“I cannot refrain to write you a few lines” wrote Private Dirk Keppel, “because I am at the moment still in good health and I hope you may receive this letter in good health.” Keppel, just eighteen when he joined the 8thMichigan Infantry of the Union Army in 1861, began each letter he wrote home this way. His company moved...
Many Indians disagreed to Secession, but not necessarily agree to abolition, either. Families owned slaves and continued to throughout the Civil War. Opoethleyohola, a Muscogee Creek Chief also known as Gouge, wished to remain neutral. Many other neutral Creeks followed him North of Indian Territory, which is now Oklahoma.
Colonel Douglas H. Cooper had been persuaded that 'Gouge'...
While residing in his hometown of Washington, DC, a Doctor Snyder was summoned by the Head Quarters City Guard to tend to the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac who were currently stationed in Virginia.However, in order to reach the Army in Virginia, where he was to spend four days, he had to first obtain a pass For Civilians from the Provost Marshal's Office in Washington.The pass was of great...
On November 8, 1861, a group of East Tennessee Unionists led by William Blount Carter burned five bridges to hamper Confederate troop movements. Carter, a Presbyterian minister, had spoken with Lincoln about a plan to burn eleven key bridges between Alabama and Virginia. Many iron furnaces were located in Alabama, producing confederate cannon. Carter's hope was for Union troops to attack...
The message was clear; those fighting for the Confederate Army were "destroy[ing] the government of [their] fathers." In an advertisement in 1862 in Winchester, Virginia, the government established by the "the patriot statesmen and warriors of the revolution" asked that the confederate soldiers "throw down [their] arms" and come rejoin the Union. The ad insisted that the "bad men" of the confederacy...
Dissent, the one word that is able to break apart any organization. One particular instance of dissent took place in 1862 in Springfield, Missouri. The citizens of Springfield became thoroughly displeased with the practices of the confederate soldiers in their town. These practices, undertaken by General Sterling Price of the Confederate Army, became the focusing point of controversy for the citizens...
Censorship and secrecy became the motto of the Union Army in the beginning of 1862. By this point, the war had only been going on for one year and civilians already had begun to grow weary of its costs. Union citizens came to be weary of the issue surrounding government censorship of communication devices such as the newspapers and mail. One of the complaints concerning this matter appeared in
Kansas militia led by Jim Lane and Doc Jennison rode into Western Missouri in the Summer and Fall of 1861, claiming they intended to protect the railroads. Instead, they gained a reputation for vicious looting; they were essentially bandits. According to the Charleston Mercury on October 30, 1861, “Even the St. Louis Republican, a fierce Abolition sheet, is ashamed of the brutalities of the...
On January 9, 1862, the Sovereign Convention of the People of South Carolina met sitting in Columbia, South Carolina [the state capital] and enacted several highly important ordinances concerning the state. A first order was to strengthen the hands of the executive branch by the creation of a Council to whom [in conjunction with the Governor] plenary powers were entrusted. This new Council's...
Confederate leader Robert E Lee once said, "I don't believe we can have an army without music," and reflecting this attitude, the high command of the Confederate forces joined in the jovial times of the 1862 Southern lifestyle. Observed by the future Brigadier General Moxley Sorrel, the then Captain and Chief-of-Staff to General Longstreet recounted a banquet put on by Longstreet and the many...