Download in long, common use by the US military.[7] It has

(Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)
Harriet Tubman, Union Spymaster
The former slave known for leading more than 300 people—including her elderly parents—to freedom as a conductor on
the Underground Railroad was also a Union spy. Born in Maryland around 1820, Tubman volunteered for the Union as a
cook and a nurse before she was recruited by Union officers to establish a network of spies in South Carolina made up of
former slaves.
Tubman became the first woman in the country’s history to lead a military expedition when she helped Col. James
Montgomery plan a night raid to free slaves from rice plantations along the Combahee River. On June 1, 1863,
Montgomery, Tubman and several hundred black soldiers traveled up the river in gunboats, avoiding remotely-detonated
mines that had been placed along the waterway. When they reached the shore, they destroyed a Confederate supply depot
and freed more than 750 slaves.
After the war, Tubman tried to collect $1,800 for her service but was unsuccessful. Due to the service of her late husband,
she did receive a widow’s pension of $8 per month beginning in June 1890. The government authorized a payment of $25
a month to Tubman beginning in January 1899, but Tubman only received $20 per month until her death in 1913, when
she was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York.
In 2003, after students at the Albany Free School brought the issue of Tubman’s remaining pension to the attention of
New York Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton, Congress authorized a payment of $11,750 to the Harriet Tubman Home in
Auburn.
(Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)
Pauline Cushman, Union Spy
Born in New Orleans, Pauline Cushman was a struggling 30-year-old actress in 1863. While performing in Louisville,
Kentucky, she was dared by Confederate officers to interrupt a show to toast Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy.
Cushman contacted the Union Army’s local provost marshal and offered to perform the toast as a way to ingratiate herself
to the Confederates and become a federal intelligence operative. The marshal agreed, and she gave the toast the next
evening.
The Union immediately sent Cushman to federally occupied Nashville, where she began her work with the Army of the
Cumberland. She gathered information about enemy operations, identified Confederate spies and served as a federal
courier before she came under suspicion by the Confederates and was arrested. She was sentenced to hang but was saved
by the unexpected arrival of Union forces at Shelbyville. Because of the attention she received, Cushman was forced to
stop her work.
After the war, Cushman tried acting again and gave monologues on the war, sometimes while wearing a uniform. As the
public’s interest in Cushman faded, she supported herself as a seamstress but became addicted to morphine after an
illness. She died of an overdose at the age of 60 and was buried with military honors by the Veterans of the Grand Army of
the Republic in their cemetery in San Francisco.
(James A. Chambers, U.S. Army Deputy, Office of the Chief, Military Intelligence)
Mary Elizabeth Bowser (a.k.a. Mary Jane Richards), Union Spy
Mary Elizabeth Bowser, likely born Mary Jane Richards, was a slave of the Van Lew family in Richmond, Virginia. When
John Van Lew died in September 1843, his will stipulated that his wife, Eliza, could not sell or free any of the family’s
slaves. Eliza and her daughter Elizabeth Van Lew were against slavery and seem to have secretly granted their slaves,
including Bowser, freedom.
When the Civil War broke out, the Van Lews brought food, medicine and books to Union soldiers at nearby Libby Prison.
Elizabeth conveyed messages between the prisoners and Union officials and helped prisoners escape. To do this, she relied
on an informal network of women and men, white and black, all drawn from Richmond’s clandestine Unionist community
to help her. The most noteworthy of these individuals was Bowser, who had married a free black man named Wilson
Bowser in 1861 and taken his name.
In the fall of 1865, Bowser gave an address in Brooklyn alluding to her infiltration of the Confederate White House during
the war. Though the story has been difficult to document, Bowser’s willingness to risk her life as part of the Richmond
underground is certain.
Details of Bowser’s life after the war are unknown.
(Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)
Belle Boyd, Confederate Spy
One of the most famous Confederate spies, Belle Boyd was born to a prominent slaveholding family near Martinsburg,
Virginia (now West Virginia), in 1843. At the age of 17, she was arrested for shooting a Union soldier who had broken into
her family’s home and insulted her mother. Though Union officers investigated and cleared her of all charges, they
watched her closely after that. Young and attractive, Boyd used her charms to get information from the officers, which she
passed along to the Confederacy.
After repeated warnings to disengage in covert activities, Boyd was sent by Union officials to live with family in Front
Royal, Virginia. Soon after her arrival, she began working as a courier between Confederate generals Thomas J.
"Stonewall" Jackson and P.G.T. Beauregard. Jackson credited the intelligence she provided with helping him win victories
in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862.
In July 1862, Boyd was arrested by Union forces and sent to Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. She was released a
month later and deported to Richmond, but she was soon caught behind federal lines and imprisoned for three more
months. In 1864 she was arrested again while trying to smuggle Confederate papers to England. She fled the country and a
few months later married Samuel W. Hardinge, one of the Union naval officers who had detained her. Hardinge returned
briefly to the United States and was imprisoned as a suspected Southern spy. He died soon after his release.
Boyd, now a widow, wrote her two-volume memoir, Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison, in 1865 and embarked on an acting
career, often telling of her clandestine experiences during the war. She remarried twice and died in Wisconsin in 1900.
