Civil War history

After the siege of and battle for Atlanta, Gen. William T. Sherman ordered the evacuation of all remaining civilians from the city (September 1864). Mayor James Calhoun and two city councilmen urged the Union general to rescind the forced evacuation. Some residents were sick, poor, pregnant, the city fathers said, and the South was already overcrowded as it was, resulting in homelessness for those without family to take them in. Sherman’s response to the men was widely published by newspapers both North and South, and passages from it came to be recognized as readily as the Gettysburg Address. Some historians call his letter, below, the greatest explanation for the causes and consequences of civil war ever written. In 1864, it heartened the North for the fighting ahead. But to Calhoun, who had been against secession himself but determined to protect Atlanta while his own son fought for the Confederacy, Sherman’s words sliced like a dagger to the heart. William T. Sherman Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, in the Field, Atlanta, Georgia September 12, 1864 JAMES M. CALHOUN, Mayor, E. E. RAWSON and S. C. WELLS, representing City Council of Atlanta. Gentlemen: I have your letter of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest. We must have Peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the Rebel armies which are arrayed against the laws and Constitution that all must respect and obey. To defeat those armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their recesses, provided with the arms and instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1008", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-1960 size-full", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"535", "height":"640", "alt":"cityhall2"}}]] 2nd Massachusetts Infantry camped on Atlanta City Hall parade grounds. The bricks and wood were taken from rubble and fences. Now, I know the vindictive nature of our enemy, that we may have many years of military operations from this quarter; and, therefore, deem it wise and prudent to prepare in time. The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes is inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There will be no manufactures, commerce, or agriculture here, for the maintenance of families, and sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to go. Why not go now, when all the arrangements are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting till the plunging shot of contending armies will renew the scenes of the past month? Of course, I do not apprehend any such thing at this moment, but you do not suppose this army will be here until the war is over. I cannot discuss this subject with you fairly, because I cannot impart to you what we propose to do, but I assert that our military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away, and I can only renew my offer of services to make their exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible. You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1009", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-1961 size-full", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"610", "height":"640", "alt":"ShermansMen"}}]] Sherman's men destroying railroad.   War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. [Tweet ""War is cruelty and you cannot refine it." #YankeeinAtlanta"] I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal, war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion, but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation. [Tweet ""You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war." #YankeeinAtlanta"] You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride. We don’t want your negroes, or your horses, or your houses, or your lands, or anything you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and, if it involves the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it. . . I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through Union and war, and I will ever conduct war purely with a view to perfect and early success. But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for anything. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter. Now you must go, and take with you the old and feeble; feed and nurse them, and build for them, in more quiet places, proper habitations to shield them against the weather, until the mad passions of men cool down, and allow the Union and peace once more to settle over your old homes at Atlanta. Yours in haste, W. T. Sherman, Major-General commanding. So there you have it. *All photos courtesy of the Library of Congress. You may also be interested in: Yankee in Atlanta (Heroines Behind the Lines Civil War Book 3) [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1010", "attributes":{"class":"media-image alignleft size-full wp-image-1775", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"125", "height":"194", "alt":"Yankee 125"}}]]412 pages, softcover* 4.5 Stars from RT Book Reviews!  She hid from her past to find a future—and landed on enemy soil. When soldier Caitlin McKae wakes up in Atlanta, the Georgian doctor who treats her believes Caitlin’s only secret is that she had been fighting for the South disguised as a man. In order to avoid arrest or worse, Caitlin hides her true identity and makes a new life for herself in Atlanta as a governess for the daughter of Noah Becker—on the brink of his enlistment with the Rebel army. Though starvation rules, and Sherman rages, she will not run again. In a land shattered by strife and suffering, a Union veteran and a Rebel soldier test the limits of loyalty and discover the courage to survive.    [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1011", "attributes":{"class":"media-image alignnone wp-image-3417 size-full", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"200", "height":"51", "alt":"deepershoppingbutton"}}]] [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1012", "attributes":{"class":"media-image alignnone wp-image-2768 size-full", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"134", "height":"45", "alt":"add-to-goodreads-button"}}]]

