the Conduct of the War considered charges of treason against Mary Lincoln, prompting President Lincoln to make a personal appearance in front of the committee to deny that any member of his family had conspired with the enemy. Several men fought on both sides during the Civil War. Captain Frank C. Armstrong of the 2nd US Cavalry, fought for the Union at the Battle of First Manassas (Bull Run), then resigned his commission the following month, and accepted a commission as a brigadier general in the Confederate Army. Lieutenant Manning M. Kimmel also fought for the Union with the 2nd Cavalry during the first major battle of the war, then resigned, and accepted a commission as Assistant Adjutant General to Confederate General Earl Van Dorn. Of course, many families were split, particularly in the border areas. Three of Henry Clay's grandsons fought for the Union, and four fought for the Confederacy. Senator George B. Crittenden of Kentucky had two sons who became major generals, one for the Union, one for the Confederacy. A son of James W. Ripley, the Union Chief of Ordnance, was Confederate General Roswell Ripley. After the Battle of Bull Run, Frederick Hubbard of the Confederate Washington Artillery saw his brother for the first time in seven years. Henry Hubbard, who fought with the 1st Minnesota Infantry, was in the hospital bed next to him. Both had been wounded. Colonel John S. Mosby, a Confederate Ranger, slipped into Alexandria and captured Union Colonel D.H. Dulaney, His guide was French Dulaney, the victim's son. Confederate General Jeb Stuart's chief of staff, Major H.B. McClellan, had four brothers in blue, and a first cousin, Union General George B. McClellan, who was Commander of the Army of the Potomac. Union General Philip St. George Cooke had three daughters who married generals, one with the Union, two with the Confederacy. One of the latter was Mrs. Jeb Stuart. Cooke's son, John, was a Confederate general, and he refused to speak to his father for several years after the war. When Jeb Stuart made the ride that he became famous for, around a large Union army, the army that he had avoided was under the command of his father-in-law. The war began with an artillery duel between Confederates ashore at Charleston, North Carolina, and a garrison of Union troops at Fort Sumter, in the harbor. The Union commander of Fort Sumter was Major Robert Anderson, whose father-in-law was governor of Georgia. Anderson's artillery instructor at West Point had been General P.G.T. Beauregard, who directed the firing on Fort Sumter. Confederate General Stonewall Jackson's sister, Laura, was a Union nurse who once sent a message saying that she could "take care of wounded Federals as fast as brother Thomas could wound them." Commodore Franklin Buchanan was head of the US Naval Academy when the war began. He went South to command the Confederate ironclad, Virginia. One of Buchanan's battle victims was the USS Congress, on which his brother was an officer. When the Confederates captured Galveston, Texas, shelling and seizing the USS Harriet Lane, Confederate Major A.M. Lea went aboard the vessel with a boarding party to find his son, a Union lieutenant, dying from his wounds. Confederate Captain John I. Inglis led his Florida company on a valiant charge, overrunning Federal guns, and accepting the surrender of their commander, his brother.