(The Granger Collection, NYC)
Rose O'Neal Greenhow, Confederate Spy
Rose O'Neal Greenhow was a popular Washington socialite, a widow in her 40s and an impassioned secessionist when she
began spying for the Confederacy in 1861. Using her powerful social connections, Greenhow obtained information about
Union military activity and passed coded messages to the Confederates. One of her most important messages, hidden in
her female courier’s hair, helped Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard gather enough forces to win the First Battle of Bull Run.
Suspicious of Greenhow’s activities, Allan Pinkerton, head of the federal government’s newly formed Secret Service,
gathered enough evidence to place her under house arrest. But Greenhow continued to get information to her contacts. In
January 1862, she was transferred, along with her 8-year-old daughter, to Old Capitol Prison. Several months later she
was deported to Baltimore, Maryland, where the Confederates welcomed her as a hero.
Confederate President Jefferson Davis sent Greenhow on her next mission to Britain and France to help gain support for
the Confederacy. While in Europe she published her memoir, My Imprisonment, and the First Year of Abolition Rule at
Washington.
In September1864, Greenhow returned to the South aboard the Condor, a British blockade-runner, carrying $2,000 in
gold. A Union gunboat pursued the ship as it neared the North Carolina shore, and it ran aground on a sandbar. Against
the captain’s advice, Greenhow tried to escape in a rowboat with two other passengers. The boat capsized and she
drowned, presumably weighed down by the gold she carried around her neck. Her body washed ashore the next day and
was buried by the Confederates with full military honors.
(Photo by O.H. Willard, Library of Congress Philadelphia Manuscript Division, Gift of the Willard Family)
Antonia Ford, Confederate Spy
Born to a wealthy Virginia family, Antonia Ford was 23 when she provided military intelligence to Confederate cavalry
general J.E.B. Stuart. Ford gathered information from Union soldiers who occupied her hometown of Fairfax Court
House, which was halfway between Washington, D.C. and Manassas, Virginia. In October 1861, Stuart rewarded Ford with
a written honorary commission as aide-de-camp and ordered that she “be obeyed, respected and admired.”
In March 1863, Stuart’s commission was used against Ford when she was accused of spying for John Singleton Mosby.
Mosby’s partisan rangers had captured Union general Edwin H. Stoughton in his headquarters—one of the most famous
cavalry raids of the war. The Secret Service suspected Ford was involved in planning the attack in part because Stoughton
and Ford had spent time together. The Secret Service sent a female operative, pretending to be a Confederate sympathizer,
to meet with Ford, who showed her Stuart’s commission. Ford was soon arrested. While being held, she was found with
smuggled papers.
After several months at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C., Ford was released due to the petitioning of Union
major Joseph C. Willard—one of her captors. Willard resigned from the Union Army, and he and Ford married in March
1864; Ford took an oath of allegiance to the United States.
The couple stayed in Washington, D.C. and had three children, but only one survived infancy. Their son, Joseph Edward
Willard, later became lieutenant governor of Virginia and United States ambassador to Spain.
Ford died on February 14, 1871, at the age of 33. Her husband never remarried.
Civil War Ironclads
An Introduction
What were the ironclads?
Basically, an "ironclad" was a steam-propelled warship fitted with plates of iron armor. The idea of an armored
warship was not new; the Vikings used to line the sides of their longships with their shields, several
shipbuilders came up with the idea of a ship encased in lead, and, most famously, the Koreans built a "turtle"
ship in the sixteenth century, armored with iron and propelled by oars. None of these really led to further
warship designs, so they are only historical curiosities. The steam-propelled ironclads of the 1800s, on the other
hand, led directly to the warships of today.
At about the same time, shipbuilders began to experiment with using iron instead of wood to build the hulls of
ships. Having an iron hull didn't make a ship an ironclad, though. There were ironclads with wooden hulls, just
as there were unarmored ships with iron hulls. As a comparison, consider the difference between a normal
passenger car and a tank. They're both made of steel, but the steel body of the car isn't really armor, while the
tank's steel is much thicker and is arranged in special ways to deflect shot.
There were several different types of ironclad, but the most common ones in the Civil War were casemate
ironclads and monitors. A casemate was an armored box, sometimes with slanting sides, built to protect the
guns and crew from enemy shot. Most Southern ironclads and many Union river ironclads were built with
casemates. Most Southern ironclads also had strong, sharp bows to ram and sink enemy ships, so Southern
ironclads were often simply called rams. A monitor was a low-freeboard steamship with a small number of
heavy guns in a turret. Low-freeboard meant the deck of the ship was very close to the water, and a turret was
an armored cylinder or box that rotated to aim the guns.
What did the ironclads do?
Warships are built for two main purposes: to fight other ships, and to attack forces on land. The first ironclads
were built by the French to attack enemy forts during the Crimean War in the 1850s. Britain and France also
began to build ironclads that were designed to fight other ships. Of course, the very first time that one ironclad
fought another was when the Monitor and the Virginia (formerly known as Merrimack) fought in Hampton
Roads, Virginia, on 9 March 1862. More has been written about this one battle than anything else the ironclads
did, but it's important to remember that there were many more ironclads besides just those two, on both sides
and in other countries.
