Oddities of the War

[thea_447]

Admonished by a preacher to the effect that Satan was the true enemy, not the Rebels, a wounded Union soldier replied, "Satan is a pretty bad fellow, but he can't give us worse than we got at Chickamauga."

At Gettysburg over a third of the Army of the Potomac was composed of Pennsylvania men, including their commander, Maj. Gen. George Meade, who, as Lincoln had predicted, fought well "for his own dung heap."

[thea_447]

When after the battle of Chantilly (1 Sept. 1862), the body of a Union General was brought to him, Stonewall Jackson took one look at the dead man's face, and lifting his hat, said, "My God, boys, you know who you have killed? You have shot the most gallant officer in the United States Army. This is Phil Kearney, who lost his arm in the Mexican War."

The 5,597 Union dead in the battle of the Wilderness (5-7 May 1864) exceeded the combined American battle deaths of both the War of 1812 (2,260) and the Mexican War (1,733), which together lasted nearly five years.

[thea_447]

Corruption aside, one reason that Union authorities tolerated an extraordinary amount of covert commerce with the Confederacy was that many of the smugglers were Federal intelligence agents.

Confederate Lt. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart wore a beard because he had a "short and retiring" chin described by some as "girlish" which at West Point had earned him the nickname "Beauty".

[thea_447]

Trying to stem the rout after the collapse of Confederate Gen. John B. Hood's attack at Ezra Church, near Atlanta, on 28 July 1864, an officer shouted, "What are you running for?" to which one soldier replied, "Bekase I kaint fly!"

Statistically, an average of one man was killed or mortally wounder for every 4.8 men who suffered wounds less than mortal during the war.

During the War the Union Army issued about 4 million muskets, rifles, carbines, and the like, but only 7,892 pieces of artillery.

[thea_447]

One out of nine men in the Union armies died in the service, but only one in 56 died of wounds and one in 65 was killed in action.

The standard gunpowder formula used by both sides during the War was 76 percent nitre, 14 percent willow or poplar charcoal, and 10 percent sulphur, which burns somewhat more rapidly, and with somewhat more smoke and slightly less power than the optimal formula, 74.64 percent nitre, 13.51 percent charcoal, and 11.85 percent sulphur.

[thea_447]

While brevet promotions to brigadier general were fairly common at the end of the War,that award to Col. William M. Graham on 13 March, 1865 must surely have been the most unusual, since he had died at the head of the old 11th Infantry during the battle of Molino del Rey in Mexico on 8 Sept. 1847.

Only one of the 25 highest ranking Confederate generals had not received the benefits of a higher education, Nathan Bedford Forrest.

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.

[thea_447]

The flag which Union Maj. Gen. Robert Anderson hoisted over newly recaptured Fort Sumter on 14 April 1865 was that which he had been forced to lower on 14 April 1861.

An estimated 36,000 people were subject to various war-time abridgments of their civil rights in the North during the war, ranging from imprisonment without trial to less serious matters.

There were officially 267 executions carried out by the Union Army during the war,plus an unknown number of unofficial ones.

[thea_447]

Although bureaucracies are noted for such things as "procedural errors" and "administrative oversights", it is nevertheless still remarkable that the famed U.S.S. Monitor, which went down in Force 7 winds off Cape Hatteras on 31 Dec. 1862, was not officially declared "out of commission" by the U.S. Navy until nearly 91 years later, on 30 Sept. 1951.

According to legend, when, not long after the war, a black man entered a Virginia church and knelt at the rail to receive communion, the first member of the all-white congregation to join him was Robert E. Lee.

[virginiayankee]

Henry Morton Stanley who said the famous quote, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume," served in both Confederate and Union forces. He began the war as a Confederate in the 6th Arkansas Infantry. He was captured at the battle of Shiloh in 1862 and sent to Camp Douglas in Chicago Illinois. He secured his release from prison by switching his allegiance to the Union. He served as a Union artilleryman for less than a month and received a medical discharge. He went back to his native Wales but soon returned to the North in 1863. In 1864 he joined the Union Navy as a seaman. During his naval service he participated in the attack on Fort Fisher in January 1865.

[traveller]

William Cain was a drillmaster in the 25th N.C. He was from Hillsborough Military Academy and was only 13 years old.

Traveller