Day 16. March 16, 1862.
16
plunged downward forever and forever in an endless retribution….
Sunday 16 1862
Quite a fine looking morning but quite mudy on account of rain yesterday and it looks as if it was going to clear off but it was cloudy all day and I think that we will have some more rain before long and I hope and trust that we may soon get home where the Sabbath day is respected and where we can go to hear the Gospel proclaimed to us proud dying sinners. There is not much religion in the army and not much respect for the Sabbath day. I don’t feel very well today. I have a cold. I have often thought that there might be a reformation in the American army. There is too much to do on Sunday. I am at Camp Shields 3½ miles from Winchester on the Martinsburg Turn Pike* in Frederick Co. Virginia. I hope that this rebellion may soon be closed and peace and prosperity attend our nation
*Pike: http://www.openroadjourney.com/rides-and-roads/view/martinsburg-pikeold-national-pike-tour/753 and Marker: https://theclio.com/entry/43552
Note: Full Moon occurs at 05:18:42a.m. (moonposition.com)
The Confederate War: How Popular Will, Nationalism, and Military Strategy Could Not Stave Off Defeat Gary W. Gallagher P. 28-29
“The Confederacy mobilized between 750,000 and 850,000 men, a figure representing 75 to 85 percent of its available draft-age white military population (only the presence of slaves to keep the economy running permitted such an astonishing mobilization). At least 258,000 of them perished during the war (94,000 on the battlefield and 164,000 from disease), and those wounded in combat totaled nearly 200,000. The North mustered at least 2.2 million men, about half its 1860 military-age population, of whom 360,000 died (110,100 in battle and the rest from disease or accidents) and 275,175 were wounded.
P. 31
Thousands more congregated in the mountainous counties of central and western Pennsylvania and elsewhere, where they lay beyond the easy reach of enrolling officers.
P. 601
If a man’s name was drawn in this lottery, one of several things would happen to him next– the least likely of which was induction into the army. Of the men chosen in the four drafts, more than one-fifty (161,000 of 776,000) “failed to report”— fleeing instead to the West, to Canada, or to the woods. Of those who did report to the provost marshal’s office, one-eighth were sent home because of already filled quotas. Three-fifths of the remaining 522,000 were exempted for physical or mental disability or because they convinced the inducting officer that they were the sole means of support for a widow, an orphan sibling, a motherless child, or an indigent parent. Unlike the Confederate Congress, Union lawmakers allowed no occupational exemptions. But a draftee who passed the physical exam and could not claim any dependent relatives still had two options: he could hire a substitute, which exempted him from this and any future draft; or he could pay a commutation fee of $300, which exempted him from this draft but not necessarily the next one. Of the 207,000 men who were drafted, 87,000 paid the commutation fee and 74,000 furnished substitutes, leaving only 46,000 who went personally into the army. The pool of substitutes was furnished by eighteen-and nineteen-year olds and by immigrants who had not filed for citizenship, who were not liable to conscription.
In the words of Robert E. Sterling, the draft was, “One of the worst pieces of class legislation ever passed by the United States Congress.’”
Note: 1 out of every 4-5 Union soldiers were immigrants. (The reality: Unless you’re from somewhere near the Olduvai Gorge, chances are you’re from a line of immigrants, whether willing or unwilling, yourself.) The NYC draft riots are to come July 13-17, 1863, with up to 120 dead. (From 1800-1850 Manhattan grew 750%, giving the city the highest population rise in the world right then. The Irish were opposed to dying to fighting to free the slaves, who they predicted would take their jobs once free.) Black workers had also replaced the Irish when they striked for better working conditions. Sure, some Irish could pay the $300 bounty to shirk out of soldiering, but $300 was the annual salary of a laborer. Around 120 people died in the riots. Note too: the NYT office was a target of the riots, & Henry Jarvis Raymond– co-founder of the paper– fired at them himself with a Gatling gun (along with others at the NYT), which diverted rioters to the New York Tribune. A horrifying time for the potential fate of newspapers on “Newspaper Row.”
Note: Thomas L. Livermore’s exact number for total Union enlisted is 2,668,000, not counting 230,000 militia and “emergency men” serving for short periods. The Union Cavalry in the Civil War: From Fort Sumter to Gettysburg, 1861-1863 Stephen Z. Starr Footnote P. 79
“Sorry, New York Times, But America Began in 1776.” Washington Examiner, Wilfred Reilly
“All told, about one-tenth of the American men who were of military age in 1860 died as a direct result of the Civil War. Among specifically southern white men in their early 20s, 22.6 percent– nearly one in four– died during the war. It seems no exaggeration to estimate that roughly one Union soldier died for every nine to 10 slaves freed. If the U.S. owed a bill for slavery, we have arguably already paid it in blood.”
