U.S. Civil War History bits

Camp Douglas was also the site of a very large POW camp for Confederate soldiers. Upwards of of an estimated 6,000 CS troops died there to disease, exposure to the elements, starvation, etc. Camp Douglas is considered the "North's Andersonville". Compared to Andersonville (Georgia), the death rate was higher at Camp Douglas, and the conditions were worse. To add insult to injury, the North was in a far better position to properly tend to the prisoners than the Confederates at Andersonville.

 

Might have given us a bit more info!
"SAVANNAH, GEORGIA—A 5,000-pound-piece of the ironclad CSS Georgia has been removed from the Savannah River by U.S. Navy divers. Archaeologists will study the piece of the casemate before attempting to recover the rest of the warship, which was scuttled in 1864 by the Confederate Navy to keep it from the Union troops that were approaching Savannah. "
http://www.archaeology.org/news/1519-131114-georgia-ironclad-civil-war?

 

Painting Pickett’s Charge

 

Pickett's 'charge' was a slow walk of three divisions across a mile of open ground enfiladed by over 100 artillery pieces, shooting ball, then grape, then canister as they got closer. At 200 yards, the Union lines opened up with rifle fire, and by this point the entire Confederate line was completely enfiladed by union artillery - they were firing along the line from both sides, each shot taking out scores of men.
The two lead divisions, side by side, were pretty much wiped out, so Armistead's division which had been at the rear and received less punishment, pushed through and took the lead, crashing directly into the Union line. They actually breached the line and held it for a brief period, but there was nobody behind them to exploit the breakthrough. They died there.

This was a very ill-conceived attack. Cemetery Ridge, where the union line was deployed, wasn't much of a ridge but it was enough to make Confederate artillery almost useless in breaking it up. Very few men or guns were exposed along the crest and so most of the Confederate artillery prep went over their heads and did no damage at all. Yet, when the Confederates crossed that slightly lower ground in the attack, they were in trouble even at long range - the union balls were skipping along the ground, at first diagonally through the ranks and later perpendicularly along the lines. Of course, by that latter point they were shooting canister and even shrapnel along the lines. A number of union guns had shrapnel rounds that exploded in the air throwing metal down from above.

The event is rather like the Charge of the Light Brigade in British history, only in slow motion. It was a clear mistake to make the assault, but the men involved did their duty in valiant form.

 

The Battle of Gettysburg, and Pickett's Charge is very well known to all students of Civil War history, but the little known Battle of Franklin (Tennessee, 30 Nov, 1864) was a much more terrible clash of arms. Over 100 Confederate regiments conducted the headlong charge towards a larger army that was dug in, with no artillery preparation. I could not imagine what it was like to be part of that meat grinder, nor would I want to. There was no glory that day to be had.

Here's a little excerpt to describe the comparison of the two charges.


The annals of war may long be searched for a parallel to the desperate valor of the charge of the Army of Tennessee at Franklin, a charge which has been called "the greatest drama in American history." Perhaps its only rival for macabre distinction would be Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. A comparison of the two may be of interest. Pickett's total loss at Gettysburg was 1,354; at Franklin the Army of Tennessee lost over 6,000 dead and wounded. Pickett's charge was made after a volcanic artillery preparation of two hours had battered the defending line. Hood's army charged without any preparation. Pickett's charge was across an open space of perhaps a mile. The advance at Franklin was for two miles in the open, in full view of the enemy's works, and exposed to their fire. The defenders at Gettysburg were protected only by a stone wall. Schofield's men at Franklin had carefully constructed works, with trench and parapet. Pickett's charge was totally repulsed. The charge of Brown and Cleburne penetrated deep into the breastworks, to part of which they clung until the enemy retired. Pickett, once repelled, retired from the field. The Army of Tennessee renewed their charge, time after time. Pickett survived his charge unscathed. Cleburne was killed, and eleven other general officers were killed, wounded or captured. "Pickett's charge at Gettysburg" has come to be a synonym for unflinching courage in the raw. The slaughter-pen at Franklin even more deserves the gory honor.

Stanley F. Horn, The Army of Tennessee

 

Truthfully, Horn is full of "bull", and completely misrepresents the Battle of Franklin when comparing it to Pickett's Charge. The "1,354" was roughly the total of Confederates killed during Pickett's Charge - these losses were quite similar to the number of Confederates killed during the Battle of Franklin. However, the total Confederate casualties(killed, wounded, & captured) during Pickett's Charge were roughly equal to those at the Battle of Franklin - Both on the upside of 6,000 casualties.

 

Wiki says 6,555 Confederate casualties for Pickett's charge.

In Post 424 I refer to Pickett's three divisions, but of course those were his three brigades, making up the the division.

