All right, we’re beginning to see articles about reconstruction. Here is a post by Cynthia Lynn Lyerly at the We’re History blog. An excerpt …
“In the renewed efforts to encourage the National Park Service to commemorate Reconstruction, we should keep in mind that there actually are public commemorations of Reconstruction already in our nation. In Newberry, South Carolina, the Sons of Confederate Veterans erected one such roadside marker in 1994 to commemorate the “murder” of Calvin Crozier in September of 1865.
“Some elements of the actual story are indeed rendered truthfully on the marker. Crozier was escorting two white women when he knifed a soldier in the 33rd. He was summarily tried, convicted, and executed, under Trowbridge’s orders. Trowbridge was indeed brought to trial at a court martial. But the rest of the story is far more complicated …”
An article in the NY Times by Boyd Cothran and Ari Kelman. Boyd Cothran is an assistant professor of Indigenous and cultural history at York University in Toronto and the author of “Remembering the Modoc War: Redemptive Violence and the Making ofAmerican Innocence.”Ari Kelman is the McCabe-Greer Professor of the Civil War Era at Penn State and the author of “A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling Over the Memory of Sand Creek,” which won the Bancroft Prize in 2014, and, with Jonathan Fetter-Vorm, “Battle Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War.” Cothran and Kelman are both writing books about the relationship between Reconstruction and Native American history. An excerpt …
“On Dec. 21, 1866, a year and a half after Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant ostensibly closed the book on the Civil War’s final chapter at Appomattox Court House, another soldier, Capt. William Fetterman, led cavalrymen from Fort Phil Kearny, a federal outpost in Wyoming, toward the base of the Big Horn range. The men planned to attack Indians who had reportedly been menacing local settlers. Instead, a group of Arapahos, Cheyennes and Lakotas, including a warrior named Crazy Horse, killed Fetterman and 80 of his men. It was the Army’s worst defeat on the Plains to date. The Civil War was over, but the Indian wars were just beginning.
“These two conflicts, long segregated in history and memory, were in fact intertwined. They both grew out of the process of establishing an American empire in the West. In 1860.”
An article in the NY Times by Thom Bassett. An excerpt …
“Early on the morning of May 24, 1865, a bright, pleasantly warm day in Washington, D.C., Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman calmly guided his horse to the head of his army. He was about to lead his veteran troops on their last march, this time down Pennsylvania Avenue, before tens of thousands of thronging, wildly cheering citizens and the nation’s leaders, as part of the two-day Grand Review that celebrated the Union victory.
“For Sherman, this was more than simply a commemoration of the war’s end. It was also a grimly pursued vindication of himself against his enemies — and not just the men in gray. After relentlessly levying a hard war to force their submission, this marauder of the South had sought a soft peace to ease their reunion with the rest of the country. Now, in Washington, aimed to triumph over those he saw as his Northern enemies— viciously hypocritical journalists as well as the capital’s paranoid, backstabbing political and military elite.”
Grant & The Red River Campaign
A series of blog posts by Ned B. at TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog. TOCWOC (The Order of Civil War Obsessively Compulsed) is a group Civil War blog formed in September 2007. Our purpose is to enlighten and entertain readers on every aspect of the Civil War, whether it be Social, Political, Military, or other history.
Every week, Len Eagleburger (co-edited by Beverly Shaw) edits a newsletter called “Ozarks Civil War Sesquicentennial Weekly.” One of its sections is entitled “Missouri 150 Years Ago.” These are the links to articles which appeared in the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper published in Columbia, Missouri.
A blog post with three articles by Jason Roe from the Kansas City Public Library.
An excerpt from the “Downfall of the Confederacy.”
“At the beginning of May 1865, a few Confederate commanders and political leaders, including Davis, still called on Confederates to continue the fight through means of guerrilla warfare. Most Confederates followed the lead of General Lee, who rejected the idea because he saw it as pointless, needlessly destructive for the South, and likely to ruin any opportunity for peaceful reconciliation between North and South.”
An excerpt from the “Rebuilding in Missouri and Kansas.”
