(800) 853-2651
SHOP NOW

OT: 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War

R

RMinVa

Member
This is the big one for folks that are interested in American Civil War. Never before and perhaps never again will this type of display be presented by re-enactors of this event.

Been reading that lots of the re-enactors will retire after this one. They are getting old and although some younger folks are still getting in to perform, I don't think that they have the interest to fill the numbers needed. And I understand that.

So from the north and south come on down in April if you can and have interest. Lots of preparation has and still is being done. Gonna be one heck of a history lesson and a sight to remember.
5th and final Long Road Home event in 2015
 
I was taught that it was NOT a "civil war". In a civil war, one side is trying to wrest control from the other in order to be the ruling party.

The south wanted to seceed from the union. They were not trying to over-run and govern the north. The south just wanted to seceed and be left to its own.

I was taught that it was a "war of Northern agression" :)

Gene
 
I was too. And I agree with you. You know how
all history changes over time. Depends on who's
telling the story.

But I plan to be there in April. Lots of my
ancestor family members were in that war. They
fought as much to protect their home Virginia
as they did for the south. Because they knew
most of it would be fought here in Va.

When ever I travel up RT 29 I always think of
the men from Alabama marching to northern Va.
barefoot to fight. Very tough people with a lot
of heart back then.
 
You win some, you loose some. Isn't that what lee said at Appomattox? :lol:

Would be interesting to see.

History is always written by the winners. I always wondered how the south ever thought they would win. Most of the industry needed to make war materials was in the north.

Rick
 
" Of a Northern population of 20 million , 2.1 million men had entered the armed forces and 360,000 of them died . Some 260,000 confederates died out of a population half the size of the North's roughly 20% of the white adult male population of the South. In the first years after the war , one fifth of Mississippi's budget paid for prostetic limbs for veterans.. " Dennis McNally . Besides not having a strong manufacturing base the south expected a short war and had a high desertion rate amoungst soldiers. The North had an endless supply of Irish immigrants coming into Ellis Island that could be drafted and sent to the war. For a century after the war the South acheived a great political advantage over the North. The South did not exaclty lose the Civil War even though a surrender took place.
 
I'm under the impression, Lincoln and crew used the northern railroads and telegraph system to good advantage. Not sure what happened with the southern railroads, privately owned, something made a big difference here, as well as northern manufacturing, that was not interrupted.
 
Yes sir. Took a while though. What the north had wound up in the south and now a lot of it is in China.

Just think what our population would be today if those had not been killed.

A bunch of my past family were trained just down the river from me at Stanton Hill Artillery. Which is the Bruce Estate. Was funded with private funds. Most of those men wound up at Wilmington NC. guarding the ports there. A few on the roster were sent home because they were to old. But did play a part in training.

Patrick Henrys home is just about a mile up stream. We go there each year to the 4th of July celebration and fireworks. I always wounder what it would have sounded like to hear those cannon being fired in the river bottom.

I hope to hear lots of cannon fire at Appomattox in April. This all seems to be the end of an era. I just want to witness it.
 
This is not meant to be political and please do not make it. While the armed conflict of the civil war have ceased the battles have not. Look at our court systems. Everyday the "federal government" is dictating what states are to do. Most days there are at least one court case where the "states" are trying to be independent of the Federal govt. "external_linkcare, Gay marriage, legalized pot, gun laws etc, etc."

JWalker
 
Actually, it's the 150th anniversary of the END of the Civil War.
I have read this short account of the meeting at
Appomattox many times.
It always makes me sad.
I was born and raised a Yankee, far, far to late to have been a part of that fight.
But had I been around then I would have left hearth and home to fight With the Southern boys.
Surrender at Appomattox
 
The first general American military draft was enacted by the Confederate government on April 16, 1862, more than a year before the federal government did the same.
 
I sure understand what you mean. Any chance of ever changing anything has been long gone back to that time 150 years ago, unless you/I are prepared to lose everything.

General Stonewall Jackson said. "If the nnalert lose their little war... they go home fat with their war profits." If we lose we lose everything/all.
 
You are correct and this is 5th and final Long Road Home event in 2015.

You would have been welcomed here too. I think a lot of that happened in my state.Others as well to the west. Brother against brother at times. It was a dark time for our country.

One thing I don't know if many know. If Lee had been able to slip out of Appomattox the fighting would have continued for years perhaps. Some did get out and came across the Staunton River just down stream from Long Island Va. There was a bridge there. The troops had orders to come across to the Halifax side and burn the bridge and they did. Bridge pillows are still there. This bunch was suppose to go to Franklin co. Va. in those mountains and use gorilla fighting tactics. They would have been hard to stop.

Lee signed the surrender and got word to all the army as soon as they could. If he had gotten the entire force in those hills it would have taken years to get them out.

Those bridge pillows are 3 miles from me. I saw a picture of the bridge in the Blanks family bible taken before it was burned.
 