Today in 1863, Gettysburg began to experience a second invasion. The armies had withdrawn on July 4, and now it was time to pick up the pieces of shattered homes--and bodies. Last week I shared the perspectives of housewife Sarah Broadhead and of teenager Tillie Pierce. Today I'd like to share from the perspective of Sanitary Commission nurse Georgeanna Woolsey. The following is excerpted from my nonfiction book, Stories of Faith and Courage from the Home Front: Friendly Enemies [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"671", "attributes":{"class":"media-image alignright wp-image-216 size-full", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"124", "height":"179", "alt":"BB-homefront-cover_125"}}]]When the armies moved out, they left behind 21,000 wounded Union and Confederate soldiers. The town of Gettysburg, with its 2400 residents, was taxed beyond their limit to feed, clothe, house and otherwise care for the men. Waves of volunteers from the U.S. Sanitary Commission and the U.S. Christian Commission flooded the town to help, bringing storehouses of food, clothing, and hospital supplies, plus manpower to relieve the townspeople of their nonstop cooking and nursing. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1287", "attributes":{"class":"media-image size-medium wp-image-2890", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"279", "height":"300", "alt":"Georgeanna Woolsey"}}]] Georgeanna Woolsey   Among the Sanitary Commission volunteers was Georgeanna Woolsey, who distributed fresh food and drink to the men on ambulance trains. She recalled: I do not think that a man of the 16,000 who were transported during our stay, went from Gettysburg, without a good meal—rebels and Unionists together, they all had it, and were pleased and satisfied. “Have you any friends in the army, madam?” a rebel soldier, lying on the floor of the car, said to me, as I gave him some milk. “Yes, my brother is on -----‘s staff.” “I thought so, ma’am. You can always tell; when people are good to soldiers they are sure to have friends in the army.” “We are rebels, you know, ma’am,” another said; “Do you treat rebels so?” It was strange to see the good brotherly feeling come over the soldiers, our own and the rebels, when side by side they lay in our tents. “Hullo, boys! This is the pleasantest way to meet, isn’t it? We are better friends when we are as close as this, than a little farther off.” And then they would go over the battles together: “we were here,” and “you were there,” in the friendliest way. Many on both sides found it impossible to cling to demonizing rhetoric about the opposing army when they ate and talked together, and slept side by side. Resident Liberty Hollinger later said, “Many romances were developed during the stay of the soldiers. One of our most intimate friends (a northerner) married a southerner who her mother had nursed back to health.” As friendships and marriages bonded Yankees and Rebels together, the people hoped the country would soon be reunited as well. Prayer: Lord, help me tear down any division among my brothers and sisters in Christ. “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!” ~Psalm 133:1 ___________________________ Georgeanna Woolsey's pamphlet, entitled "Three Weeks at Gettysburg", can be read in its entirety online, and provided the inspiration for a few scenes in Widow of Gettysburg. Georgeanna herself was the inspiration for my first novel, Wedded to War, and she does come back to make an appearance as a nurse at Gettysburg in Widow of Gettysburg. The young woman named Liberty Hollinger, quoted in the excerpt above, inspired me to name my heroine of Gettysburg "Liberty." (Such a great name!) If you liked meeting Georgeanna Woolsey, Tillie Pierce, and Sarah Broadhead, you may also enjoy 3 Heroines of Gettysburg. View the live-action trailer below for a better glimpse into Wedded to War, my Civil War novel inspired by Georgeanna Woolsey:

[[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"771", "attributes":{"class":"media-image alignright wp-image-891 size-full", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"125", "height":"193", "alt":"Widow cover 3 125"}}]]Both Hollywood and history books tell stories of valor from the battle of Gettysburg. But before the word "Gettysburg" was synonymous with battle, it was simply the name of a town where ordinary people lived—until extraordinary circumstances brought out strength and courage they did not know they possessed. These stories of resilience inspired me to write my novel Widow of Gettysburg, book 2 in the Heroines Behind the Lines series. Today I'd love to introduce you to just three real women of Gettysburg. Sallie Myers [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1278", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-3260 size-medium", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"201", "height":"300", "alt":"Sallie Myers"}}]] Sallie Myers   Gettysburg school teacher Sallie Myers never