“As Unionists reveled at the end of the war, the residents of Missouri and Kansas had to consider how to reconcile their differences, rebuild, and move forward. The correspondence between a Missouri couple who were engaged to be married hinted at the various challenges faced in recovering from a decade of violence along the Missouri-Kansas border that predated the Civil War itself.”
An excerpt from the “Missouri Bushwhackers Continue Fighting.”
“Even as most Missourians sought to move on from the war, a number of hardened guerrilla fighters, or "bushwhackers," as they were known, had grown accustomed to personal feuds, brutality, and spoils of plunder. This atmosphere of violence is illustrated in the diary of C.T. Kimmel, an assistant surgeon in the 2nd Missouri State Militia Cavalry.”
An article in the NY Times by Christopher Phillips, professor of history at the University of Cincinnati. He is the author of six books on the Civil War era, including “Damned Yankee: The Life of Nathaniel Lyon” and the forthcoming “The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War on the Middle Border and the Making of American Regionalism.” An excerpt …
“In the late winter of 1865, Abraham Lincoln was completing a reconciliation-themed second Inaugural Address, pledging the nation to embrace the end of slavery ‘that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.’
”His thoughts were not solely on the last, violent days of the war in the Confederacy. On Feb. 20, the president wrote to Missouri’s new governor, Thomas C. Fletcher, troubled by persistent violence and distrust among civilians there. ‘Waiving all else, pledge each to cease harassing others, and to make common cause against whomever persists in making, aiding or encouraging further disturbance.’ The president implored. ‘At such meetings old friendships will cross the memory, and honor and Christian charity will contrive to help.’ Less than two months later, Lincoln was dead. Had he lived, he would have learned, painfully, that amity would be difficult to find in slaveholding border states like Missouri, especially over the end of the peculiar institution there.”
An article in the NY Times by Dan Doyle, author of “The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War” and the McCausland professor of history at the University of South Carolina.” An excerpt …
“Even while the Civil War raged, slaves in Cuba could be heard singing, ‘Avanza, Lincoln, avanza! Tu eres nuestra esperanzal’ (Onward, Lincoln, Onward! You are our hope!) — as if they knew, even before the soldiers fighting the war far to the North and long before most politicians understood, that the war in America would change their lives, and the world.
“The secession crisis of 1860-1861 threatened to be a major setback to the world antislavery movement, and it imperiled the whole experiment in democracy. If slavery was allowed to exist, and if the world’s leading democracy could fall apart over the issue, what hope did freedom have? European powers wasted no time in taking advantage of the debacle. France and Britain immediately each sent fleets of warships with the official purpose of observing the imminent war in America. In Paris, A New York Times correspondent who went by the byline ‘Malakoff’ thought that the French and British observers ‘may be intended as a sort of escort of honor for the funeral of the Great Republic.’”
A blog post by Dave Powell at Emerging Civil War, a blog providing fresh perspectives on America's defining event. An excerpt …
“On a personal note, I am interested in Davis’s capture primarily because of the units involved. Not only do we have the 1st Wisconsin and 4th Michigan cavalries, but also longtime western theater personalities like John Croxton and Robert H. G. Minty – all Army of the Cumberland men.
“Of course, Davis’s collaring generated its own share of claims, counter-claims, and controversies. I know of (at least) three other cavalry regiments that would, in the postwar era, try to claim at least a share of reflected glory.”
A blog post at Emerging Civil War by Phil Greenwalt, National Park Service historian at George Washington Birthplace National Monument and Thomas Stone National Historic Site. An excerpt …
“After a walking tour of the Sunken Road on the Fredericksburg Battlefield, I received the following question; ‘What did the war cost?’
“Naturally, my first thought was to explain the casualty figures for the entire conflict, which now surpasses 750,000 men. Furthermore, another 64,000 men died of wounds received during the war and transpired in the immediate years after. I thought I had thoroughly answered the question.
“Wrong.
“She wanted to know what the overall cost, in addition to the casualty figures, which she agreed was extensive, horrible, and completely mind-blowing. All she had heard about was the casualties, but did anyone ever calculate the cost; economically, government-wise, etc.”