Some major examples of the "other" ironclads were on the Mississippi River during the Civil War. These were
very different from the monitors and rams along the coast. Sometimes, the river ironclads were just large
riverboats with their passenger cabins and other peacetime furniture and equipment removed, armored and
armed with heavy cannon. Others were built from scratch, but they still looked more like riverboats than regular
ships.
The Confederacy used many of its ironclads to defend their harbors and rivers, since one ironclad could defeat a
larger number of wooden warships, and most of the Union warships were wooden. Sometimes, this meant that a
Southern ironclad could spend years in a single harbor, never seeing an enemy, but always around just in case it
was needed.
On the other side, the Union used its ironclads to fight the Southern ironclads and to bombard Southern forts
and land forces. This usually meant that the Northern ironclads moved around from place to place much more
than the Southern ones, although this sometimes could be difficult; for instance, the Monitor sank in a storm
while it was moving from Hampton Roads south to the coast of North Carolina.
Why are the ironclads important?
There are three main reasons. First, the ironclads were some of the first ships in history to be armored with
metal and propelled by steam instead of by the wind. This development led directly to modern warships, so the
ironclads were in some sense the great-grandparents of today's ships. And, to understand modern ships, one
must first learn their history.
Second, the Civil War is an important part of American history. Even though most books are written about land
battles such as Gettysburg, the naval war was an important part of the war, and the ironclads were a big part of
the story of the naval war.
But most of all, the ironclads are simply very interesting. They looked very different from ships that came
before and ships that came after. Their inventors were solving old problems in new ways, using new technology
to design and build ships that were not possible before. And the courage and daring of the men who sailed on
them and fought on them will always make them interesting too. There was nothing like them before, and there
never will be again.
Monitor and Merrimac. At the moment when the
Confederates evacuated Manassas a strange naval
battle occurred in Hampton Roads. The
Confederates had raised the sunken Merrimac in
the Gosport navy yard and converted it into an
iron-clad ram, which they called the Virginia,
commanded by Captain Buchanan, late of the
United States navy. She had gone down to
Hampton Roads and destroyed (March 8, 1862) the
wooden sailing frigates Congress and Cumberland,
at the mouth of the James River, and it was
expected she would annihilate other ships there
the next morning. Anxiously the army and navy
officers of that vicinity passed the night of the 8th,
for there appeared no competent human agency
near to avert the threatened disaster.
MAP OF HAMPTON ROADS
Meanwhile another vessel of novel form and aspect had been constructed at Greenpoint. L. I.,
N. Y., under the direction of CAPT. JOHN ERICSSON, who used Theodore R. Timby's invention
of a revolving turret. It presented to the eye, when afloat, a simple platform, sharp at both
ends, and bearing in its centre a round Martello tower 20 feet in diameter and 10 feet in
height, made, as was the rest of the vessel, of heavy iron. It presented a bomb-proof fort, in
which were mounted two 11-inch Dahlgren guns. The hull of this vessel was only 8 1/2 feet in
depth, with a flat bottom, and was 124 feet in length, and 34 feet the greatest width at top.
On this hull rested another, 5 feet in height, that extended over the lower one 3 feet 7 inches
all around, excepting at the ends, where it projected 25 feet, by which protection was
afforded the anchor, propeller and rudder. The whole was built of 3 inch iron, and was very
buoyant. Its exposed parts were guarded by a wall of white oak, 30 inches in thickness, on
which was laid iron armor 6 inches in thickness.
A shot to strike the lower hull would have to pass
through 25 feet of water, and then strike an
inclined plane of iron at an angle of about 10°. The
deck was well armed also.
Such was the strange craft that entered Hampton
Roads from the sea, under the command of LIEUT.
JOHN L. WORDEN, unheralded and unknown, at a
little past midnight, March 9, on its trial trip. It
had been named Monitor. It had been towed to the
Roads by steamers, outriding a tremendous gale.
INTERIOR OF THE MONITOR'S TURRET
Worden reported to the flag officer of the fleet in the Roads, and was ordered to aid the
Minnesota in the expected encounter with the Merrimac in the morning. It was a bright
Sabbath morning. Before sunrise the dreaded Merrimac and her company came down from
Norfolk. The stern guns of the Minnesota opened upon the formidable iron-clad, when the
little Monitor, which the Confederates called in derision a " cheese-box," ran out and placed
herself by the side of the huge monster.
She was like a pigmy by the side of a giant.
Suddenly her mysterious citadel began to revolve,
and from it her guns hurled ponderous shot in quick
succession. The Merrimac answered by heavy
broadsides, and so they struggled for some time
without injuring each other. Then the Monitor
withdrew a little to seek a vulnerable part of her
antagonist, while the Merrimac pounded her
awfully,
Battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac at
Hampton Roads
sometimes sending upon her masses of iron weighing 200 pounds at a velocity of 290 feet per
second. These struck her deck and tower without harming them, and conical bolts that struck
the latter glanced off as pebbles would fly from solid granite. The Merrimac drew off and
attacked the Minnesota. Seeing the latter in great peril, the Monitor ran between them. A
most severe duel ensued, and as a result the Merrimac was so much disabled that she fled up
to Norfolk, and did not again invite her little antagonist to combat. Worden was severely
injured by concussion in the tower of the Monitor, and for a few days his life was in peril. This
class of vessels was multiplied in the National navy, and did good service. A comparison of the
appearance of the two vessels may be made in looking at the engraving of the New Ironsides
and Monitor. The New Ironsides was a powerful vessel built in Philadelphia. It had a wooden
hull covered with iron plates four inches in thickness.
