U.S. Civil War History bits

Thanks USMCPrice!

The Confederate 1st Lieutenants Jacket is great looking! Would have been my choice. How about supplying the troops with food and ammo and so on. Have they taken it from the people at the country or was it delivered by the army? In the later times of war it would have been from the country?

 

Pricey?

The Confederate Jacket with red facings, is that always artillary?

 

It normally would be, but considering the shortages in the south especially as the war dragged on it would not be uncommon for a southern soldier to 'aquire' any coat that came close to fitting. Personal needs would come first and a Confederate officer would not force him to discard it unless there was something else suitable.

 

Great photos again. Until recently, there used to be a London firm specialising in reproductions who made Brogan boots.

 

Hilts, Belasar gave you a very good answer to your question. Never rule anything out, but it wouldn't be common. As Belasar stated, shortages in materials and clothing in the south make it more likely to be encountered in confederates than in union forces. That's also why you're more likely to find faced/piped southern uniforms produced early to mid-war, instead of late war.

Union artillery corporal's uniform.

 

Pretty much. Here's a Osprey book on it.
Amazon.com: American Civil War Armies (5): Volunteer Militia (Men-at-Arms) (No.5) (9780850458534): Philip Katcher, Ronald Volstad: Books
The term "trained bands" seems to only get hits on the ECW so that terminology may not be widely used. Here's a quote from the above book via the Amazon page:

Some of these units existed prior to the civil war and how serious they were varried significanlty. Some were little more than social clubs others did drill a fair amount. I should say at this point that I'm not an expert on this by any means. Take a look at just the names of some of these Ohio units to get the flavor of things:
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/scrapbook-view.php?rec=31
This site has some pictures as well:
http://www.military-historians.org/company/plates/images/US.htm

 

I came across the following article by chance and I post it purely as a matter of historical interest. I, in no way, want to start any kind of Pro/anti Semetic argument & if the mods choose to delete it, I'd understand why.

Still, I found it interesting and an aspect of the Civil war I'd never come across.

The Only Jewish Military Cemetery in the World other than Israel?

America's Only Jewish Military Cemetery

Courtesy of the Hebrew Cemetery Company of Richmond.

Every once in a while I come across a story that just knocks me out.
Of course I knew that Jews fought for the South, but I never knew that
the Jewish dead were segregated, excluded from burial?with proper
honors?in Confederate military cemeteries. Talk about irony. But in
a way, I suppose this anti-Semitism was a blessing in disguise for
Jews should be buried in Jewish cemeteries.
The Hebrew Confederate Cemetery, located in Richmond, Virginia, is the
only Jewish military cemetery in the world outside of Israel. It was
created by the anti-Semitism of the two Confederate military
cemeteries, in Spotsylvania Court House and Fredericksburg. They
refused to bury the Jewish Confederate soldiers killed in the battles
of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Wilderness. They didn?t want
?Jewish boys? in their cemeteries. They brought them to the Hebrew
Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. They were buried in five rows, with
six bodies in a row, in a self -contained hallowed area within the
larger Hebrew Cemetery. Those buried came from Mississippi, Texas ,
North Carolina , South Carolina , Georgia and Louisiana .
Snip!
Many of the local Jewish Confederate soldiers killed are not in this
military cemetery as they were buried in their family plots at the
Hebrew Cemetery. One of these soldiers was Isaac Levy of Richmond,
Virginia. He was 21 years old when he was killed in the trenches near
Petersburg on August 21, 1864. He was an orthodox Jew, who wrote his
sister that he and other Jewish Confederate soldiers managed to have a
Passover Seder with Kosher food. T.N. Waul, who commanded a
Confederate Legion said, ?Jewish soldiers were brave, orderly,
well?disciplined and in no respect inferior to the gallant body in
which they formed a prominent part. Their behavior in the field was
exemplary and no Jew was ever before a court-martial. I never heard of
any Jewish soldier shirking or failing to answer any call of duty and
danger.?

Full story here.