My great grandfather fought with the Michigan group, wounded and taken prisoner at Gettysburg, his 2 brothers died there. He almost didn't survive Andersonville, It was a terrible place.
In this picture he is wearing his service medal. The youngest boy is Rodney, my grandfather.
Last spring we made a loop in the SE, visited Richmond and Gettysburg, a lot of very historic things to see.
a179612.jpg
 
Thank you for posting the picture. I'm sure this war touched just about every family.

Andersonville, he knew death was near being in that place. Amazing anyone survived there.
 
My great-great grandfather fought with the 95th Ohio, was in the siege of Vicksburg, and was captured at Brice's Crossroads when the Union came up against a vastly superior Confederate force headed by Nathan Bedford Forrest. Spent time in Cahaba and Andersonville prisons and ended up dying in the explosion of the Sultana near Memphis while on his way home after the war.
 
The South had many state militias that were not sent to the war. Each governor refused to allow the state militias to leave home protecting the state. Jefferson Davis's own state Mississippi had one of the largest. The fear was if they left the state they could not control slave rebellions. There also was a large confederate force in that never crossed the Mississippi river and joined the war because they were fighting Jayhawkers who would come and kill the slaveowners.
 
For those in Arizona you may whish to visit the re-enactment of:
Battle at Picacho Peak: Civil War Re-Enactment
March 21 & 22, 2015: Civil War in the Southwest
Each year hundreds of spectators descend on Picacho Peak State Park to watch re-enactments of an Arizona Civil Picacho Peak War skirmish,the New Mexico battles of Glorieta and Val Verde.
I spent a day in 2014 at the site "PICACHO PEAK"
Bob...
 
I remember, as a child in the '50s, watching a television interview with a seriously old civil war veteran (he was a drummer boy and the war was over for almost 100 years) and thinking, from the current standpoint, that that war looked as if it was fought with stone knives and axes. I can't help but wonder, should I live long enough, if I will be thinking the same thing about WW2 in another few decades.
 
Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 12 did not end the Civil War. That was the surrender and disbanding of the Army of Virginia.

On April 12, the Army of Northern Virginia formerly surrenders and is disbanded

April 26, General Joseph Johnston signs the surrender document for the Confederate Army of the Tennessee and miscellaneous southern troops attached to his command at Bennett's Place near Durham, North Carolina.

May 4, General Richard Taylor surrenders Confederate forces in the Department of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana.

May 12, The final battle of the Civil War takes place at Palmito Ranch, Texas. It is a Confederate victory.

May 26, General Simon Bolivar Buckner enters into terms for surrender of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi, which are agreed to on June 2, 1865.

The Civil War officially ends with this final surrender.
 
what was lost is not the war but the right not to belong something . the right of self determination. we in the south still think that's important but lost forever in the U.S. Slaves were the stupidest thing anyone ever done , who would have thought that could have ever worked out.
 
I live only about 100 miles south of Andersonville prison and have driven within a few miles of it dozens of times going back and forth to Atlanta. I finally stopped and took the tour a couple of years ago. I'm a dyed in the wool Rebel but it certainly misted up these tired old eyes thinking what those prisoners went through. But I think the north had their own version, not that it makes it any easier. TDF
 
my sister's husband's great grandfather was drafted in Amelia,Va. the last year of the war . he left and went home and the army came got him twice . the army hung him at Amelia Courthouse the third time he left and went home . yes they had a draft and were serious about it .
 
I was at Appomattox at the 100 year Anniversary.Great Great Grandfather was in Lee's Army of Northern VA for the entire War,have several letters he wrote home during the War to my Great Great Grandmother.
 
FOR SURE The saddest War America Was ever involved in
I hope we are UNITED now
We don't all think the same way but NEVER again can this happen

PETE
 
The prisons in the north, while substantially harsher than prisons nowadays, were not near as bad as Andersonville and Cahaba (and I don't have any knowledge of the other prisons in the south except Libby prison in Richmond, which was not any worse than a typical northern POW prison). I'm not going to say it's because the North was morally superior to the South, but because the North had more resources and could afford to feed and clothe the prisoners, while the South could barely keep its army fed and clothed.
 
Thanks for posting this..... I have been a Civil War reenactor from a very young age and being in my mid 20's I hope to continue on for many years to come! I have always enjoyed the hobby and have found it to be a good way to honor my ancestors and the men who fought bravely on both sides.... I will be at the event portraying a North Carolina infantryman belonging to Ransom's brigade. Maybe we will run into each other.....
 
Having grown up near a small battlefield of the Civil War, I’ve had a life-long interest in it. That interest has led me to read and collect lots of books and to visit as many of the battlefields and historic sites as I could. I would call myself a serious student of the war, though not necessarily a scholar and certainly not an authority. Strategies, tactics, generals and troop movements have not interested me nearly so much as trying to gain an understanding of what it was like for the men who fought on both sides, how they endured what they endured, and how they were able to march straight into almost certain death with no hesitation. It’s hard for me to imagine marching all night, with no shoes and no coat, through a freezing rain, or lying wounded on a battlefield for two or three days.