could stand the sight of blood. But on the morning of July 2, 1863, the second day of battle, she could not ignore the desperate cries of the wounded lying in a church across the street. Kneeling by the first man inside the door of the church, Sallie asked what she could do for him. "Nothing," he replied. "I am going to die." Overcome with emotion, Sallie ran outside and wept. With great effort, she finally calmed herself and returned to the soldier, where she learned he was Sgt. Alexander Stewart of the 149th Pennsylvania Volunteers. With the surgeon's permission, she then had Sgt. Stewart brought to her home where she could better care for him. Though a bullet narrowly missed her where she sat fanning her patient, she refused to leave him for the safety of the cellar. After Sgt. Alexander died on July 6, 1863, Sallie took in eleven more soldiers while continuing to work in the make-shift hospitals of the town for weeks after the battle ended. "The sight of blood never again affected me and I was among the wounded and dying men day and night," Sallie recalled. "While the battle lasted and the town was in possession of the rebels, I went back and forth between my home and the hospitals without fear." The next summer, Sgt. Alexander's widow and his brother Henry came to visit her. From that meeting, Sallie and Henry began a relationship which resulted in their marriage in 1867. Sadie Bushman Nine-year-old Sadie Bushman was running to her grandparents' house for safety when the battle roared into action. I don't have a picture of Sadie, but I do know what nine looks like. My own daughter is currently the same age Sadie was when the following story took place. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1279", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-3258", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"400", "height":"270", "alt":"This is my 9-year-old daughter looking on as my 6-year-old is being treated for his broken arm. "}}]] This is my 9-year-old daughter looking on as my 6-year-old is being treated for his broken arm. Little Sadie had a much different experience, as the youngest nurse in the Civil War.   Sadie tells the story in her own words: "There came a screech and a shell brushed my skirt as it went by. I staggered from the concussion of it and almost fell, when I was grasped by the arm and a man said pleasantly, ‘That was a close call. Come with me and hurry,' he added in a tone so commanding that I meekly followed. [That man was Dr. Benjamin F. Lyford, a surgeon in the Union army]. He led me to . . .  an army corps hospital and then he put me to work. Wounded and dying men were then being carried to the place by the score. . . "As I reached the hospital tent a man with a leg shattered almost to a pulp was carried in. ‘Give him a drink of water while I cut off his leg' was the command I got. How I accomplished it I do not know but I stood there and assisted the surgeon all through the operation. I was in that field hospital all during the three days of the battle, climbing over heaps of bodies six and eight deep and always with the doctor helping him in his work. Then my father found me and took me home. Soon, the Christian and Sanitary Commissions set up a hospital on the scene of battle, and Sadie nursed there, too. "I was placed in charge of one of the wards and I was so small I had to climb up on the beds to attend to the sick and wounded men," she said. Having conquered her fear, Sadie served in that hospital nearly five months, though her father whipped her for nursing against his will. Elizabeth Thorn [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1280", "attributes":{"class":"media-image size-full wp-image-3259", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"260", "height":"357", "alt":"Peter and Elizabeth Thorn"}}]] Peter and Elizabeth Thorn   Elizabeth her husband Peter were caretakers of Gettysburg's Evergreen Cemetery, and lived in the cemetery gatehouse with Elizabeth's parents and her three small sons.  With Peter away as a soldier, Elizabeth tended the cemetery in his absence. She was six months pregnant in July 1863. Like most other Gettysburg women, she gave food and water to passing soldiers in both blue and grey before fleeing to safety during the battle. The Thorns returned to find their home severely damaged. But there was work to do. The cemetery president instructed her to bury the soldiers as fast as she could. The stench from the bloated corpses, both human and horse, was nauseating, but she and her father, aged 63, had little choice. The longer the bodies lay sweltering in the sun, the more of a health hazard they became. Elizabeth and her father buried 102 soldiers in Evergreen Cemetery. She was never compensated for her work in the aftermath of the battle, or for the damages to her home. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1281", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-3179", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"500", "height":"375", "alt":"Monument to Elizabeth Thorn, the pregnant gravedigger, in Evergreen Cemetery."}}]] Monument to Elizabeth Thorn, the pregnant gravedigger, in Evergreen Cemetery.   These women, and so many others (Sarah Broadhead, Tillie Pierce, Hettie Shriver, etc.), did not ask to be heroines, but when war demanded it of them, they quietly filled the role. Their courage, sacrifice, and ability to love their enemies inspired Widow of Gettysburg, and I hope the book, in turn, inspires you. *Visiting Gettysburg soon? Don't miss these 9 Must-See Sites (Plus 5 Spots for R&R)!