Courtesy of the Hebrew Cemetery Company of Richmond .
The Hebrew Confederate Cemetery Plaque reads:
TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN MEMORY OF THE HEBREW CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS
RESTING IN THIS HALLOWED SPOT ERECTED BY HEBREW LADIES MEMORIAL ASSOC.
RICHMOND, VA. ORGANIZED 1866.
LIST OF BURIALS
M. Levy , Mississippi , killed May 31, 1862.
J. Rosenberg , Ga.
Henry Adler, 46th Va.
E.J. Sampson, 4th Texas , killed June 27th, 1862.
G. Wolfe , N.C.
I. Hessberg, Caroline co.
Unknown soldier
Henry Gersberg, Salem , Va. , killed June 2, 1864.
T. Foltz, 16th Miss.
I. Cohen, Hampton (S.C.) Legion.
Sam Bear, Ga.
S. Bachrach, Lynchburg , Va.
Jonathan Sheuer, La.
J. Frank , Ga.
Henry Cohen, SC. killed June 29, 1864.
Capt. Jacob A. Cohen, Co. A, 10th La., killed at 2nd Manassas, August
30, 1862, age, 33 years.
M. Aaron , N.C.
A. Lehman , S.C.
Julius Zark, 7th Louisiana .
A. Heyman , Georgia .
Lieut. W.M. Wolf, Hagood's S.C. Brigade, died May 9, 1864.
Lieut. L.S. Lipman, 5th Louisiana , died May 9, 1863.
Erected by his brothers to the memory of Isaac Seldner, of the 6th
Virg. Inf. Reg., born December 23, 1837, killed at the battle of
Chancellorsville , Va. , May 3rd, 1863. None knew him but to love him.
S. Weiss , Ga.
H. Jacobs, S.C.
E.B. Miller, died April 6, 1864.
Corpl. G. Eiseman, 12th Miss.
M. Bachrach, Lynchburg , Va.
S. Oury, 16th Miss. ; died June 10, 1861.
A. Robinson, 15th Ga. , died Jan. 26, 1863.

Richmond area Jewish Confederate soldiers, who were killed in battle,
were buried in their family plots elsewhere in this cemetery. They are
Gustavus Kann, 16th Mississippi; Henry Smith, Richmond, Otey Battery;
Marx Myers, Richmond Grays; Isaac J. Levy, Richmond Blues and Captain
M. Marcus, 15th Georgia, killed October 13, 1864.

 

Carl started this thread in honour of Bobby Lee's birthday...............seems some Mayor in Arkansas had the same idea.................Carl's went better!!

http://www.foxnew.com/us/2011/01/25/...nfederate-flag

 

I'll have to do more research but I question the validity of the article. Here are some of my reasons.

1.) If it were due to anti-Semitism why only those two confederate cemetaries?

They don't mention Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, while not exclusively a military cemetery there are 18,00 confederate enlisted men and 25 Generals buried there. How about Oakwood Confederate Cemetery, Richmond, the second largest with 17,000.+ buried CSA soldiers. How about McGavock Confederate Cemetery (1500 burials) it is the largest privately held Confederate cemetery in the United States. Or how about Marietta Confederate Cemetery, which is the largest Confederate cemetery South of Richmond and is located in Marietta GA (3000+) confederate dead. This is just the tip of the iceberg there are many, many more.

2.) Both the cemetaries mentioned were not established until after the war according to the NPS. Fredericksburg in 1867 (3,300 Southern soldiers buried, of which 2,184 are unidentified) and Spotsylvania (600 soldiers) in 1866. Both cemetaries were created to re-inter the southern dead from the surrounding battlefields where they had been buried in hastily dug graves. Many of those recovered were sent for reburial in local cemetaries. Is it not more likely that they were re-interred in the Hebrew Cemetery out of respect for their religion than out of anti-Semitism? And if the cause were anti-Semitism the Confederate Government and military were long gone. The predjudice would rest with the local women's groups that took on the task of having the dead moved.

3.) There are 30 Jewish Confederates buried in the Hebrew Military Cemetery. There were approximately 258,000. confederate military deaths during the war. Does it really appear that there was an effort to segregate the burials of Confederate Jewish dead? I don't see it.

4.) Why the dead from only these battles? There were in excess of 10,000. known engagements. The Civil War Sites Advisory Commission (appointed by Congress and by the Secretary of the Interior) identified 384 of these actions "as the principal battles". Does this really make sense? Where were those jewish rebels buried?

I may be wrong, it won't be the first time, but the article smacks of modern revisionism.

 

Im probably out of salutes now but this one was worth it ;-))

 

I saw the last name of Foltz in the names list. That was my Grandfathers last name. I wonder if there is any relation there?