Hot Air Balloons in the Civil War
MECHANICSVILLE, Va. (AP) — It was the Civil War’s “Kitty Hawk moment,” and it happened here
when balloons manned by Confederate and Union aeronauts floated above a field of battle — the first
time warring armies sent their air ships aloft simultaneously over U.S. soil.
The historic encounter in the skies occurred on June 27, 1862, when two Union balloons — the
Intrepid and the Washington — rose aloft only miles west of Richmond while their Southern
counterpart, Gazelle, floated over the capital of the Confederacy. These balloons were the unarmed
drones of war, collecting intelligence on rival troop movements from a vantage of 1,000 feet above the
earth.
“You had the Confederate balloon up and the Union balloons up, all trying to exploit the advantages of
being above and over the battlefield and providing tactical information to their respective generals,”
says Mike Boehme, director of the Virginia Aviation Museum. “This was the first time that opposing
air forces were facing each other.”
Gaines’ Mill was the stage for one of the biggest and bloodiest battles of the Civil War and the
battleground where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee recorded his first victory. The June 27, 1862,
battle repulsed Union forces and their Peninsula Campaign, a disastrous attempt starting in March
1862 to occupy Richmond by way of the peninsula between the York and James rivers. The battle
involved nearly 100,000 troops and left more than 15,000 dead or wounded.
Until the Civil War, balloons were fairgrounds attractions, taking the curious aloft for a few dollars.
A New Englander, Thaddeus S.C. Lowe, changed all that. The father of military aerial reconnaissance,
he had planned a trans-Atlantic balloon crossing until he was appointed by President Abraham
Lincoln as chief aeronaut of the Union’s balloon corps. He dazzled the president by taking a balloon
over the White House and telegraphing Lincoln a message in June 1861.That was the beginning of the
Union’s earliest “air force” and balloons would later be sent aloft on several occasions to spy on enemy
lines — but not at the same time by rival forces until Gaines’ Mill.
The Gazelle, which was stitched together using silk common to dressmaking, was launched from a rail
track close to Richmond.
While Confederate forces had balloons, the North had the technological and financial edge to
assemble a balloon corps. Still, even the Union’s use of balloons was limited to a couple of years.
Military leaders weren’t quite sure how to effectively deploy this novelty.
The balloons were tethered as aeronauts relayed observations by telegraph, the communication wire
dangling to the ground. Residents in Richmond could see the Union inflatables. It was probably a
terrifying sight.
“If I was in Richmond and I saw the balloons, which they did quite frequently, I would be scared that
the Union army is just over the hill,” Green said.
The Union balloons were made of thick silk with a coat of varnish enveloped by a netting of Italian
flax thread. The basket was made of willow and cane and had an armored floor.
The Civil War wasn’t the first time balloons were used in a wartime environment. More than a half
century before the start of the Civil War, France created the Corp d’Aerostiers in 1794. They too were
used for military reconnaissance.
Lowe, whom Crouch described as a showman, designed balloons that were sturdier than the
fairground versions, with some able to carry five people aloft. One of the largest, the Intrepid, had a
portrait on the balloon depicting Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, who led the Union’s Peninsula
campaign. The portrait was suspended from an eagle’s beak.
The Union’s balloon corps, which included seven inflatables, were sent aloft during the Peninsula
campaign at Yorktown and at the Union-held Fortress Monroe in Hampton, Va. There was even an
early forerunner of an aircraft carrier: two balloons and their gas generators were loaded onto a
converted coal barge for observations over water.
Despite the Union’s dominance of the skies, Lee’s troops had a rare edge in numbers at Gaines’ Mill
and the Southern forces were able to drive back the Army of the Potomac and save the Confederate
capital.
Civil War Medicine:
During the 1860s, doctors had yet to develop bacteriology and were generally ignorant of the causes of disease. Generally, Civil War
doctors underwent two years of medical school, though some pursued more education. Medicine in the United States was woefully
behind Europe. Harvard Medical School did not even own a single stethoscope or microscope until after the war. Most Civil War
surgeons had never treated a gun shot wound and many had never performed surgery. Medical boards admitted many "quacks," with
little to no qualification. Yet, for the most part, the Civil War doctor (as understaffed, underqualified, and under-supplied as he was) did
the best he could, muddling through the so-called "medical middle ages." Some 10,000 surgeons served in the Union army and about
4,000 served in the Confederate. Medince made significant gains during the course of the war. However, it was the tragedy of the era
that medical knowledge of the 1860s had not yet encompassed the use of sterile dressings, antiseptic surgery, and the recognition of
the importance of sanitation and hygiene. As a result, thousands died from diseases such as typhoid or dysentery.