Famous onlookers On a Sunday in April 1862, Confederate infantrymen stormed the last center of Union resistance on the first day of the Battle of Shiloh. Among them, were troops from Arkansas. In the ranks of the 6th Arkansas was a 21-year-old Confederate private by the name of Henry M. Stanley. He had come up from Cypress Bend with the Dixie Greys, and would one day lead an African expedition ending in the famous greeting, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume." A blockade runner slipped from the Cape Fear River on the North Carolina coast near the end of 1863, bound for England. The ship bore a passenger, a war-weary woman by the name of Mrs. Anna McNeill Whistler, who was off to visit her son, an artist. She received a warm welcome in London, part of which endures today in the painting known as "Whistler's Mother." In March 1862, Union General Samuel R. Curtis sent ten scouts into Southern lines, all dressed as Confederate soldiers. They passed freely among the Southerners, who were moving toward a battle position that became known as Pea Ridge and/or Elkhorn Tavern. The captain of this group of scouts was James Butler Hickock, who later became known as "Wild Bill." A 17-year-old musician of Company K, 42nd North Carolina Regiment, went through illness, prison guard duty, the battles of Petersburg and Cold Harbor, and the fall of Fort Fisher before his capture by the Union in March 1865. He emerged from prison in June by taking a loyalty oath to the Union, and began a long walk home to the Carolina hills. Union officials couldn't spell Tom Dula's name, so they rendered it "Dooley," so Tom signed the loyalty oath both ways, as a compromise. When he began his long trek home, it is unlikely that he knew what was yet to befall him - his murder of his girlfriend, followed by his conviction and execution. He is known from the song that was written for him, "Hang down your head, Tom Dooley." Throughout history there have been many songs Written about the eternal triangle This next one tells the story of a Mr. Grayson, A beautiful woman, and a condemned man named Tom Dooley When the sun rises tomorrow, Tom Dooley must hang Hang down your head, Tom Dooley Hang down your head and cry Hang down your head, Tom Dooley Poor boy, you're bound to die I met her on the mountain, there I took her life Met her on the mountain, stabbed her with my knife Hang down your head, Tom Dooley Hang down your head and cry (ah-uh-eye) Hang down your head, Tom Dooley Poor boy, you're bound to die This time tomorrow reckon where I'll be Hadn't-a been for Grayson, I'd-a been in Tennessee (well now, boy) Hang down (your head) your head (Dooley) and cry Hang down your head and cry (ah poor boy, ah well-ah) Hang down (your head) your head (Dooley) and cry Poor boy, you're bound to die (ah well now boy) Hang down (your head) your head (Dooley) and cry Hang down your head and cry (ah poor boy, ah well-ah) Hang down (your head) your head (Dooley) and cry Poor boy, you're bound to die This time tomorrow reckon where I'll be Down in some lonesome valley hangin' from a white oak tree Hang down your head, Tom Dooley Hang down your head and cry (ah-uh-eye) Hang down your head, Tom Dooley Poor boy, you're bound to die (ah well now boy) Hang down your head, Tom Dooley Hang down your head and cry (poor boy ah well uh) Hang down your head, Tom Dooley Poor boy, you're bound to die Poor boy, you're bound to die Poor boy, you're bound to die Poor boy, you're bound to die
This fact makes me want to cry every time I think about it. It made me want to cry the night you related it to me, and that hasn't changed a bit!
I have heard the song many times but didn't realize it was based on a real person. "Anne Foster Melton, Laura's cousin, had been Dula's lover from the time he was twelve and until he left for the Civil War– even after Anne married an older man named James Melton. When Dula returned, he became a lover again to both Anne, then Laura, then their cousin Pauline Foster. It was Pauline's comments that led to the discovery of Foster's body and accusations against both Tom and Anne. Anne was subsequently acquitted in a separate trial, based on Dula's word that she had nothing to do with the killing.[6]Dula's enigmatic statement on the gallows that he had not harmed Foster but still deserved his punishment led to press speculation that Melton was the actual killer and that Dula simply covered for her. (Melton, who had once expressed jealousy of Dula's purported plans to marry Foster, died either in a carting accident or by going insane a few years after the homicide, depending on the version."
It is written that in 1862, a large number of chickens arrived to a Confederate camp by train. While they were being readied to be the main course at dinner, one small black hen escaped, hiding in a tent, which is where she and laid an egg under one of the cots. General Lee found her, and for the next few years, she was the General's pet. Her name was Nellie, and she traveled under his coat most of the time and laid an egg a day. Near the end of the war, General Lee had several people over for dinner, according to the memoirs of William Mack Lee (sometimes known as Bryan), Lee's butler and cook. He had nothing he could prepare for that dinner. He could serve flannel cakes, but that wouldn't actually do for generals. So he tracked Nellie down and they had her for dinner.