This article purported to be about battlefield promotions, but instead offers a history of William B Hazen’s service in the war. Hazen is one of those characters who served nobly but isn’t mentioned a lot. It was a nice surprise to read the article and pay him a bit of overdue respect.
Civil War promotions often meant little on The Cannon Courier.
I couldn’t find space in my podcast calendar for Champ Ferguson, but in fairness there are more pleasant stories to tell. His short biography here, though, is worth a read – it reminds us that, while some joined for honor or patriotism or social values, others signed up to avenge themselves and settle old scores. Quote Shelby Foote: “It wasn’t all valor.”
At the end of the Civil War, our nation’s bloodiest struggle, only two men were tried and executed for war crimes. Both had served the Confederacy. One was Henry Wirz, commandant of the notorious prisoner-of-war camp at Andersonville, Ga.; the other was the guerrilla leader Champ Ferguson.
There is, perhaps, room for extenuation in the case of Wirz, an ineffectual martinet clearly out of his depth. The same cannot be said for Ferguson. While some romantics have doggedly held to the image of Champ Ferguson as a much wronged Southern patriot and freedom fighter, he was in fact a vicious killer who took life with neither conscience nor compunction.
Another extended absence, but I’m back today to celebrate the strange career of Henry W. Halleck! To listen to the podcast, click here.
For anyone wishing to do more reading about A.P. Hill, I can highly recommend this website. I used it for some reference points, and was impressed by the depth of research and the quality of the writing. Little Powell’s story is a lusty and tragic one, and well worth a read.
And Then A.P. Hill Came Up – General Ambrose Powell Hill, CSA.
It was on this day in 1865 that A.P. Hill was killed in front of Richmond. I’ve always held Hill in high esteem, despite some grumblings over his conduct as corps commander. He seemed a genial fellow.
The podcast is available here.
A short biography of M. Jeff Thompson, which includes an explanation of the “M. Jeff”.
A mention of Confederate pensions made me curious as to how these worked; the Southern states were poor after the war, and I doubted the Federal government would provide for soldiers who’d actively fought against it. Interesting to note they didn’t come about until 30 years after the war started – one imagines the pension rolls were pretty thin by that time – but that there was no discrimination as to where troops had served. Given how exclusionary and self-interested the Confederate states were by war’s end, that’s a surprising development.
In 1891 Tennessee established the Board of Pension Examiners to determine if Confederate veterans applying for pensions were eligible. Eligibility requirements included an inability to support oneself, honorable separation from the service, and residence in the state for one year prior to application.
Confederate veterans applied to the pension board of the state in which they resided at the time of application, even if this was not the state from which they served.
via Tennessee Department of State: Tennessee State Library and Archives.
It’s G K Warren’s birthday. I hope you got him something nice. As for myself, I brought him a shiny new podcast. You can download it here.
The Internet is a wonderful place. I’ve wondered, on several occasions, which general finished in what ranking at West Point. Turns out, General George Washington Cullum kept a list, and a hundred and some years later, Bill Thayer put it on the web. With short biographies accompanying the name of each graduate, this is a terrific resource for anyone interested in West Point history.
Cullums Register is an index to all the graduates of the Military Academy at West Point, in sequential order, class by class, and within each class, in the final order of merit they achieved as cadets — or at least from 1818 to 1978, when the Register dropped the order of merit. Each entry consists of a complete summary of the graduates official military career, and any synopsis of his civilian achievements that the editors managed to assemble. The overall numerical order of the entry of a graduate has come to be called his “Cullum number”, and commonly serves as an identifier.
The Register was first conceived by Gen. George Washington Cullum Class of 1833, ranking 3d in his Class; Superintendent of the Academy in 1864‑1866; his own Cullum number is 709. He started with a sort of draft version in 1850, then published it in its final form in a third edition, in three volumes, in 1891.
via Cullums Register.
I am afraid there will be a good many hearts pierced in this war that will have no bulletmark to show. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., “My Hunt after ‘The Captain'”
I blogged lately about the visible legacy of the war – the amputees whose physical scars were easily seen and understood. Less easy to process was the less visible legacy – the psychological damage that was caused to men who’d seen so much blood, pain and death. This article discusses how this mental trauma was an underdocumented, widespread problem in the postbellum South.
The pressures of war in the 19th century is an area that historically has seen little study. Most historians began to note the mental stress of war during World War I, when troops were said to be shell shocked. And any notion of post-traumatic stress disorder did not come along until the Vietnam War. The first look at this trend came less than 20 years ago, with Eric Dean’s book “Shook Over Hell,” a treatment of PTSD in the Civil War.
Sommerville said that a study of asylum records, diaries and newspapers of the day reveal “a virtual epidemic of emotional and psychiatric trauma among Confederate soldiers and veterans.”
via Civil War took toll on Southern psyche – The Post and Courier.