I wonder about those southern soldiers---that ragged, hungry, barefoot remnant who, though surrounded at Appomattox---would have fought on if Lee had asked them to. I am fascinated by the many instances in which acts of noble humanity were juxtaposed against the murderous , savage fury that occurred in the heat of battle. It really was a war of brother against brother.

Then I wonder about my own great grandpa, who with his brothers signed up in a Louisiana infantry regiment in December of 1861. He fought at the Hornet’s Nest at Shiloh; he fought at Corinth, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Franklin, Resaca, Atlanta, and a dozen other places before he was captured in 1865. Why? He wasn’t even a landowner, much less a slave owner, and he likely would not have flourished in the plutocracy that the South would have become had secession been achieved.

In a perverse irony, great grandpa dodged thousands of bullets (except for one at Chickamauga) only to be shot in the back on the streets of his hometown ten years later. I now own the blood-stained, buckshot-riddled shirt he was wearing that day.
 
Odd thing is that slavery still exists today in africa!I belong to a site on irish slavery back in the same time period.
 
From what i've read and been told about the conditions all of the soldiers went through ,whether captured,injured or fighting were so brutal lots of guys deserted and would come back.No antibiotics, no anethesia,meat saw and and a blanket on the ground for a operating room not to mention dysentery,malaria,etc I'm surprised anyone stayed to fight.
 
(quoted from post at 18:41:45 01/17/15) The prisons in the north, while substantially harsher than prisons nowadays, were not near as bad as Andersonville and Cahaba (and I don't have any knowledge of the other prisons in the south except Libby prison in Richmond, which was not any worse than a typical northern POW prison). I'm not going to say it's because the North was morally superior to the South, but because the North had more resources and could afford to feed and clothe the prisoners, while the South could barely keep its army fed and clothed.
Click to expand...

The North was morally superior. The south was defending slavery. Your ancestor was a good man.
 
Greedy owners had control of the Southern rails and charged the confederacy fees to deliver goods to and from the ports.The overinflated costs. Not to mention the Port of New Orleans fell to the North early in the war.
 
(quoted from post at 23:50:47 01/17/15) Only the war with guns ended in 1865.

The civil war raged on for many years after 1865 in the deep south.
They called it reconstruction.
Click to expand...

Isn't that right!

I went to college in Texas and being from Minnesota I was soon informed by southern classmates that the war wasn't over yet.

After being educated for 12 years in the north I have really come to appreciate the different perspective I received studying history in the south.
 
At ease, John. By raising the question in that way I was actually pointing out that he was fighting for a principle, an idea bigger than himself.
 
I understand full well what you meant Jerry.

I was simply pointing out that while our schools may teach it; history books may have it in print; and many Americans believe it; the civil war was not only about slavery. Take slavery out of the picture and the war would have still been fought.

Then you add "reconstruction" that many have never heard of or even know what it means and you find out how little the average American knows about our history.
 
Yep slavery was a part but not the biggest reason for the war. It was the fuel for the fire that got the northerners stirred up but not what Lincoln was worried about. The north had the industry but without the south's cotton the textile mills would be empty. The south could build textile mills but the north couldn't grow cotton. That was part of the cause too

The history books that are taught in public schools were written by the winners but there is a lot more information out there on the subject if someone wants to dig into it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Ed S.
Armistice (Veterans) Day - 100th Anniversary of End of WWI
Replies
7
Views
787
Bruce (VA)
B
Ed S.
Armistice (Veterans) Day - 100th Anniversary of End of WWI
Replies
0
Views
87
Ed S.
Ed S.
Ed S.
Veterans (Armistice) Day - 100th Anniversary of End of WWI
Replies
0
Views
130
Ed S.
Ed S.
Ed S.
Armistice / Veterans Day - 100th Anniversary of End of WWI
Replies
0
Views
134
Ed S.
Ed S.
Ed S.
Armistice (Veterans) Day - 100th Anniversary of End of WWI
Replies
0
Views
93
Ed S.
Ed S.
Tractor Parts Tractor Manuals

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Copyright © 1997-2024 Yesterday's Tractor Co.

All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of any part of this website, including design and content, without written permission is strictly prohibited. Trade Marks and Trade Names contained and used in this Website are those of others, and are used in this Website in a descriptive sense to refer to the products of others. Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy TRADEMARK DISCLAIMER: Tradenames and Trademarks referred to within Yesterday's Tractor Co. products and within the Yesterday's Tractor Co. websites are the property of their respective trademark holders. None of these trademark holders are affiliated with Yesterday's Tractor Co., our products, or our website nor are we sponsored by them. John Deere and its logos are the registered trademarks of the John Deere Corporation. Agco, Agco Allis, White, Massey Ferguson and their logos are the registered trademarks of AGCO Corporation. Case, Case-IH, Farmall, International Harvester, New Holland and their logos are registered trademarks of CNH Global N.V.

Yesterday's Tractors - Antique Tractor Headquarters
Website Accessibility Policy

Back
Top