150 years ago this week .....

[Lannis]

 .... I would have woken up to the same sounds that I woke up to this morning (if I had been here then).

A train whistle going past Concord depot.

An explosive turkey gobble from a big tom in the river bottom.

And the boom of cannon from General Lee's artillery making their last stand at Appomattox Court House.

About 12,000 people are here to re-enact and celebrate and look around the site of the end of the War Between The States.   Rows of hundreds of tents in the Union campground.   

I'm really glad all these folks are having a good time re-enacting and spectating.

But I just need to let these guys know ONE thing.   I'm no history expert, but I'm pretty sure that the exhausted, ragged, starving remnants of the Army of Northern Virginia at the end of their forced march from Petersburg did NOT include any fat guys with eyeglasses and a gut hanging over their cartridge belt ..... !    And hurrah for the hard-core re-enactors that somehow have that ragged, hollow-cheeked, desperate look about them ... don't know how they do it but it can't be easy.

Sure has been a good thing for the local merchants, too.

Lannis

[Kent in Upstate NY]

Read "Confederates in the Attic". It talks about re-enactors and about one mans ability to bloat like he has been dead for a few days. The others, who show up neat and clean are called "Farbs" as in "far be it from real".

[Orange Guzzi]

Not to get to political, but it disgust me to see America for what it has become.  The American Revolution and the Civil War were fought for independence, freedom, liberty and equal justice for all.  Our Country is a long way from that point now.  Sure it may be better than other places around the world, but it is not what nearly a million Americans died to create and protect on our own soil.  Not some foreign land.  If the laws of averages are used as a clue to the next war in our country, we are late for Our next big one.  Choosing sides is going to be a major decision for each and everyone of us.  Your life will depend on it.  Funny, how the old line from the movies has turned into reality.  "Your Papers Please".

The re enactment is entertaining, but the hard cold fact regarding the death and destruction are hard to understand and appreciate.  

[Lannis]

Well , here we go , hell in a hand basket and all that .
 Lannis , those reenactments are amazing , a reminder of the crucible America was formed in  ;-T

   Dusty

My wife's great-great-grandaddy on one side and gread-granddaddy on the other were paroled at Appomattox.  Henry Anderson Brumfield got his parole printed at Clover Hill Tavern (you can still go there and see the parole printing press) on the morning of April 10th, 1865 and walked 50 miles home to Pittsylvania County in time for breakfast on April 11th, and immediately harnessed the mule (the armies had not been through Pittsylvania County and had not stripped it) and started putting in a tobacco crop.   Henry knew in February that the war was lost; when he was home on leave that month, he sold all his Confederate war bonds for what they would bring, and then went back to his unit to fight out the rest of the war in General Munford's infantry.   

And you can follow the track of Colonel Tarleton's raiding force in the Revolutionary War across the countryside here.   Yep, "crucible" is right ... !

Lannis

[ken farr]

Great Granddad in the 7th. Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

Chased all around Va. and what is now WVa. by Gen. Jackson.

My daughter went to VMI, where Gen. Jackson, the guy that was chasing great granddad, taught before the war.

kjf

[Antietam Classic Cycle]

.... I would have woken up to the same sounds that I woke up to this morning (if I had been here then).

A train whistle going past Concord depot.

The sound of the train "whistle" would be considerably different.  ;) Sound of the locomotive too - if a diesel electric had rolled past in 1865, it would have been treated the same as if aliens from another galaxy landed today.  ;D

On my mom's side of the family, the two branches likely fought each other and my father's side of the family (pacifist German Baptist Brethen) likely patched them up.

[Lannis]

Great Granddad in the 7th. Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

Chased all around Va. and what is now WVa. by Gen. Jackson.

My daughter went to VMI, where Gen. Jackson, the guy that was chasing great granddad, taught before the war.

kjf

We had a nice lady from Syracuse, New York move to our county some years ago, and got involved in our local Historical Society, as she was very interested in history.  

I have some historical artifacts on my place, like an old mill site, and a stone house built in 1795, so we got to talking.   I took her to one of the few local grist mills still standing (well, it was until Hurricane Fran washed it into Albemarle Sound), and we got to talking about grist mills.