The deadliest thing that faced the Civil War soldier was disease. For every soldier who died in battle, two died of disease. In particular,
intestinal complaints such as dysentery and diarrhea claimed many lives. In fact, diarrhea and dysentery alone claimed more men than
did battle wounds. The Civil War soldier also faced outbreaks of measles, small pox, malaria, pneumonia, or camp itch. Soldiers were
exposed to malaria when camping in damp areas which were conductive to breeding mosquitos, while camp itch was caused by insects
or a skin disease. In brief, the high incidence of disease was caused by a) inadequate physical examination of recruits; b) ignorance; c)
the rural origin of my soldiers; d) neglect of camp hygiene; e) insects and vermin; f) exposure; g) lack of clothing and shoes; h) poor
food and water. Many unqualified recruits entered the Army and diseases cruelly weeded out those who should have been excluded by
physcial exams. There was no knowledge of the causes of disease, no Koch's postulates. Troops from rural areas were crowded
together for the first time with large numbers of other individuals and got diseases they had no immunity to. Neglect of camp hygeine
was a common problem as well. Ignorance of camp sanitation and scanty knowledge about how disease was carried led to a sort of
"trial and error" system.You can read Surgeon Charles Tripler's report on sanitation that is included in this web site for a contemporary
view of camp hygeine. An inspector who visited the camps of one Federal Army found that they were, "littered with refuse, food, and
other rubbish, sometimes in an offensive state of decomposition; slops deposited in pits within the camp limits or thrown out of
broadcast; heaps of manure and offal close to the camp." The Federal government even founded a Sanitary Commission to deal with
the health problems in army camps. Mary Livermore, a nurse, wrote that... "The object of the Sanitary Commission was to do what the
Government could not. The Government undertook, of course, to provide all that was necessary for the soldier, . . . but, from the very
nature of things, this was not possible. . . . The methods of the commission were so elastic, and so arranged to meet every emergency,
that it was able to make provision for any need, seeking always to supplement, and never to supplant, the Government." Both Armies
faced problems with mosquitos and lice. Exposure turned many a cold into a case of pneumonia, and complicated other ailments.
Pneumonia was the third leading killer disease of the war, after typhoid and dysentery. Lack of shoes and proper clothing further
complicated the problem, especially in the Confederacy. The diet of the Civil War soldier was somewhere between barely paltable to
absoultely awful. It was a wonder they did not all die of acute indigestion! It was estimated that 995 of 1000 Union troops eventually
contracted chronic diarrhea or dysentery; their Confederate counterparts suffered similarly. Disease was particularly rampant in the
prisoner-of-war camps, whose conditions were generally worse than the army camps.
To halt disease, doctors used many cures. For bowel complaints, open bowels were treated with a plug of opium. Closed bowels were
treated with the infamous "blue mass"... a mixture of mercury and chalk. For scurvy, doctors prescribed green vegetables. Respiratory
problems, such as pneumonia and bronchitis were treated with dosing of opium or sometimes quinine and muster plasters. Sometimes
bleeding was also used. Malaria could be treated with quinine, or sometimes even turpentine if quinine was not available. Camp itch
could be treated by ridding the body of the pests or with poke-root solution. Whiskey and other forms of alcohol also were used to treat
wounds and disease ... though of questionable medical value, whiskey did relieve some pain. Most medinces were manufactured in the
north; southerners had to run the Union blockade in order to gain access to them. On occasion, vital medicines were smuggled into the
South, sewn into the petticoats of ladies sympathetic to the Southern cause. The South also had some manufacturing capabilites and
worked with herbal remedies. However, many of the Southern medical supplies came from captured Union stores. Dr. Hunter McGuire,
the medical director of Jackson's corps, commented after the War on the safeness of anethesia, saying that in part the Confederacy's
good record was due in part from the supplies requisitoned from the North.
Battlefield surgery (see separate web page describing an amputation) was also at best archaic. Doctors often took over houses,
churches, schools, even barns for hospitals. The field hospital was located near the front lines -- sometimes only a mile behind the lines
-- and was marked with (in the Federal Army from 1862 on) with a yellow flag with a green "H". Anesthesia's first recorded use was in
1846 and was commonly in use during the Civil War. In fact, there are 800,000 recorded cases of its use. Chloroform was the most
common anesthetic, used in 75% of operations. In a sample of 8,900 uses of anesthesia, only 43 deaths were attributed to the
anethestic, a remarkable mortality rate of 0.4%. Anesthesia was usually administered by the open-drop technique. The anethestic was
applied to a cloth held over the patient's mouth and nose and was withdrawn after the patient was unconscious. A capable surgeon
could amputate a limb in 10 minutes. Surgeons worked all night, with piles of limbs reaching four or five feet. Lack of water and time
meant they did not wash off hands or instruments
Bloody fingers often were used as probes. Bloody knives were used as scalpels. Doctors operated in pus stained coats. Everything
about Civil War surgery was septic. The antiseptic era and Lister's pioneering works in medicine were in the future. Blood poisoning,
sepsis or Pyemia (Pyemia meaning literally pus in the blood) was common and often very deadly. Surgical fevers and gangrene were
constant threats. One witness described surgery as such: "Tables about breast high had been erected upon which the screaming
victims were having legs and arms cut off. The surgeons and their assistants, stripped to the waist and bespattered with blood, stood
around, some holding the poor fellows while others, armed with long, bloody knives and saws, cut and sawed away with frightful
rapidity, throwing the mangled limbs on a pile nearby as soon as removed." If a soldier survived the table, he faced the awful surgical
fevers. However, about 75% of amputees did survive.