Henry Ward Beecher: “The whole guilt of this war rests upon the ambitious, educated, plotting, political leaders of the South. They have shed this ocean of blood…. A day will come when God will reveal judgment, and arraign at his bar these mighty miscreants…. And then, [they] shall be whirled aloft and plunged downward forever and forever in an endless retribution.”
The Civil War in 500 Photographs Time-Life P. None, is in Introduction.
(All statistics to be taken with a big grain of salt; other sources put 18 the average age, & still others call it at 20. One thing is certain: the Confederates deflated their #s while they inflated Union #s. Both sides exaggerated #s.)
Soldier Height
Average: 5’8 ¼
Tallest: 6’10 ½
Shortest: 3’4
Average Weight: 143 pounds
Average age: 21
Age 13: 127. 13 is the lowest they go in counting. I bet they dressed some toddler up in a onesie, starved him, armed him with a slingshot then sent him out in the bush.
14: 330
15: 773
16: 2,758
17: 6,424
18: 133,475
19: 90,215
20: 71,058
21: 970,136
45: 7,012
46: 967
Fifty plus: 2,366
Average height: 5’8 ¼
Weight: 143 pounds
Origin of foreign-born soldiers:
Germany: 35%
Ireland: 30%
England: 10%
Canada: 10%
Other: 15%
James McPherson says 700-800k married men volunteered.
Note: The first conscription law on either side originated in the South, April 1862. By October, the “Twenty Negro Law” passed, exempting any White man aged 18-45 from having to fight. In the North, you could pay to get out, hiring a substitute, & what’s the price for your life? $300. And in the end, there were 160,000 present & accounted for Confederates on a muster roll of 359,000. In the North, 86,724 men paid a $300 commutation to get out of war, & 42,581 enlisted as substitutes for draftees. About 90k fled to Canada.
Nature’s Civil War: Common Soldiers and the Environment in 1862 Virginia Kathryn Shively Meier P. 183, Footnote 58, quoting Carmichael, So Far From God:
Note: The year is 1862 here:
“Of the Confederates arrested from July 27 to August 14, twelve percent were sentenced to death; forty percent had sentences overturned due to irregularities.”
P. 184, Footnote 93
“As Joseph Glatthaar’s detailed statistical portrait of the Army of Northern Virginia has made clear, straggling and desertion continued to ebb and flow as the war progressed, though Glatthaar tracked mainly desertion:
“The last quarter of 1862 witnessed a doubling of the desertion rate from its highest total in the fourth previous quarters… Although desertion rates declined in early 1863, they increased after Chancellorsville and then reached new heights in the last half of the year.” In short, he cites “an accelerating pattern of desertion, following the progress of the war.’”
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War James M. McPherson P. 113
Note: McPherson quotes a man from the 28th Massachusetts, who wrote in 1863:
“This is my country as much as the man who was born on the soil. I have as much interest in the maintenance of… the integrity of the nation as any other man…. This is the first test of a modern free government in the act of sustaining itself against internal enemys… if it fail all tyrants will succeed the old cry will be sent forth from the aristocrats of europe that such is the common lot of all republics…. Irishmen and their descendents have… a stake in [this] nation…. America is Irlands refuge Irlands last hope destroy this republic and her hopes are blasted.”
Lincoln (12/5/59): Second speech at Leavenworth, Kansas: “If a house was on fire there could be but two parties. One in favor of putting out the fire. Another in favor of the house burning.”
Lincoln (1/11/61): Writes to Hon. J.T. Hale: “We have just carried an election on principles fairly stated to the people. Now we are told in advance, the government shall be broken up, unless we surrender to those we have beaten, before we take the offices. In this they are either attempting to play upon us, or they are in dead earnest. Either way, if we surrender, it is the end of us, and of the government.”
Lincoln (12/1/62): Tells Congress: “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free– honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”
Note: Even after the Gettysburg address, and after Atlanta falls, a full half of all Northerners did not support Lincoln.
Slavery a Divine Trust: Duty of the South to Preserve and Perpetuate the Institution as it Now Exists (pamphlet) Benjamin M. Palmer (1861) P. 14
“It is alleged, for example, that the President elect has been chosen by a fair majority, under prescribed forms. But need I say, to those who have read history, that no despotism is is more absolute than that of an unprincipled democracy, and no tyranny more galling than that exercised through constitutional formulas? But the plea is idle, when the very question we debate is the perpetuation of that constitution now converted into an engine of oppression, and the continuance of that union which is henceforth to be our condition of vassalage. I say it with solemnity and pain, this union of our forefathers is already gone. It existed but in mutual confidence, the bonds of which were ruptured in the late election. For myself, I say, that under the rule which threatens us, I throw off the yoke of King George III, and for causes immeasurably stronger than those pleaded in their celebrated declaration.’”