"You know", she said, "the South's economy was very agriculturally based in the 1800s.   I'm surprised that there aren't more grist mills still standing.   We have quite a few in New York".

And I took the opportunity to say "Yes, but we never sent an army into New York to BURN DOWN ALL THE MILLS LIKE YOU DID!"   Wasn't that long ago.   There's still one War Between The States widow receiving a pension ....

Lannis

[SED]

Just finished reading Shelby Foote's EPIC history of the Civil War.  What a desperate, ugly struggle, but it really showed how hungry and ragged the southern soldiers had become and how, even then, many of their commanders engendered amazing loyalty through good leadership.  The southern soldiers were so obviously starving that, when captured, many Union soldiers would quickly go from shooting at them to feeding them.

[Lannis]

The sound of the train "whistle" would be considerably different.  ;) Sound of the locomotive too - if a diesel electric had rolled past in 1865, it would have been treated the same as if aliens from another galaxy landed today.  ;D

On my mom's side of the family, the two branches likely fought each other and my father's side of the family (pacifist German Baptist Brethen) likely patched them up.

Well, there would have been a train sound anyway ... the South Side Railroad was completed from Petersburg to Lynchburg in 1854, so that's when the first whistle sounded ... The water tanks for the steam engines were still standing when I were a lad, gone now though ....

Bet the turkeys sounded the same!!  And the cannons too; they're re-enacting with the same six-pounder bronze smoothbores that the Rockbridge Artillery parked at the surrender.   Unless they sounded different loaded with canister ....

Lannis

[zedXmick]

http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/25577

For those unable to click:  Read it all.

in Colonial British North America
Lithograph, The Planter Instructing His Negro, June 1792, NYPL Digital Gallery
Question
What are some common misconceptions about colonial history?

Answer
While there are many misconceptions about this time period in American history, some of the most egregious surround the institution of slavery in the mainland colonies of British North America. It is common to read back into colonial times an understanding of slavery that is based on conditions that existed just prior to the Civil War. It is also important to understand slavery as an historical institution that changed over time and differed from place to place. To that end, one of the most common misconceptions is that slavery was a uniquely or distinctively Southern institution prior to the American Revolution.

Slavery in Pre-Revolution America
In the 13 mainland colonies of British North America, slavery was not the peculiar institution of the South. This development would occur after the American Revolution and during the first decades of the 19th century. Although slaves had been sold in the American colonies since at least 1619, slave labor did not come to represent a significant proportion of the labor force in any part of North America until the last quarter of the 17th century. After that time, the numbers of slaves grew exponentially. By 1776, African Americans comprised about 20% of the entire population in the 13 mainland colonies.

The North American mainland was a relatively minor destination in the global slave-trading network.
This figure, however, masks important regional differences. It is important to remember that the North American mainland was a relatively minor destination in the global slave-trading network. Less than 4% of all African slaves were sent to North America. The vast majority of enslaved people ended up in sugar-producing regions of Brazil and the West Indies. On the mainland British colonies, the demand for labor varied by region. In contrast to the middle and New England colonies, the Southern colonies chose to export labor-intensive crops: tobacco in Chesapeake (Virginia and Maryland) and rice and indigo in South Carolina, which were believed to be very profitable.

Large vs. Small Plantations
By the time of the American Revolution, slaves comprised about 60% of South Carolina's total population and 40% of Virginia's. While most enslaved people in the Chesapeake labored on small farms, many of those in South Carolina lived on large plantations with a large number of slaves. By 1750, one third of all low-country South Carolina slaves lived on units with 50 or more slaves. Ironically, those who lived on larger plantations were often allowed to complete their tasks for the day and then spend the rest of their time as they liked, free from white supervision. Those on smaller farms, however, often found themselves working side-by-side with their white masters, hired white laborers, and only a small number of slaves. As a result, they faced more scrutiny from whites, were expected to labor for the entire day, and had fewer opportunities to interact with other enslaved African Americans.