The numbers killed and wounded in the Civil War were far greater than any previous American war. As the lists of the maimed grew,
both North and South built "general" military hospitals. These hospitals were usually located in big cities. They were usually single
storied, of wood construction, and well-ventilated and heated. The largest of these hospitals was Chimbarazo in Richmond, Virginia. By
the end of the War, Chimbarazo had 150 wards and was capable of housing a total of 4,500 patients. Some 76,000 soldiers were
treated at this hospital.
There were some advances, mainly in the field of military medicine. Jonathan Letterman, revolutionized the Ambulance Corps system.
With the use of anethesia, more complicated surgeries could be performed. Better and more complete records were kept during this
period than they had been before. The Union even set up a medical museum where visitors can still see the shattered leg of flamboyant
General Daniel Sickles who lost his leg at the Trostle Farm at the battle of Gettysburg when a cannon ball litterally left it hanging by
shreds of flesh.
The Civil War "sawbones" was doing the best he could. Sadly when American decided to kill American from 1861 to 1865, the medical
field was not yet capable of dealing with the disease and the massive injuries caused by industrial warfare.
Civil War POW Camps
by Deanna Spingola
Mike Wright wrote, “On both sides of the war, men and women were locked away in dark prisons or held in
outdoor camps under blistering sun and freezing snow. They were fed too little and lived and died under
primitive conditions.” i[1] There were approximately 193,743 Northerners and 214,865 Southerners held during
the war. Over twelve percent of the prisoners died in Northern prisons while over fifteen percent died in the
South. This is attributed to the superior hospitals, physicians, medicines, and foods available in the North.
Consequently, there should have a notable difference in favor of the Union. ii[2] Roughly, 56,000 prisoners died
during their captivity – 30,000 Union soldiers and 26,000 Confederates due to the failures of the incarcerators to
maintain proper shelter, or provide adequate food and medical attention. Both sides of the conflict concealed the
horrific conditions that existed in the camps. Author Reid Mitchell asserts that the topic of Civil War prisons is
the “least studied subjects relating to the Civil War.” iii[3] Perhaps it is because it set an egregious precedent for
the treatment of “enemies” in subsequent U.S. wars.
The Confederates were barely able to procure food for their military and thus it was not a high priority. The
North had a better distribution and administrative system. Prison guards, in both the North and the South, were
frequently poorly disciplined Home Guards who were unqualified for other more responsible positions.
Captives were confronted with questionable personnel and arrived at conclusions about their captors based on
the example of those patrolling the prison fences. iv[4] This may be the case in any prison environment,
deliberate or incidental.
Andersonville
Though we typically only hear about the horrors of Camp Sumter, also known as Andersonville, both the North
and the South had prison camps. Together there were more than 150 POW camps. Some of them may have been
old forts, buildings or warehouses. Some camps provided tents; others provided no shelter. The camps were
more deadly than the war. The skeletal survivors of the camps resembled survivors of the camps, both National
Socialist and Eisenhower’s camps following World War II. v[5]
After winning the Battle of Chattanooga, some of the federal troops wanted to continue to Andersonville and
free the federal prisoners. They had heard the horrific rumors. However, their commanders wanted to raze
Atlanta first rather than free their own soldiers. From February 1864 to April 17, 1865, The Confederates
incarcerated 41,000 Union soldiers at Andersonville where they died at the rate of a hundred per day. More than
13,000 prisoners died at Andersonville, a twenty-six acre compound. Water came from a branch of the
Sweetwater Creek. It served for washing and drinking. Unfortunately, the privies also drained into the creek.
vi[6]
Many prisoners in Andersonville probably contracted hookworm and other deadly diseases from which they
died. vii[7] Prisoners at Andersonville froze in the winter and blistered in the summer, as there was no shelter
except from tree branches, a few tent parts and bits of wood planks. Food consisted of cornmeal, including the
ground-up cobs. Captain Henry Wirz, the only Confederate official executed for war crimes, commanded the
camp’s inner stockade. viii[8] Thefollowing two pictures are prisoners at Andersonville:
Camp Morton, a Precedent
Northerners are quick to point the moral finger of slavery and Andersonville which often silences any
reasonable dialogue. Yankees compare Andersonville with the National Socialist camps. Any media
presentation of POW camps during this fateful war focuses on Andersonville at the exclusion of the North’s
hellish Camp Morton. The Union tried, convicted, and executed Henry Wirz, the commander of Andersonville,
for alleged crimes that occurred before he took charge of the camp or while he was away from the camp due to
illness. The Union called 160 witnesses to testify against him. Of those witnesses, 145 testified that they had no
knowledge of Wirz killing or mistreating anyone. Only one witness could provide the name of a victim Wirz
supposedly killed. The Union did not allow key defense witnesses to testify while the prosecution handpicked
witnesses to solidify their case against Wirz. The Union gave its most convincing witness a written
commendation and a first-rate government job. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton reported that a higher
percentage of Southern POWs died while incarcerated than Northern POWs. ix[9] The Union hung Wirz on
November 10, 1865 but later exonerated him. x[10]
The Union appointed Colonel Ambrose A. Stevens as the new commandant of Camp Morton on October 22,
1863. John A. Wyeth, a Confederate prisoner of the Union, arrived at Camp Morton, near Indianapolis, Indiana
in late October 1863. He survived the camp and went on to become a physician. Years later, he exposed the
horrific conditions at the camp in the April 1891 issue of Century Monthly Magazine. Other victims of the camp
then came forward and corroborated Wyeth’s disclosures. According to Wyeth, the Union had erected the camp
on about twenty acres of ground that they formerly used as a fairground. They enclosed the camp by a twentyfoot high plank wall. There was a rivulet running through the middle of the camp with sheds on both sides.
