Oddities of the War

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On their deaths Lt. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson--who crossed the river on May 10, 1863--and Gen. Robert E. Lee--who followed on October 12, 1870--must both have immediately gone into action in Valhalla, for among the former's last words were apparently, "Order A.P.Hill to prepare for action," while the latter's included, "Tell A.P.Hill he must come up."--Hill himself had been killed in action April 2, 1865.


The last surviving war general was Union Brig. Gen. Adalbert Ames, who "crossed the river" in 1933 at the age of 97 years, five months, and 14 days.

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William Mack Lee, a former slave who was Robert E. Lee's personal body servant throughout the war, was born in 1838 and died in the early 1930's, by which time he had become a fixture at Confederate reunions.

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Among the dead at Shiloh the South lost Hugh McVey, an Irishman over seventy years old, a veteran of Waterloo who had enlisted in Company D, 4th Kentucky, CSA.
An eleven year old bugler in the same battle turned the tide for the Orphan Brigade when its flag fell and an old cannon was lost. "Little Oirish" took the banner to the captured gun, mounted it, and screaming and waving the flag, mounted a charge.

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During the war the United States spent approximately $124 million on horses.


At one point during the Carolina campaign Union Maj. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick was forced to flee in his drawers when his headquarters was surprised by some of Wade Hampton's cavalry while he was "entertaining" a sympathetic Southern belle.

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On March 26, 1865, Lincoln --who had just received word that the Confederacy had authorized the recruitment of black troops--was reviewing elements of the "Army of the James" when a black division marched by "well-aligned and keeping good step to the music," whereupon he remarked, "I wonder how Jeff Davis would like to have such colored troops in his army?"

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By the end of the war the town of Galena, Illinois, with but 15,000 inhabitants, had contributed 14 generals and field officers to the Union cause, including U.S. Grant.


Confederate Brig. Gen. James Dearing was mostly wounded in an exchange of pistol shots with a Union officer whom he slew on April 6, 1865, during the retreat to Appomattox, but lingered on long enough to be paroled by his former West Point classmate, Union Brig. Gen. Ranald S. MacKenzie, shortly thereafter becoming the last Confederate general to die in the war, succumbing on April 23rd.

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The record for number of generals in one family--including first cousins--is tied between the Union's "Fighting McCooks" of Ohio and the Confederacy's Lees of Virginia, with four each, though one might also include the three Ewing brothers of Ohio, whose foster brother and brother-in-law William T. Sherman was also a general.


In an effort to ensure a adequate food supply, during the war six Confederate states--Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas--enacted legislation prohibiting the distribution of grain into alcohol.

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In the last two years of the war about 30 percent of Union manpower was engaged in guarding lines of communication and supply from raids by Confederate cavalry and guerillas.


Abraham Lincoln served as president of the United States for 1,503 days.


Rural areas and small towns provided 78 percent of the generals in the war, a figure roughly proportional to that for the troops.

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The last men to join the Confederacy were eight seamen who signed on aboard the raider C.S.S. Shenandoah on June 28, 1865, five days after the last Confederate general had laid down his arms.


Though figures are difficult to reconcile and compare, about 12 percent of the white population of the Union served in the war, compared with roughly 17 percent of the white population of the Confederacy; about 6 percent of the black population of the nation served in arms, and many more as laborers on both sides.

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The number of civilian employees of the Federal government rose during the war from about 40,000 to about 105,000, or over 260 percent.


Mrs. Polly Ray of North Carolina lost seven sons in the Confederate Army during the war.


Fewer than 1,000 of the 245,000 wounds treated in Union hospitals were inflicted by bayonets, less than .4 percent.