 

Maybe Mr. Horn is full of bull, that's your opinion. I never met the man. What he wrote in his book are his conclusions to support his research about the matter, and also to make money of course. The point I was making was that main assault in the Battle of Franklin is all but overlooked except for the serious students of the ACW. The Battle of Gettysburg and Pickett's Charge gets all the glory and attention and movies made about it. The only reference I can remember of the assault was in the movie "Gone With the Wind" when one of the old ladies in post-war Atlanta remarked about Captain Butler (Clark Gable's character) was cited for bravery at the Battle of Franklin. Splitting hairs about exact casualty numbers is not the point here.

 

That's because Gettysburg was the pivotal battle of the war. Had Lee won at Gettysburg, he was in a position to invest Washington. Even the threat of having Lee north of the city and the Army of the Potomac defeated, might have brought about a settlement. There was a demand waiting to be laid on Lincoln's desk when news of a Confederate victory in Pennsylvania reached Washington. Lee failed to provide that victory. Lincoln had very shaky political support for continuing the war and the north might well have capitulated to Confederate demands if Gettysburg had been lost. The poltroons in congress would have fled as soon as the news arrived.

After Gettysburg, the Confederacy was waging a purely defensive war. Defeat was inevitable.

Gettysburg was pivotal, but Franklin wasn't.

 

I'm not arguing that point, just pointing it out. Maybe by reading it here, someone else might be motivated enough to read about the un-pivotal Battle of Franklin, followed quickly on the heels by the Battle of Nashville. It was equally un-pivotal, but worth reading about if that sort of thing floats your boat. The Franklin-Nashville Campaign effectively destroyed the Confederate Army of Tennessee, whereas the Army of Northern Virginia was roughed up pretty bad at Gettysburg, it was still a dangerous force for the Yankees to deal with for the rest of the war. Even if the Army of Northern Virginia was successful in the eastern theater, the Army of Tennessee did not enjoy much success in the western theater for most of the war, save for the Battle of Chickamaugua and the first day at Shiloh going right off the top of my head without digging around for exact facts. That's what this thread is about and titled, "US Civil War History Bits", not cause and effect, timelines and theory and such.

 

If you did not wish to "split hairs", then it was most unwise to post such an obviously flawed comparison between the Battle of Franklin & Pickett's Charge.

Still, most, if not all of the Civil War in the West is overlooked by the mainstream media.

 

Splitting hairs was the reference to casualty rates, not the conclusion and comparison of the two points of discussion. Whether it being unwise to post the comparison is your opinion. It was not wrong in my attempt to illustrate the point of one incident in history being studied to death and another being overlooked.

However I do agree with your second statement, and that's the basis of my post on the matter.

 

I know very little about the ACW but I must say I'm a tad dissapppopinted.
I knew the 79th NY wore kilts - but that was for ceremonial only.
Others wore tartan trews.
I was hoping they'd worn them in action, sadly I've just read this.
http://www.military-history.org/articles/regiment-lincolns-highlanders.htm

 

Was Gettysburg really that pivotal? Could Lee really have invested Washington if the Union lost there? I thought Lee was headed back to Virginia when the battle occured (although he wasn't in any hurry at that point). Would haveing the Confederate army tied down outside DC be a good thing for the Confederacy? The Union was going to win as long as they didn't give up. The Confederacy however was already on barrowed time. Now if they had managed to capture LIncoln along with Washington perhaps that would have made a difference.

 

Lee had no intention of going back to Virginia. He had gone into the north to draw the Army of the Potomac out to fight on ground of his choosing, where he could defeat them. There was no other strong force between him and Washington. On the political side, the Confederate government was waiting for this victory to lay a peace demand before Lincoln and Congress. Such a demand, with Lee a few miles north of the capital and the Union Army defeated, would almost certainly have been accepted.

Remember, Lincoln only had very shaky control at this point. The Democrats in congress opposed the war. A growing faction in the Republican party opposed the war. There was rioting and open support for the south in New York and other large northern cities. There was a "Copperhead" movement in the west that openly supported the south. The war had largely been one of defeat for the north.

Lincoln's only support was a loose coalition of "radical Republicans" who represented the abolitionist movement.

After the win at Gettysburg, Lincoln's support grew and support for the war grew right along with it. It is this post-Gettysburg Lincoln that history remembers. And it is this united post-Gettysburg north that history chooses to remember. Gettysburg changed American history.

 

Good stuff, Guys. Not particularly up on the ACW, but this is helping.