They initially assembled the sheds to house cattle. xi[11]
They built the walls of wooden planks which had shrunk and separated. There were four tiers of bunks on each
side of the “barracks” which extended seven feet out towards the center. They housed 320 men in each shed.
The lowest tier was one foot off the ground; the second was three feet above the first and so on. The Union
allowed prisoners about two feet each with their heads next to the wide cracks of the wall with their feet
towards the building’s center. The snowy winter weather in 1863-64 decreased to twenty below zero. Each man
had one blanket. During a storm, snow would usually cover this meager blanket by morning. The men suffered
tremendously as they were unaccustomed to cold weather which lasted until April. xii[12]
Prisoners, walking skeletons, regularly died of starvation on a daily ration that was not enough for a single
meal. The prisoners augmented the meat rations by harvesting the camp’s rat population. Gangrene resulting in
death from untreated frostbite was an issue. In the crowded squalid sheds, vermin and parasites were an
aggravating challenge. Close personal contact, inadequate scanty clothes, and no bathing or sanitary facilities
contributed to the failing health and starving conditions of the prisoners, many of which were under eighteen
years of age. The guards physically abused the prisoners who also suffered constant mental abuse. The sadistic
guards immediately shot many of them or bludgeoned them to death for minor infractions. The guards, possibly
for sport or retribution, repeatedly shot through the flimsy-walled sheds during the night. Wyeth left this
hellhole in February 1865. Two thousand young Confederate soldiers died at Camp Morton. xiii[13]
Some of the sheds did not have bunks, so the prisoners had to sleep on the damp, cold ground in the sheds.
Prisoners, dirty, cold, lousy and emaciated, slept in their clothes to “keep from freezing.” A Sergeant Pfeifer
would walk through the sheds with a heavy stick thrashing left and right into the heads of the starving prisoners
yelling – “this is the way you whip your Negroes.” Pfeifer was just one of many brutes who delighted in
abusing the POWs. xiv[14] There is sufficient data to document the cruelties of camp life at the hands of the
Union, during the War for Southern Independence combined with the ethnic cleansing of America’s indigenous
population. Those simultaneous wars served as a perverse prototype for future camps and untold millions of
victims, all concealed by government policy and obedient officials.
The Department Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic refuted Wyeth’s claims. The department said
it could not imagine why Wyeth and others would fabricate such stories. Century Monthly Magazine then
allowed Wyeth another opportunity to expose Camp Morton’s horrors. His first exposure brought a flood of
articles and letters published in newspapers nationwide. There were claims that the government paid contractors
to supply adequate food but the prisoners never received it due to internal theft. Like the Indians, the
Confederates were also at the mercy of corrupt politicians and their crooked cronies. xv[15]
Photography and the Civil War
BRINGING THE BATTLEFRONT TO THE HOMEFRONT
Sam Cooley, Photographer (Library of Congress)
While photographs of earlier conflicts do exist, the American Civil War is considered the first major conflict to be
extensively photographed. Not only did intrepid photographers venture onto the fields of battle, but those very
images were then widely displayed and sold in ever larger quantities nationwide.
Photographers such as Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and Timothy O'Sullivan found enthusiastic audiences for
their images as America's interests were piqued by the shockingly realistic medium. For the first time in history,
citizens on the home front could view the actual carnage of far away battlefields. Civil War photographs stripped
away much of the Victorian-era romance around warfare.
Photography during the Civil War, especially for those who ventured out to the battlefields with their cameras, was a
difficult and time consuming process. Photographers had to carry all of their heavy equipment, including their
darkroom, by wagon. They also had to be prepared to process cumbersome light-sensitive images in cramped
wagons.
Today pictures are taken and stored digitally, but in 1861, the newest technology was wet-plate photography, a
process in which an image is captured on chemically coated pieces of plate glass. This was a complicated process
done exclusively by photographic professionals.
Cameras in the time of the Civil War were bulky and difficult to maneuver. All of the chemicals used in the process
had to be mixed by hand, including a mixture called collodion. Collodion is made up of several types of dangerous
chemicals including ethyl ether and acetic or sulfuric acid.
The photographer began the process of taking a photograph by positioning and focusing the camera. Then, he
mixed the collodion in preparation for the wet-plate process.
The Wet-Plate Photographic Process:
- First, collodion was used to coat the plate glass in order to sensitize it to light.
- In a darkroom, the plate was then immersed in silver nitrate, placed in a light-tight container, and inserted into the
camera.