Missouri 150 Years Ago
Every week, Len Eagleburger (co-edited by Beverly Shaw) edits a newsletter called “Ozarks Civil War Sesquicentennial Weekly.” One of its sections is entitled “Missouri 150 Years Ago.” These are the links to articles which appeared in the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper published in Columbia, Missouri.
As part of his interview, McPherson recommended reading the following six books if you want to begin to understand "why the Civil War still matters."
Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution by Eric Foner. "Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the ways in which the emancipated slaves' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of Reconstruction; the remodeling of Southern society and the place of planters, merchants, and small farmers within it; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans." taken from Amazon.
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner. "Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in History, the Bancroft Prize, and the Lincoln Prize: from a master historian, the story of Lincoln's―and the nation's―transformation through the crucible of slavery and emancipation." taken from Amazon.
Confederate Reckoning by Stephanie McCurry. "The story of the Confederate States of America, the proslavery, antidemocratic nation created by white Southern slaveholders to protect their property, has been told many times in heroic and martial narratives. Now, however, Stephanie McCurry tells a very different tale of the Confederate experience. When the grandiosity of Southerners' national ambitions met the harsh realities of wartime crises, unintended consequences ensued. Although Southern statesmen and generals had built the most powerful slave regime in the Western world, they had excluded the majority of their own people-white women and slaves-and thereby sowed the seeds of their demise." taken from Amazon.
Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War byElizabeth R. Varon. "Winner, Library of Virginia Literary Award for Nonfiction; Winner of the Dan and Marilyn Laney Prize of the Austin Civil War Round Table; Finalist, Jefferson Davis Award of the Museum of the Confederacy. Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House evokes a highly gratifying image in the popular mind -- it was, many believe, a moment that transcended politics, a moment of healing, a moment of patriotism untainted by ideology. But as Elizabeth Varon reveals in this vividly narrated history, this rosy image conceals a seething debate over precisely what the surrender meant and what kind of nation would emerge from war. The combatants in that debate included the iconic Lee and Grant, but they also included a cast of characters previously overlooked, who brought their own understanding of the war's causes, consequences, and meaning." taken from Amazon.
Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865 by James Oakes. "A powerful history of emancipation that reshapes our understanding of Lincoln, the Civil War, and the end of American slavery. Freedom National is a groundbreaking history of emancipation that joins the political initiatives of Lincoln and the Republicans in Congress with the courageous actions of Union soldiers and runaway slaves in the South. It shatters the widespread conviction that the Civil War was first and foremost a war to restore the Union and only gradually, when it became a military necessity, a war to end slavery. These two aims―"Liberty and Union, one and inseparable"―were intertwined in Republican policy from the very start of the war." taken from Amazon.
After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War by Gregory P. Downs. "After Appomattox argues that the war did not end with Confederate capitulation in 1865. Instead, a second phase commenced which lasted until 1871―not the project euphemistically called Reconstruction but a state of genuine belligerency whose mission was to shape the terms of peace. Using its war powers, the U.S. Army oversaw an ambitious occupation, stationing tens of thousands of troops in hundreds of outposts across the defeated South. This groundbreaking study of the post-surrender occupation makes clear that its purpose was to crush slavery and to create meaningful civil and political rights for freed people in the face of rebels’ bold resistance." taken from Amazon.
Posted by: Dick Titterington AT 07:18 am
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The African American Civil War Memorial & Museum will honor black soldiers who were not welcome at the original Grand Review celebration. An article in The Nation by Richard Kreitner. An excerpt …
“By this week 150 years ago, the Civil War was over, the Union preserved and slavery effectively abolished. But there was one more formality needed to officially mark the end of the war: a Grand Review of the Armies in Washington, DC, to welcome the victorious troops home …
“Excluded from the triumphant event, however, were the almost 200,000 black soldiers who had fought on the Union side, all of whom had been conveniently kept away from Washington. The only blacks who marched were former slaves paraded as comic relief.”