Slaves in the Urban North
Although the largest percentages of slaves were found in the South, slavery did exist in the middle and Northern colonies. The overall percentage of slaves in New England was only 2-3%, but in cities such as Boston and Newport, 20-25% percent of the population consisted of enslaved laborers. Other large cities, such as Philadelphia and New York, also supported significant enslaved populations. Although enslaved people in cities and towns were not needed as agricultural workers, they were employed in a variety of other capacities: domestic servants, artisans, craftsmen, sailors, dock workers, laundresses, and coachmen. Particularly in urban areas, owners often hired out their skilled enslaved workers and collected their wages. Others were used as household servants and demonstrated high social status. Whatever the case, slaves were considered property that could be bought and sold. Slaves thus constituted a portion of the owners' overall wealth. Although Southern slaveholders had a deeper investment in slaves than Northerners, many Northerners, too, had significant portions of their wealth tied up in their ownership of enslaved people.

Revolution Rhetoric and Redefining Slavery
Once colonists started protesting against their own enslavement, it was hard to deny the fundamental contradiction that slavery established.
The widespread ownership of slaves had significant implications. During the battles with Britain during the 1760s and 1770s, American Patriots argued that taxing the colonies without their consent reduced the colonists to the status of slaves. Since individuals in all the colonies owned slaves, this rhetoric had enormous emotional resonance throughout the colonies and helped turn the colonists against the mother county. Moreover, once colonists started protesting against their own enslavement, it was hard to deny the fundamental contradiction that slavery established: enslavement for black people and freedom for white people. Awareness of this contradiction forced white Americans to look at slavery in a new light. If Americans chose to continue to enslave black people, they would have to devise new arguments to justify slavery. It was at this time that arguments about blacks' inherent racial inferiority emerged to rationalize the institution.

This divergence in approach . . . was arguably the fork in the road that ultimately led the country to the sectional divisions that culminated in the . . . Civil War.
Nonetheless, during and immediately after the American Revolution, many individuals in both the North and the South took their revolutionary ideals seriously and concluded that slavery was unjust. They freed, or manumitted, their slaves. Yet each state decided for itself how to handle the issue. Northern states passed laws, or enacted judicial rulings, that either eliminated slavery immediately or put slavery on the road to gradual extinction. The story was different in the South. Because Southern states had a much deeper economic investment in slavery, they resisted any efforts to eliminate slavery within their boundaries. Although some (but not all) of the Southern states allowed individual owners to manumit their slaves if they chose, no Southern state passed legislation that ended slavery completely, either immediately or gradually. This divergence in approach was significant, as it began the time during which slavery would disappear from the North and become uniquely associated with the South. This moment was arguably the fork in the road that ultimately led the country to the sectional divisions that culminated in the coming of the Civil War.

[not-fishing]

Some of us cannot think of the Civil War without feelings of a tremendous loss.

The men starving.

Brave soldiers advancing though cannon and mortar fire so that they could get within rifle range.

The new Mini-balls creating more accuracy and range at which the soldiers must advance through.

The only real cure for being shot was quick amputation without anesthesia.

So many good men lost on both sides.

[Gian4]

Lannis
The fact that the south didn't burn grist mills in NY was not for lack of trying ;).
Gian4......from sunny Syracuse NY

[Lannis]

Lannis
The fact that the south didn't burn grist mills in NY was not for lack of trying ;).
Gian4......from sunny Syracuse NY

Yep.  Darn that Gettysburg ....  :D

[Two Checks]

There was at least one ancestor (on my mother's side) who was at Appomattox. His name was Gen. Robt. E. Lee.
His mother, Elizabeth Carter, married Gen Harry Lee. Carter's lineage goes back to Robt. "King" Carter, one of the earliest settlers of Virginia and a wealthy plantation owner.
One plantation there still remains in the family.

Lee himself was against slavery, but sided with the State of Virginia for the same reasons the Colonies split from England.

Slavery was till legal until after the war and Lincoln's death with the passage of the SEOND 13th Amendment.
The first 13th Amendment which was never ratified, GUARANTEED slavery in areas where it already existed.
The war came about due to tariffs placed on Southern goods.
Lincoln stated he would use force to collect those tariffs. And he did.

The Court House site is pretty neat. I visited about 5 years ago while visiting my son in Suffolk.