Is a thread being treated as the entire bolt of cloth?

Does the modern study of the Civil War have to revolve around slavery? A few years ago I was attending a program that took us to the scene of the Battle of the Crater. Here it was, a summer sunset near that depression where so many men, of both sides, gave their lives for their definition of country, and two “history experts” launch into a diatribe about the vile Southern soldier fighting to maintain slavery. To hear those two published historians disrespect the Southern soldier on a battlefield where so many of them bled out was disgusting. Really, of all the places! I get that slavery was an embarrassing chapter in our country history. I get that from the modern eyes the Southern soldier seems an agent for slavery, but that’s the point, from a modern eye. None of us lived during that time. Who are we to judge? With an early 19th Century cultural upbringing and/or economic necessity could those two historians honestly say they would not have been the very slave owner/confederate soldier they were gashing while standing on that sacred soil. As a teacher I think it is imperative the slavery story be taught with all the zeal it deserves. I also think we have no right to judge, we have no right to disrespect them on their soil and we need to keep the various issues of the Civil War where they belong. Antietam is about the soldiers fighting and dying in the bloodiest battle in our history then it’s the story of the Emancipation Proclamation and it should be presented in that order. Why am I rambling about this three years later? Two reasons: The Gettysburg Visitor Center video and upcoming class I’ll be taking. The Gettysburg Visitor Center is a beautiful site with some excellent history. It also has a video, the one the visitor sees before viewing the Cyclorama, which makes slavery the seminal aspect of the war and, by inference, the seminal reason for Gettysburg. Agreed ending slavery was the most significant result of the war. However I am not kin to making Gettysburg about slavery. It was about soldiers giving their full measure. It was about generals leading their ‘boys’ across rocky fields and slopes. It was about the town forever changed and an address by a president. The video did not celebrate the afore mentioned except as a back drop to the slavery story. Sad. The second reason I’m writing this now is the content I have to read in preparation for an upcoming class on American history. Of the 18 some readings 10 of them have slavery as their major theme. Slavery’s introduction, slavery’s spread, slavery and the Civil War, Reconstruction for the African American and Civil Rights makes up the majority of the class reading. Even though I am very excited to read the material and attend the lectures I am a bit sad that the history of our country is being painted by its relationship with slavery, not slavery as a thread in our history.

Is there a better quote for a man losing love of country?

"My shoes are gone; my clothes are almost gone. I'm weary, I'm sick, I'm hungry. My family have been killed or scattered. And I have suffered all this for my country. I love my country. But if this war is ever over, I'll be damned if I ever love another country." -A confederate veteran

Leaving for the East

At 3:30 this afternoon myself and four comrades are loading up the van for a weekend out East. Excited? Oh yes. Friday we will do our adopt a monument work at Gettysburg. We'll clean, paint or whatever else they need us to do. Giving back to a park that has given me so much over the years will be a rewarding way to spend the day. Our efforts will include the 1st U.S. sharpshooter Wisconsin company marker and the 6th Wi marker, plus... . After a day of making Gburg more presentable, we'll head to Manassas where, for the weekend, we will do a living history at Brawner's Farm, portraying the 6th Wi. Infantry. Camping on the actual site, talking to the public and marching around the battlefield with some of the finest living historians around is sure to make the weekend memorable. Finishing off the weekend with a Sunday evening/Monday morning tour of Antietm will conclude a weekend out East. For those that live far away from battlefields, making a trip like this is something we covet. The first sign of Gettysburg I see will make my heart skip a beat and my mind fill with the events that made that hollowed ground so important to the American identity. And I get to hit some awesome bookstores.

A what if

One of my guilty historical pleasures is playing with the idea of, ‘what if.’ What if the air craft carriers had been in harbor on December 7th… What if Jackson were alive at Gettysburg… What if… Well after reading Iron Makers To The Confederacy: John R. Andrews and Tredegar Iron Works by Charles B. Dew, I have found another what if.

During the late months of 1861 and into the spring of 1862 Tredegar Iron works of Richmond Virginia was asked to make the iron sheeting for the South’s new iron clad as well as make cannon. In the lot of armament made for the CSS Virginia were two 7 inch and two 6.4 inch Brookes rifled cannon. “They also cast a number of shell for the Merrimack’s rifled canon but no solid shot was produced prior to the ironclad’s first engagement with the enemy” (119.) Here comes the what if. “… the confederate gun crews had no wrought iron bolts with which to load their rifled guns. Those projectiles could have penetrated the turret of the enemy’s (Monitor) ship” (120).

So what if they had had the solid shells mentioned in the previous quote? If the confederate shot had penetrated the turret of the Monitor the result of the engagement would have turned in favor of the confederates. The smoothbore shots of the Monitor was not capable of breaching the Tredegar iron of the CSS Virginia. With the confederate iron clad in control of Hampton Roads, would the federal army have been able to use Fort Monroe as a staging center for the Peninsula campaign? How much more destruction could the CSS Virginia had brought on the federal fleet? How much would the loss at Hampton Roads impacted the overall strategy of the war early on? I am not of the opinion that a solid shot for the rifled Brooks guns would have won the war for the Confederacy. I do think the Peninsula campaign may not have happened. From there, I’ll let you ponder.

NOTE: After the Virginia/Monitor engagement, Tredegar came up with a steel tipped wrought iron bolt, weighing 115 pounds, developed to pierce iron (130). Later the U.S.S. Keokuk was sunk using that ammunition fired from a rifled cannon.

By the way the book was a fascinating study of the south’s largest iron producer’s successes and failures in equipping the Confederacy and how their ability to utilize the natural resources (iron ore, coal and the like) kept the South from capitalizing on its small but effective iron manufacturing base.