An article in the NY Times by Richard Parker, author of “Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America.” An excerpt …
“PALMITO RANCH, Tex. — On the flat, cactus-studded coastal plain of South Texas the prevailing wind brings the salty smell of the Gulf of Mexico. Gloomy, low-hanging clouds stream overhead, northward. Other than the saw grass and yucca, the landscape is featureless, bounded only by the muddy Rio Grande and the sea.
“It was here, though, that the American Civil War ended in its final and ultimately pointless battle, 150 years ago. When the news of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox reached the Confederacy’s westernmost state, chaos fell upon the cities as the remnants of the Confederate Army turned upon Texas itself. And here, on this isolated stretch of nowhere, the Confederate Army made its final and most futile stand.”
An article in the NY Times by Phil Leigh, Civil War book author. An excerpt …
“By early May 1865, a month after Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, most of the remaining Confederate soldiers had laid down their arms. While some Southerners were angry, and others were relieved, nearly all were apprehensive about the future. Many moved West and north; some decided to leave the United States completely.
Many Southerners were pessimistic about the region’s economic future. Partly because of the monetary value of slaves, in 1860 seven of the 10 states with the highest per capita Wealth would join the Confederacy. Much of that Wealth was wiped out, and today Virginia is the only former rebel state to rank among the top 10 in per capita income, while five of the bottom 10 are former Confederate states. The classic example is Mississippi, which ranked No. 1 in 1860, and 50th in the 2010 census.”
An article in the NY Times by Adam Arenson and Virginia Scharff. Adam Arenson is an associate professor of history at Manhattan College and a co-editor of the new volume “Civil War Wests.” Testing the Limits of the United if Virginia Scharff is an associate provost for faculty development and a distinguished professor of history and the director of the Center for the Southwest at the University of New Mexico. She is also the chair of western women’s history at the Autry National Center and co-curator (with Carolyn Brucken) of the Autry exhibition and editor of the companion volume “Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and the West.” The exhibition is open now and runs through January. This essay draws on the introductions to both volumes. An excerpt …
“After Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, the Civil War continued. After the final pitched battle at Palmito Ranch, Texas, on May 12-13, 1865, the Civil War continued. After Cherokee leader Stand Watie became the last Confederate general to surrender on June 23, 1865, the Civil War continued. Even after Aug. 20, 1866, when Andrew Johnson formally declared an end to the War and began to pull back the troops occupying the former Confederate states, the war wasn’t really over, at least not in the American West.”
A blog post at Mysteries and Conundrums, a blog exploring the Civil War-era landscape in the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania region. An excerpt …
“This month brings the sesquicentennial of some of the first instances of historical touring of the Fredericksburg-area battlefields during peacetime in Virginia (even if not yet during peacetime nationwide), by military personnel other than members of the units who had fought at those places.
“The intermittent touring of mid-May 1865, ranging from the informal or self-guided to the planned and guided, was among the secondary activities of Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman and some units of a four-corps army group that he accompanied through the Fredericksburg area. Although a majority of the regiments in one of the four corps had fought at Chancellorsville with the Army of the Potomac, they were strangers to the sites of the local battles that had come after Chancellorsville. Most of the men in the other three corps were seeing the Virginia combat zones for the first time. My blog post today samples impressions of the four battlefields penned by soldiers of three of the corps, the Fifteenth, the Seventeenth, and the Twentieth.”
A blog post at Emerging Civil War, a blog providing fresh perspectives on America's defining event. An excerpt …
“Over the last ten years, the Civil War Trust has worked tirelessly to reclaim the once-lost Franklin battlefield in central Tennessee, where Confederates attacked Union forces on November 30, 1864. The attack ignited horrific, close-quarters combat that lasted five hours. According to Southern author Sam Watkins, this battle served as ‘the finishing stroke’ of the Confederacy. After the fighting, the ground was littered with dead soldiers, the majority of whom belonged to the determined-yet-unsuccessful Confederate army—yet ‘Bloody Franklin,’ as the soldiers later called it, was considered a Confederate victory.”
An article by Gregory P. Downs and Kate Mazur appearing on TheAtlantic website. An excerpt …
“Four years ago, the sesquicentennial of the Civil War kicked off with conferences, public lectures, government proclamations, and even balls and galas. As Reconstruction's anniversary begins, however, there is no such fanfare and few signs of public reckoning, much less celebration.
