U.S. Civil War History bits

Been a while, so...
“For sugar the government often got sand; for coffee, rye; for leather, something no better than brown paper; for sound horses and mules, spavined beasts and dying donkeys; and for serviceable muskets and pistols, the experimental failures of sanguine inventors, or the refuse of shops and foreign armories.” So wrote Harper’s Monthly journalist Robert Tomes in July 1864. What Tomes was describing was far from uncommon during the American Civil War, a war that many have put on high moral ground beneath the umbrella of righteousness. But in that war, as with most wars throughout history, thievery and corruption ran rampant. This corruption, involving not only suppliers and manufacturers in the North but also high government officials, resulted in the unnecessary loss of life for many Union soldiers and was so costly as to prolong the war many months after it might have come to an end."
The Days of Shoddy: Worst Manufacturers of the Civil War - Warfare History Network

 

Similar complaints were made about the War of 1812 with one Sam Wilson being accused. He has been later immortalised as Uncle Sam

 

The Southern Soldiers got a small fraction of logistical supplies that the Northern Soldiers we’re getting.

 

Not sure what that has to do with corruption and shoddy supplies & equipment...

 

Just pointing out that even with corruption to deal with and shoddy supplies and equipment that the Northern soldiers had was superior in every aspect to what Southern soldiers had available to them. Maybe I didn’t word it clearly.

 

Now, this has got to be some kind of record, surely?
The last known widow of a Civil War soldier has died at the age of 101, ending a remarkable life story that she had kept to herself for over 80 years.
When Maudie Hopkins of Arkansas died in 2008, it was believed that there were no known Civil War widows left in the nation.
Then, in December 2017, Helen Viola Jackson of Marshfield, Missouri, decided to tell her own astonishing tale.
'I never wanted to share my story with the public,' she said in 2018. 'I didn't feel that it was that important and I didn't want a bunch of gossip about it.'
Jackson explained that she was 17 when she married 93-year-old James Bolin, in 1936.
Bolin was a friend of her family, and the teenage Jackson was sent by her father to assist him in his old age.
He was unable to pay her for her service, and so he suggested they marry, in order for her to claim his Union pension.
Jackson, one of ten children, agreed - but on the condition she could keep her unmarried name, and continue living with her family on the farm. Bolin agreed, and they remained married until his death on June 18, 1939.
Jackson never remarried, and had no children. She also never claimed his pension, after Bolin's step-daughter threatened to smear her reputation if she did so.
'All a woman had in 1939 was her reputation,' she said.
'I didn't want them all to think that I was a young woman who had married an old man to take advantage of him.'
Jackson's death, and her story, was confirmed by the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War "
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9116661/Last-widow-Civil-War-veteran-dies-101-Woman-married-93-year-old-aged-17-passes-away.html

 

Don't think we've had a conspiracy theory in this thread before!
"A lawyer has claimed the FBI secretly discovered $400 million in stolen Civil War gold bars buried in a Pennsylvania forest.
Harrisburg attorney William Cluck said Thursday he'd learned the name of the federal judge who ordered all records of the March 2018 excavation to be sealed.
'I got what I wanted,' Cluck told PennLive after submitting a Right-to-Know appeal.
He said he can now apply to the judge in question to unseal the records in the case.
Cluck's client is Finders Keepers LLC, treasure hunters who say they were banned from digging at Dents Run, where legend says gold bullion was buried.
The FBI later carried out work at the forest but said they didn't find anything.
According to the 155-year-old tale, a Union Army wagon train was carrying two tons of gold on a 400-mile journey between Wheeling, West Virginia, and Gettysburg.
The gold was sent by President Abraham Lincoln to pay Union soldiers but first had to make a stop at the US Mint in Philadelphia.
It was last spotted in St Marys, Pennsylvania, travelling northeast towards the capital.
When the wagon train didn't arrive at the Mint, searchers were sent out who discovered empty wagons and the bodies of dead soldiers.
Various accounts say that the lieutenant charged with leading the wagon had fallen into a fever and divulged the secret of their cargo to the lower ranking soldiers.
Roguish elements within his own squadron are then said to have slain the rest and made off with the treasure.
In any case, despite the best efforts to track down the gold it was never found.
Different versions say that the shipment was either carrying 26 gold bars or 52, each weighing 50 pounds.
In today's money it would be worth between $35 million and $70 million.
Cluck's clients put the value at $400 million, clearly believing there is more than just the single tonne of gold.
Treasure hunters have been searching the forests of Pennsylvania for decades to try and find the legendary stash of gold.
In 2012, Finders Keepers said they'd found the gold but the state would not allow them to dig it.
They say that Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources barred them from excavating the area."
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9201393/Did-FBI-secretly-400m-stolen-civil-war-gold-buried-Pennsylvania.html

 

An interesting wee article on a subject I can't recall having heard about. Was there a "stabbed in the back" myth amongst ex-Confederates?
"The Confederate States of America fought two wars, one against the armed forces of the United States and one against fellow Southerners who joined either the Union Army or pro-Union guerrilla groups. Although they came from all classes, most Southern Unionists differed socially, culturally, and economically from their region’s dominant prewar, slave-owning planter class. As many as 100,000 men living in the 11 Confederate states eventually served in the Union Army. The majority of them were from Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia/West Virginia."
Southerner vs. Southerner: Union Supporters Below the Mason-Dixon Line - Warfare History Network

 

I have serious doubts about a gold delivery to pay soldiers. Greenbacks is lighter.

 

I think that is just our local legend. The gold shipment was bound for Wheeling, West Virginia, and never got there.

 

Like the gold of the Confederacy that left Richmond with Davis. That I think was real.