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Posted on 05/22/2005 1:03:03 AM PDT by snippy_about_it
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
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 The War Between the States • More than three million men fought in the war. • Two percent of the population—more than 620,000—died in it. • In two days at Shiloh on the banks of the Tennessee River, more Americans fell than in all previous American wars combined. • During the Battle of Antietam, 12,401 Union men were killed, missing or wounded; double the casualties of D-Day, 82 years later. With a total of 23,000 casualties on both sides, it was the bloodiest single day of the Civil War. • At Cold Harbor, Va., 7,000 Americans fell in 20 minutes. • Senator John J. Crittendon of Kentucky had two sons who became major generals during the Civil War: one for the North, one for the South. • Ulysses S. Grant was not fond of ceremonies or military music. He said he could only recognize two tunes. "One was Yankee Doodle," he grumbled. "The other one wasn’t." • Missouri sent 39 regiments to fight in the siege of Vicksburg: 17 to the Confederacy and 22 to the Union. • During the Battle of Antietam, Clara Barton tended the wounded so close to the fighting that a bullet went through her sleeve and killed a man she was treating. • At the start of the war, the value of all manufactured goods produced in all the Confederate states added up to less than one-fourth of those produced in New York State alone. • In March 1862, European powers watched in worried fascination as the Monitor and Merrimack battled off Hampton Roads, Va. From then on, after these ironclads opened fire, every other navy on earth was obsolete. • In 1862, the U.S. Congress authorized the first paper currency, called "greenbacks." • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., future chief Justice, was wounded three times during the Civil War: in the chest at Ball’s Bluff, in the back at Antietam and in the heel at Chancellorsville. • Confederate Private Henry Stanley fought for the Sixth Arkansas, and was captured at Shiloh, but survived to go to Africa to find Dr. Livingston. • George Pickett’s doomed infantry charge at Gettysburg was the first time he took his division into combat. • On July 4, 1863, after 48 days of siege, Confederate General John C. Pemberton surrendered the city of Vicksburg to the Union’s General, Ulysses S. Grant. The Fourth of July was not be celebrated in Vicksburg for another 81 years. • Disease was the chief killer during the war, taking two men for every one who died of battle wounds. • North and South, potential recruits were offered awards, or "bounties," for enlisting, as much as $677 in New York. Bounty jumping soon became a profession, as men signed up, then deserted, to enlist again elsewhere. One man repeated the process 32 times before being caught. • African Americans constituted less than one percent of the northern population, yet by the war’s end made up ten percent of the Union Army. A total of 180,000 black men, more than 85% of those eligible, enlisted. • In November 1863, President Lincoln was invited to offer a "few appropriate remarks" at the opening of a new Union cemetery at Gettysburg. The main speaker, a celebrated orator from Massachusetts, spoke for nearly two hours. Lincoln offered just 269 words in his Gettysburg Address. • Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest had 30 horses shot from under him and personally killed 31 men in hand-to-hand combat. "I was a horse ahead at the end," he said. • The words "In God We Trust" first appeared on a U.S. coin in 1864. • In 1864, Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General, a rank previously held by General George Washington, and led the 533,000 men of the Union Army, the largest in the world. Three years later, he was made President of the United States. • Andersonville Prison in southwest Georgia held 33,000 prisoners in 1864. It was the fifth largest city in the Confederacy. •By the end of the war, Unionists from every state except South Carolina had sent regiments to fight for the North. • On November 9, 1863, President Lincoln attended a theater in Washington, D.C., to see "The Marble Heart." An accomplished actor, John Wilkes Booth, was in the cast. • On March 4, 1865, Lincoln was inaugurated for a second term. Yards away in the crowd was John Wilkes Booth with a pistol in his pocket. His vantage point on the balcony, he said later, offered him "an excellent chance to kill the President, if I had wished." • On May 13, 1865, a month after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Private John J. Williams of the 34th Indiana became the last man killed in the Civil War, in a battle at Palmito Ranch, Texas. The final skirmish was a Confederate victory. • Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first black man ever elected to the U.S. Senate. He filled the seat last held by Jefferson Davis. Educational Sources; www.pbs.org/civilwar/war/facts.html      |
I see your point about imagination being "unavoidably delicious". Clearly nobody can subscribe to a monolithic scheme of causation. When asked outright, "who won the war", Shelby Foote's response, "I can tell you who lost." He further stated that it was the robber barons of late in the century who "won". What was gained that could not have been gained without a war. Truly on the face of it the North won. But at what price? I digress.
I guess I asked the question regarding a "Forrest Presidency" because while Forrest might have been brilliant in allocating resources and strategies against a preponderance in men and economic industry of the North, the South never had the transportation system that could evolve a command or logistical system adequate to do the job.
Politically, the South was so distracted unto desperation by internal strife that there was never any wisdom from a congress or even public virtue among the people.
I begin to understand why Lee saw that the full and total annihilation of the Army of the Potomac could "possibly" bring a negotiation for peace and then perhaps a more willing Europe could have intervened.
I think we all would agree that a N.B. Forrest never relied on "laws of successful" war. He never worked things out by rule. I have yet to read anywhere (so please correct me if I'm wrong) his quoting a Napoleon or Frederick. While others worked out problems of an ideal character on a blackboard, Forrest "split in two and charged both ways". It helps when you're a natural genius. He was born to be a soldier.
Uhhh . . . mam'. . . you're talkin to a Texan and a LSU boy. I'm quite familiar with the "unforgiving" Southern Summers.
But THANKS anyway MOM! ;^)
I haven't forgotten about your Sis, so I'll be talking to you later about that.
oooh. I like it. I should make it a thread.
LOL. Thanks for checking in. We were starting to wonder. Thought you must be getting loads of overtime. I guess you are, in a way. Enjoy the little one, sounds like fun!
Amen.
Feel free!
Yes, but you're also a man. I find those types often need 'reminding'. ;-)
My great-great-grandfather "Preacher" Samuel did not serve in the Civil War but his two brothers John Nelson and Belteshazzar did, the latter being killed on the North Anna River in Virginia May 25, 1864. Belteshazzar was named after his grandfather and great grandfather, the latter my great to the fifth for whom the DAR erected this monument:
I wouldn't put it on top of your ancestor's monument. I'd just throw it to the coyotes.
BTTT!!!!!!
Inferno recruiter bump!
"I wouldn't put it (Michael Moore's heart) on top of your ancestor's monument. I'd just throw it to the coyotes"
Ditto! Putting it on the monument would desecrate an honorable man's memorial.
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