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era James McPherson P. 432
“Despite its success of getting more men into the army, conscription* was the most unpopular act of the Confederate government. Yeoman farmers who could not buy their way out of the army voted with their feet and escaped to the woods or swamps. Enrollment officers met bitter resistance in the upcountry and in other regions of lukewarm or nonexistent commitment to the Confederacy. Armed bands of draft-dodgers and deserters ruled whole counties. Conscription represented an unprecedented extension of government power among a people on whom such power had rested lightly in the past. Even some soldiers, who might have been expected to welcome a law that forced slackers to share their hardships, instead considered it a repudiation of what they were fighting for. A Virginia private branded conscription “so gross a usurpation of authority… such a surrender of the right for which above all others we are now contending [that it] would go far to make me renounce my allegiance.” A North Carolina soldier reflected that “when we hear men comparing the despotism of the Confederacy with that of the Lincoln government– something must be wrong.’”
In the Presence of Mine Enemies: The Civil War in the Heart of America, 1859-1864 Edward Ayers P. 359
“Officers had to take an analytical view of desertion. “Yesterday a deserter was shot in the Brigade encamped quite near to us—he wept bitterly, wishing to see his family,” Jed Hotchkiss sadly reported to Sara. “He fell dead, pierced by five balls—poor fellow—it seems hard, but in no other way can the discipline of the army be maintained.” People back home had to be careful what they wrote to the men in camp. “One fellow was shot who had been contented in the army until his wife wrote to him with constant complaints until the poor fellow could stand it no longer and as he could get no furlough he deserted & went home, was caught and suffered the penalty of death.” Not all deserters were shot; Hotchkiss had seen “some whipped, some drummed out of camp and then put to labor with a ball and chain, some branded on the backsides with the letters D. or C. For desertion or cowardice &c. &c.’”
Living Hell: The Dark Side of the Civil War Michael C.C. Adams P. 39
“Possibly just 20 percent of Rebel and 8 percent of Union forces resulted from conscription. Conscripted men never made up a majority in either section, because the draft laws aimed to stimulate volunteering in communities that wished to avoid being tagged with the unpleasant stigma of compulsion.”
The Civil War: The Final Year Told By Those Who Lived It Edited by Aaron Sheehan-Dean P. 438
October, 1864 John B. Jones
OCTOBER 11TH.– Well, General Gardner reports, officially, that of the number of exempts, and of the mixed class of citizens arrested in the streets, and summarily marched to the “front,” “a majority have deserted!” Men, with exemptions in their pockets, going to or returning from market, have been seized by the Adjutant-General’s orders, and despotically hurried off without being permitted even to send a message to their families. Thousands were entrapped, by being directed to call at Gen. Barton’s headquarters, an immense warehouse, and receive passes; but no Gen. Barton was there– or if there, not visible; and all the anxious seekers found themselves in prison, only to be liberated as they were incorporated into companies, and marched “to the front.” From the age of fifteen to fifty-five, all were seized by that order– no matter what papers they bore, or what the condition of their families– and hurried to the field, where there was no battle. No wonder so many deserters– no wonder men become indifferent as to which side shall prevail, nor that the administration is falling into disrepute at the capital.
(The next day)
The despotic order, arresting every man in the streets, and hurrying them to “the front,” without delay, and regardless of the condition of their families– some were taken off when getting medicine for their sick wives– is still the theme of execration, even among men who have been the most ultra and uncompromising secessionists. The terror caused many to hide themselves, and doubtless turned them against the government. They say now such a despotism is quite as bad as a Stanton despotism, and there is not a toss-up between the rule of the United States and the Confederate States.”
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era James McPherson P. 605-606
“Yet in the end, bounty-stimulated volunteering came to seem an even greater evil than the draft. Implicit bounties began in the first days of the war, when soldiers’ aid societies raised money to help support the families of men who gave up their jobs to go off to war. States, counties, and municipalities also appropriated funds for this purpose. These patriotic subsidies aroused no controversy. In the summer of 1862, however, several northern localities found it necessary to pay explicit bounties in order to fill quotas under Lincoln’s two calls for troops. A year later the shock of the first draft enrollment and lottery, which provoked bitter resistance in many areas, caused communities to resolve to fill future quotas by any means possible to avoid a draft. Lincoln’s three calls for troops in 1864 produced a bidding war to buy volunteers. Private associations raised money for bounties. Cities and counties competed for recruits. The federal government got into the act in October 1863 with a $300 bounty (financed by the $300 commutation fee) for volunteers and re-enlistees.