“Reconstruction has long suffered such neglect. The National Park Service, steward of the nation's Civil War battlefields and a leader in interpreting the war for the public, has not a single site dedicated to that vital and controversial period. Now, on the cusp of significant Reconstruction anniversaries, the Park Service is ready to change how Americans remember Reconstruction, to help push the era—in all its complexity—back onto the map of America's collective memory.”
Missouri 150 Years Ago
Every week, Len Eagleburger (co-edited by Beverly Shaw) edits a newsletter called “Ozarks Civil War Sesquicentennial Weekly.” One of its sections is entitled “Missouri 150 Years Ago.” These are the links to articles which appeared in the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper published in Columbia, Missouri.
An article in the NY Times by Martin Griffin, associate professor of American literature at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the author of “Ashes of the Mind: War and Memory in Northern Literature, 1865-1900.” An excerpt …
“The train that brought Abraham Lincoln’s body back to Springfield, Ill., took almost two weeks to complete its journey, making a long, northeasterly loop through Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and Indiana. The last stretch, from Chicago to Springfield, was completed on the morning of May 3, 1865.
“The journey was widely covered in the press as millions of Americans turned out to pay their last respects. Generations of historians have described, and tried to interpret the meaning of, this unique funeral procession. But no author has probed the event more deeply than Walt Whitman.”
An article in the NY Times by Joshua Zeitz, author of “Lincoln’s Boys: John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln s Image.” An excerpt …
“Today Americans almost universally regard Abraham Lincoln as our greatest president. And yet he was not always the revered figure that he has become.
“Writing many decades after Lincoln’s assassination, John Hay, who served as one of Lincoln’s secretaries, observed that if the president had ‘died in the days of doubt and gloom which preceded his re-election,’ rather than in the final weeks of the Civil War, he would almost certainly have been remembered differently, despite his great acts and deeds. Indeed, just months before his death, many leading members of his own political party agreed with Gov. John Andrew of Massachusetts, who found Lincoln “essentially lacking in the quality of leadership.”
An article in the NY Times by Evan Fleischer. An excerpt …
“In 1915, 50 years after Appomattox, the London Branch of Civil War Veterans counted 115 members. The list can be found in Harvard’s Houghton Library, and it provides the names, addresses, ages and length and general location of the service of all its members. One man, listed only as E. Munro, was reported as being 105 years old. Presumably, there were many other veterans who made their way to Britain after the war, who had either died by 1915 or had never bothered to join the branch.”
An article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch by Joe Holleman about a blog post by St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay asking whether a memorial to Confederate soldiers in Forest Park should be removed.
A similar article in the Kansas City Star by Jim Suhr of the Associated Press about a blog post by St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay asking whether a memorial to Confederate soldiers in Forest Park should be removed.
Missouri 150 Years Ago
Every week, Len Eagleburger (co-edited by Beverly Shaw) edits a newsletter called “Ozarks Civil War Sesquicentennial Weekly.” One of its sections is entitled “Missouri 150 Years Ago.” These are the links to articles which appeared in the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper published in Columbia, Missouri.
For our June program, Arnold Schofield will be talking about the Battle of Palmito Ranch, fought on May 12-13 near Brownsville, Texas. It was the last battle of the American Civil War and took place more than a month after Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
This article was written by Tom Zoellner and appears on the Texas Observer website. An excerpt ...
"War is full of ironies, not the least of which is that infantrymen are asked to spill blood for the sake of occupying a piece of earth that wouldn’t be worth a glance on any other day.
"'We go to gain a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name,' complains a captain marching off to war in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. 'To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it.'
"So it was with an unremarkable patch of salt prairie to the east of Brownsville, where on May 12 and 13, 1865, a Union advance was beaten back by Confederate artillery fire. About 800 troops were involved at what came to be called the Battle of Palmito Ranch."
Posted by: Dick Titterington AT 07:40 am
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, recently appeared on The Diane Rehm Show to promote his new book, 