  Memorial Day, as we know it, began as Decoration Day shortly after the end of the Civil War. May 30, 1868, marked the first official national observance, by proclamation of Gen. John A. Logan. But the South refused to acknowledge the observance, and it's little wonder. If you read the text of General Logan's proclamation, you'll see that the day was really meant to honor the Union dead, not the Confederates. Add to this the fact that the Federal government offered little cooperation with the attempts to bring Confederate remains home to rest in the South. Last but not least, before Arlington was a cemetery, it was Gen. Robert E. Lee's home. The Lees, and most likely thousands of other Southerners, felt that turning their home into a burial grounds for the enemy (Union soldiers) was a desecration. As a result, the South honored their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every state on the last Monday in May, though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead. Click the image to see the sheet music.   In fact, Southern women were decorating the graves of their fallen heroes before the national holiday was ever designated. In 1867, a hymn by Nella L.Sweet, Kneel Where Our Loves Are Sleeping, was published with a telling dedication: "To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead." One stanza reads: Kneel where our loves are sleeping, Dear ones loved in days gone by, here we bow in holy reverence, Our bosoms heave the heart-felt sigh. They fell like brave men, true as steel, And pour'd their blood like rain- We feel we owe them all we have, And can but kneel and weep again. Author Cilla McCain says it well in her Huffington Post article: Although there is much dispute as to the origins of Memorial Day, it is not difficult to imagine that women are the ones who inspired the tradition. After all, for the most part, it was women who were left to bury the dead. Grief stricken and with tears flowing, they had to find a way to connect with the soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms we all enjoy. Maybe honoring them was a way to deal with not only the grief, but also the guilt we feel for surviving. Read her complete article here. Even those of us who won't be decorating a loved one's grave this Memorial Day can appreciate the sacrifices that were made for our freedoms. 

On this day in 1865, three days after General Lee's surrender, and four years to the day after the war began in 1861 with the firing on Fort Sumter, Confederate troops formally surrendered to Union. The work of art above, "Salute of Honor" by Mort Kunstler, is so moving to me. But it's even more profound when we consider what was happening at this moment in history. Kunstler's Web site describes it so poignantly, I'm going to quote from it directly: They faced each other in two long straight lines - just as they had so many times before on so many bloody fields of fire. This time was different. Three days earlier, General Robert E. Lee had surrendered the skeletal remnants of his hard-fighting Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant in farmer Wilmer McLean's parlor. Now it was time for the Sons of the South to lay down their arms and give up their bloodied battle flags. As enemies, these men in blue and gray had faced each other at Petersburg and Cold Harbor, at Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, at Fredericksburg and Antietam, at Second Manassas and Malvern Hill. Now they again stood in great ranks opposite each other - one now the victor, the other now the vanquished. Placed in command of receiving the Southern surrender was Brigadier General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a Northern war hero who bore four battle wounds inflicted by these men in gray and butternut now assembled before him. Absent in Chamberlain, however, was any animosity toward these former foes; present instead was a sense of respect for fellow countrymen who had given their all in the grip of war. At Chamberlain's order, there was no jeering. No beating of drums, no chorus of cheers nor other unseemly celebration in the face of a fallen foe. "Before us in proud humiliation," Chamberlain would later recall, "stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond. Was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured?" At Chamberlain's command, the Northern troops receiving the surrender shifted their weapons to "carry arms" - a soldier's salute, delivered in respect to the defeated Southerners standing before them. Confederate General John B. Gordon, immediately recognized this remarkable, generous gesture offered by fellow Americans - and responded with a like salute. Honor answering honor. Then it was over. And a new day had begun - built on this salute of honor at Appomattox. Former foes both North and South - in mutual respect and mutual toleration - now faced the future together. As Americans all. That future-- the Reconstruction period-- was anything but smooth sailing. In fact, Reconstruction has even been called the Second Civil War due to the intense struggles Americans faced as they pieced their lives and their country back together. But on April 12, 1865, whether they were heartbroken or joyful, there must have been a shared feeling of sober relief that the carnage of the war was over. *If your fascination with the Civil War has not ended with the close of the 150th anniversary dates, I invite you to browse through thirty (and counting) posts I've written on Civil War history. Find them here.