Favorite battle

I'm supposing the subject is still favorite battles and what sparked your interest in the civil war. My uncle gave us a stack of magazines and a few copies of Civil War Illustrated were included. This was in the early 60s. The centennial was also occuring at this time. I've been fascinated by the ACW ever since. But the big battlefields seemed so far away. When I did have the opportunity to visit some of the actual battlefields ,I felt like a kid in a candy store. The time I walked the bloody lane at Antietam the hair on the back of my neck stood up like when I first visited the Alamo. Sacred Ground!
 
I’m curious to hear what your favorite battles to study are? I’d have to say the two I’m most interested in are Gettyburg and Antietam.


1. 2d Manassas, to me, the best example of the use of mobility to confuse, attack and defeat a bigger army.

2. Gettysburg, it really was IMO, the high water mark of the confederacy's chance of winning their for secession.

3. Missionary Ridge at the siege of Chattanooga. I like stories of soldiers taking a battle in their own hands, from their bumbling generals and winning a great victory.
 
I was born around the corner from "The White House of the Confederacy, raised on the Seven Pines/ Fair Oaks Battlefield and was 8 when the Civil War Centennial kicked off. I never had a chance.
Favorite battle? probably Chancellorsville. I've wargamed that battle and there is simply no way to hold the river but Lee did.
 
Has anyone here ever met someone who met a civil war vet? I figure it’s possible because there’s still children alive of veterans even though they were born when their fathers were quite old.
Yes. My father would have known lots of them. He was born in 1906 and there were many vets living around here into 1920s and a few later than that. My father's father died eight years before I was born, but he actually remembered incidents from the Civil War. He was young, but old enough to have a clear memory of some incidents. He was born in 1857. His older brother is the young man in my avatar.
 
I’m curious to hear what your favorite battles to study are? I’d have to say the two I’m most interested in are Gettyburg and Antietam.

"Favorite" probably isn't the right word, but First Bull Run and Fair Oaks have always intrigued me. I first became interested in the Civil War in graduate school. Before that, none of my history teachers ever said anything abut the war per se. They just jumped from the reasons for the war to Reconstruction. I was once a teaching assistant for a college professor who told me he didn't think it important enough to spend a lot of time on. Yikes!
 
If I had to pick a favorite it would be Antietam. I also study Gettysburg, especially the first day. Being from eastern Ohio, I also look into the West Virginia battles of Rich Mountain, Cheat Mountain, Carnifex Ferry, and Droop Mountain.
Some day, I would like to go west to see Prairie Grove, Pea Ridge, and Wilson's Creek so I do read about them also.
 
Yes. My father would have known lots of them. He was born in 1906 and there were many vets living around here into 1920s and a few later than that. My father's father died eight years before I was born, but he actually remembered incidents from the Civil War. He was young, but old enough to have a clear memory of some incidents. He was born in 1857. His older brother is the young man in my avatar.
That’s really cool, did he happen to past any stories onto you?
 
Has anyone here ever met someone who met a civil war vet?

My great-grandmother met U. S. Grant when he was campaigning for re-election in 1872. She was a little girl at the time, but she always remembered him and would talk about it in her old age. (She lived to be ninety-nine.)
 
Have to give the cavalry on both sides some kudos. The Battle of Brandy Station.

The rearguard actions by Stuart after Gettysburg and Forrest after Nashville. I believe an effective rearguard action was probably the most difficult type of cavalry action to perform well. The cavalry force is covering a beaten army that's demoralized and holding off a victorious army that's smelling blood.
 
That’s really cool, did he happen to past any stories onto you?
Yes. My father told me a story his own father passed down to him. During the Civil War, my paternal grandfather, who might have been about six or seven years old at the time, remembered mounted men coming onto the farm. The officer in charge handed the reins of his horse to my grandfather and then went up to the house to speak to my great grandfather. I believe he was asking permission to bivouak in a pasture. I am not sure where I got that last bit of the story, but that's what sticks in my mind.

Now, I can't tell you who these soldiers were, because I don't know the year. It was Howard County, Missouri. It is about five miles east of the town of Fayette.

The soldiers might have been 9th MSM, but that is doubtful, because those guys had a garrison in Fayette and they would have just ridden on into town. Early in the war, they might have been Col. Joseph Porter's southern recruits. It seems like asking permission would be a polite, gentlemanly, southern sort of thing to do.

But, do you see that young man in my avatar? He was regular Union cavalry--enlisted in Merrill's Horse in August of '62. He was my grandfather's much older brother. His big cavalry unit was chasing Porter all over north central Missouri in late '62 and I think into '63. I can envision a scenario where he might have said to his Captain: "Sir, my father's farm is just over here. I'm sure he'll let us camp there." That seems most likely to me.

The last possible scenario is that it was a guerrilla band under Holtzclaw or Jackman, or one of the other central Missouri boys. Very doubtful. Would a guerrilla have asked permission? Maybe, but no guarantees. Least likely of all was that it might have been the summer of '64, and the "officer" might have been Bill Anderson. I don't think so. If Anderson had known my great uncle joined the Yankee cavalry, he'd have just shot my great grandfather on sight!
 
Just some photos of my recent trip to Gettysburg. First set is of a tree stump (not from Gettysburg) with shrapnel and grape shot in it.
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