 

One of the great misnomers of the war is that the charge at Gettysburg was named after Pickett. His troops did not make up the majority of the assault and he was not in overall command of the assault. His troops were the freshest, but his division was understrength(at about 60%). Jefferson Davis had decided, prior to the invasion, to detatch two of his larger brigades, that of BGen Montgomery Corse (15th, 17th, 30th, and 32nd Virginia Infantry) and BGen Micah Jenkins (a Citadel Graduate commanding 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th South Carolina Infantry, Hampton’s Legion, and the Palmetto Rifles). This latter formation, Jenkin's Brigade was one of the better brigades in the army. They had previously fought at 1st Manassas, Seven Pines, 2nd Manassas, Fredericksburg and Antietam. They were later to be one of the primary units that broke through and crushed the federal forces at Chickamauga. This is one of the great "ifs" of the Civil War. Many historians speculate that if these two brigades had been with Pickett at Gettysburg, their additional weight would quite probably have allowed the assault to succeed.

Picket had three brigades with him at Gettysburg as you stated, but his was only one of three divisions involved in the assault. BGen J. Johnston Pettigrew was in command of Heth's division (Heth had been wounded in the head during the first days fighting) of Hill's Corps and MGen Isaac Trimble in command of Pender's (Pender having been mortally wounded by a shell fragment in the thigh during the second days fighting) Division of Hill's Corps.

Despite the popular narrative which you cited as to the cause for the assaults failure, contemporary accounts paint a much different picture. This was largely obscured during the post war Longstreet-Early feud. Many of the confederate officers and men felt that the assault started to fall apart on the left flank when Brockenbrough's brigade was not pushed forward vigorously and then was flanked by the 8th Ohio, which in turn chewed up Davis's Brigade when Brockenbrough fell back. Anderson's failure to press Wilcox and Lang forward, exposed Pickett's right flank. General lack of coordination and non-exercise of control has to be laid in Longstreet's lap. He was given overall command of the assault, but because he had opposed it, he failed to exercise his normal attention to detail and control of forces. Read the Southern Historical Society Papers. available on CD-ROM and the various Union Regimental histories and you'll see that the reasons for the repulse were complex and the end result was not a foregone conclusion.

 

Quite possibly. But, because of the limited ground those brigades would have had to march in the rear where they would have just stacked up behind the other brigades on the killing field. The problem wasn't having enough men, it was fitting enough men into the center where the attack was directed.

Of course, they could have been committed on the confederate right with Anderson, but that ground was more broken and overlooked by the artillery and infantry emplacements on the much higher hills anchoring the Union left.

It depends on the account. There is no doubt that the events are far more complex than can be painted in a simple forum post. The fact remains that Armistead's brigade (Pickett) was the only meaningful penetration (a smaller breach was opened on Armistead's right - the union left) and that there was no strength behind either of these breaches to exploit the opportunity.

The attack of the Confederate left (Pettigrew and Trimble) didn't come close to shaking the Union line. Anderson, on the right, never reached the Union line.

Pickett's division was the main axis of the attack, so the macro-view will always focus there.

 

Gettysburg was not recognized as being as pivotal, contemporaneously, as it is now in hindsight. There were still a number of opportunities to lose the war up until the November 1864 Presidential election. If Bragg and Longstreet had cooperated after Chickamauga when they had the Army of the Cumberland bottled up in Chattanooga and on the verge of starvation, they could have destroyed it and reversed nearly two years of progress by the Union in the western theater.
If Sherman hadn't taken Atlanta on September 2d, right before the election, Lincoln might not have won. It was a huge win politically. It must be remembered what was taking place that summer and fall of 1864. Huge casualty lists were being reported in the north from Grant and Lee's fighting in the overland campaign. In May Grant suffered 17,666 casualties at the Wilderness, then another 18,399 a few days later at Spotsylvania Courthouse, then another 2,600 at North Anna, another 12,737 at the end of May and into the first of June at Cold Harbor. Every day in between the major engagements smaller fights with casualties from near 100 up to 1000 or so, were being fought. That fall the two sides faced off around Petersburg and the casualty reports mounted continually with no end in sight.
In the Shenandoah, Sigel had been soundly defeated at New Market in May. Hunter replaced him and Lee sent Jubal Early to deal with him. In early July at Monocacy and Ft. Stevens Early threatened Washington. A series of clashes took place all summer. Near the end of July Early captured and burned Chambersburg, PA. Grant was forced to divert troops and send Phil Sheridan to the valley to deal with Early's raids.
The twin victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg did buoy northern morale, but only hindsight allows us to see them as the turning point. In 1864 victory or defeat was still balanced on a knifes edge. The fall of Atlanta and Lincoln's re-election removed all doubt as to the end result. The final cost was all that was left to be decided.

 

That's very insightful, and very likely true.