The half-billion dollars paid in bounties by the North represented something of a transfer of wealth from rish to poor– an ironic counterpoint to the theme of rich man’s war/poor man’s fight. By 1864 a canny recruit could pyramid local, regional, and national bounties into grants of $1,000 or more. Some men could not resist the temptation to take this money, desert, assume a different name, travel to another town, and repeat the process. Several of these “bounty jumpers” got away with the practice several times. “Bounty brokers” went into business to seek the best deals for their clients– with a cut of the bounty as payment. They competed with “substitute brokers” for a share of this lucrative trade in cannon fodder. Relatively few of the bounty men or substitutes actually became cannon fodder, however, for many deserted before they ever got into action and others allowed themselves to be captured at the first contact with the enemy. Thus while the conscription-substitute-bounty system produced three-quarters of a million new men, they did little to help win the war. This task fell mainly on the pre-bounty veterans of 1861 and 1862– who with exaggerated contempt viewed many of the bounty men and substitutes of 1864 as “off-scourings of northern slums…dregs of every nation…branded felons…thieves, burglars, and vagabonds.’”
The Mind of the South W. J. Cash (1941) P. 73-74
“But I must not seem to confine its influence to the planters alone. Farmer and cracker admired and shared more than vicariously in this ideal– shall we call it? –created by the impact of the aristocratic idea on the romantic pattern. It determined the shape of those long, lazy, wishful day-dreams, those mirages from an unwilled and non-existent future, in which they saw themselves performing in splendor and moving in grandeur. And its concept of honor, of something inviolable and precious in the ego, to be protected against stain at every cost, and imposing definite standards of conduct, drifted down to them—to the best of the yeomen in a form simpler but not less good, perhaps sometimes even better, than that in which it was held by the generality of planters; to the poor white in the most indistinct and primitive shape—to draw their pride to a finer point yet, to reinforce and complicate such notions of “the thing to do” as they already possessed, and to propel them along their way of posturing and violence.
I speak of violence. One of the notable results of the spread of the idea of honor, indeed, was an increase in the tendency to violence throughout the social scale. Everybody, high and low, was rendered more techy. And with the duel almost rigidly bound to that techiness at the top, everybody’s course was fatally mapped out. These men of the South would go on growing in their practice of violence in one form or another, not only because of the reasons at which we have already looked but also because of the feeling, fixed by social example, that it was the only quite correct, the only really decent relief for wounded honor- the only one which did not imply some subtle derogation, some dulling and retracting of the fine edge of pride, some indefinable but intolerable loss of caste and manly face.
Moreover, this honor complex and the rising popularity of the duel reacted on law and government—was a strong factor in blocking the normal growth of the police power. As is well known, the laws of most of the states either openly or tacitly countenanced the formal affaire, and in none of them was a killing in such a brush likely to bring forth more than perfunctory indictment. And the common murderer who had slain his man in a personal quarrel and with some appearance of a fair fight, some regard for a few amenities, need not fear the indignity of hanging. If the jury was not certain to call it self-defense, the worst verdict he had to expect was manslaughter.”
Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the Civil War (1962) Edmund Wilson P. 263
“It is evident that this reckless hot-headedness, this readiness to call people out, was a very important element in the action of South Carolina itself in seceding from the Union and firing on Fort Sumter.”
Note: As noted on P. 667 of The Battle Cry of Freedom, an estimated 300,000 Union soldiers deserted; 2/3rds of all deserters were on the Union side. The South executed 147 men during the war for desertion. Deserters would fake being deserters to go to the other side to give false information, and these occurrences affected entire campaigns, it’s said. As with any number to do with the war, god only knows the correct one.
.
.
Gospel proclaimed to us proud dying sinners….
The leaders of the Confederacy– the men clutching the newfound Stars & Bars design on their just-pressed square flag shaped like a window shade blocking out the sky, but not quite getting there– knew that their squares couldn’t block out & cover the light that came at night by torch, that State Loyalty could only take citizens & scoundrels alike so far, & in the case of millions, never took them stepping off their front stoop except at gunpoint for those 11 stars– the millions of Southerners who committed to the Union side– the Whites & Blacks, the Native, the Asian, the everyone who, in each & every State, wanted nothing to do with their thin ‘lil cloth streamer with the 11 imploding stars. By now, 160 years hence, the largest flag in the contiguous States is 150 x 78 feet, 11,700 square feet & weighs 400 pounds. Whatever it was that broke off the right stars got in us & stayed. For now.
FAIR USE NOTICE. Terms of Use. This non-profit, non-commercial, for educational purposes only website contains copyrighted material for the purpose of teaching, learning, research, study, scholarship, criticism, comment, review, and news reporting, which constitutes the Fair Use of any such copyrighted material as provided for under Section §107 of the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.