 

Mr Daniel is a true Southern American Patriot. If I could find someplace that sells high quality made Battle Flags, i'd buy one and fly it. Around here these people BLATENTLY fly flags from their ancestry-and most of the time, its OVER the American Colors-which infuriates me to no end. If I were in mind to get into some mischief? I would gladly lower those foreign flags below the American Colors.

When I lived in Kingsville, I too always flew the Battle Flag, as well as our Countries flag, the Jack and a Pirate Flag.

 

Hi Price, I wouldnt be surprised too, to learn that that article was one of "revision". This rewriting of American history really ticks me off. I wanted to word this differently but, I didnt feel like getting banned.

 

This is a really hard question Ulrich because it varied so much, in general munitions/ammo was supplied by the armies. It was manufactured, imported or captured from the opposing force. Food was primarily provided by the armies, and supplemented by foraging (acquired/begged/purchased/stolen) from the local populace, more so if it was the enemy's civilian populace. Both sides tried to keep foraging and depredations against the civilian populace to a minimum. Guerrillas and other types of irregulars generally existed by stealing from the populace, a notable exception would be Mosby who the civilian population idolized and freely supported. Later in the war Federal forces turned to theft and destruction as a tool to break the will of the southern civilian populace. Particularly in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and Sherman's March from Atlanta to the Sea.
General Phil Sheridan when ordering destruction in the Shenandoah, “If a crow wants to fly down the Shenandoah, he must carry his provisions with him.”

 

The Choctaw Confederates.

Another dispatch in a fascinating series on the Civil War in the Times:

"During the first week of February, while gentlemen from across the South convened in Montgomery, Ala., to establish a new nation, a meeting of another, far older nation was happening 500 miles to the west. Instead of taking place under the lofty dome of a neoclassical capitol, this one was held in a simple wooden council house, on the red clay banks of a muddy creek near what is now the Texas-Oklahoma border. Here the tribal leaders of the Choctaw Nation gathered to debate their future.

"No detailed description of that council session survives. But the Choctaws on the eve of the Civil War were a heterogeneous, sometimes fractious people, poised at an intersection of races and cultures, of new ways and old ones. Here is how a white missionary described a gathering in Doaksville, the tribe’s capital, a few years earlier:

"'There were cabins, tents, booths, stores, shanties, wagons, carts, campfires; white, red, black and mixed in every imaginable shade and proportion and dressed in every conceivable variety of style, from tasty American clothes to the wild costumes of the Indians; buying, selling, swapping, betting, shooting, strutting, talking, laughing, fiddling, eating, drinking, smoking, sleeping, seeing and being seen, all bundled together.'

"Now the Choctaws’ elected representatives – like the leaders of many other native tribes across the South – faced a momentous decision: Whether to remain loyal to the United States or cast their lot with the new and untested Confederate States of America."

The Choctaw Confederates - NYTimes.com

Dave

 

Well we've looked at uniforms, now arms and equipment.

Both sides were similarly equipped. Each infantry soldier carried a rifled musket. The pimary Federal one was the 1861/1863 Springfield rifled musket.


1861 Springfield.


1863 Springfield.


CS Richmond Rifled Musket.

The Confederates produced a copy of the 1861 Springfield called the Richmond on machinery they had captured at Harpers Ferry Armory.



1853 Pattern Enfield

The primary Confederate rifled musket was the P-1853 Enfield, this was also the second most common Federal rifled musket.

The Springfields were .58 caliber the Enfield .577 caliber but basically used the same round. Both rifles were extremely accurate out to 500 yards and effective out to 1000.

Early war the Model 1842 Springfield "Harper's Ferry Musket" a .69 caliber smoothbore was quite common.



1842 Springfield.

They were replaced in service as more rifled muskets became available, but there were still units using them late war.

 

And those Da***d Yankees on the first day at Gettysburg had Carbines..................

 

I always thought the civil war was a bigger catalyst for US industrialisation that it appears to have been, but still a major step-
U.S. Industrialization

 

Thanks for your answer USMCPrice! Yes i thought that this would be a hard one to answer. I followed some reports from the Napoleonic wars and some spanish battles where it was the same. Bad to be the civilist at the wrong side! Hey, good informations on the rifles.

 

Carl, go online and google "Confederate flags", "historical flags" or "Confederate battle flags" and you'll have options galore. Have your credit card handy, make your order, and it will be in your mailbox in a few days.