- Next, the cap on the camera was removed for two to three seconds, exposing it to light and imprinting the image on
the plate.
- Replacing the cap, the photographer immediately took the plate, still in the light-tight container, to his darkroom,
where he developed it in a solution of pyrogallic acid.
- A mixture of sodium thiosulfate fixed the photograph so that the image would not fade.
- After washing and drying the plate with water, the photographer coated it with a varnish to protect the surface.
This process created a plate glass negative. Once the plate-glass negative was made, the image could be printed on
paper and mounted.
While photography of the 1860's would seem primitive by the technological standards of today, many of the famous
Civil War photographers of the day were producing sophisticated three-dimensional images or "stereo views" These
stereo view images proved to be extremely popular among Americans and a highly effective medium for displaying
life-like images.
To create a stereo view image a twin-lens camera was used to capture the same image from two separate lenses, in
much the same way that two human eyes capture the same image from slightly different angles on the head. The
images were developed using the same wet-plate process, but stereoscopic photography produced two of the same
image on one plate glass.
Once processed, the photographer would place the two stereo images onto a viewing card – the stereograph or
stereoview card. These stereoview cards could then be easily inserted into widely available viewers creating a 3D
image.
With these advancements in photographic technology, the Civil War became a true watershed moment in the
history of photography. The iconic photos of the American Civil War would not only directly affect how the
war was viewed from the home front, but it would also inspire future combat photographers
Music of the Civil War
When soldiers North and South marched off to war, they took with them a love of song that transcended the
political and philosophical divide between them. Music passed the time; it entertained and comforted; it brought
back memories of home and family; it strengthened the bonds between comrades and helped to forge new ones.
And, in the case of the Confederacy, it helped create the sense of national identity and unity so necessary to a
fledgling nation.
Songs of the Armies
Songs and music of the Civil War covered every aspect of the conflict and every feeling about it. Music was played on
the march, in camp, even in battle; armies marched to the heroic rhythms of drums and often of brass bands. The
fear and tedium of sieges was eased by nightly band concerts, which often featured requests shouted from both sides
of the lines. Around camp there was usually a fiddler or guitarist or banjo player at work, and voices to sing the
favorite songs of the era. In fact, Confederate General Robert E. Lee once remarked, “I don’t believe we can have an
army without music.”
There were patriotic songs for each side: the North’s "Battle Cry of Freedom," "May God Save the Union," “John
Brown’s Body” that Julia Ward Howe made into “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and the South’s “Dixie”
(originally a pre-war minstrel show song), "God Save the South," "God Will Defend the Right," and "The Rebel
Soldier". Several of the first songs of the war, such as “Maryland! My Maryland!” celebrated secession.
“The Bonnie Blue Flag,” another pro-Southern song was so popular in the Confederacy that Union General Benjamin
Butler destroyed all the printed copies he could find, jailed the publisher, and threatened to fine anyone—even a
child—caught singing the song or whistling the melody. The slaves had their own tradition of songs of hope: “Follow
the Drinking Gourd,” the words said guardedly—meaning follow the Big Dipper north to the Underground Railroad
and freedom.
Soldiers sang sentimental tunes about distant love—the popular “Lorena” and “Aura Lee” (which in the twentieth
century became “Love Me Tender”) and “The Yellow Rose of Texas”—and songs of loss such as “The Vacant Chair.”
Other tunes commemorated victory—“Marching Through Georgia” was a vibrant evocation of Sherman’s March to
the Sea. Some even sprouted from prison life, such as "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp."
Soldiers marched to the rollicking “Eatin’ Goober Peas;” they vented their war-weariness with “Hard Times;” they
sang about their life in “Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp Ground;” they were buried to the soulful strains of “Taps,”
written for the dead of both sides in the Seven Days’ Battles. When the guns stopped, the survivors returned to the
haunting notes of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”
After Robert E. Lee surrendered, Abraham Lincoln, on one of the last days of his life, asked a
Northern band to play “Dixie” saying it had always been one of his favorite tunes. No one could miss
the meaning of this gesture of reconciliation, expressed by music.
H. L. Hunley was a submarine of the Confederate States of America that played a small part in the
American Civil War, but a large role in the history of naval warfare. The Hunley demonstrated both
the advantages and the dangers of undersea warfare. It was the first combat submarine to sink an
enemy warship, although the Hunley was not completely submerged and was lost at some point
following her successful attack. The Confederacy lost 21 crewmen in three sinkings of the Hunley
during her short career. The submarine was named for her inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley, shortly
after it was taken into service under the control of the Confederate Army at Charleston, South
Carolina.
The Hunley, nearly 40 feet (12 m) long, was built at Mobile, Alabama, and launched in July 1863. It
was then shipped by rail on August 12, 1863 to Charleston, South Carolina. Hunley (then called Fish
Boat) sank on August 29, 1863, during a training exercise, killing five members of her crew. It sank
again on October 15, 1863, killing all eight of her second crew, including Horace Hunley himself, who
was aboard at the time, even though he was not enlisted in the Confederate armed forces. Both times
the Hunley was raised and returned to service. On February 17, 1864, Hunley attacked and sank the
1240-short ton (1124 metric tons)[1] screw sloop USS Housatonic on Union blockade duty in
Charleston's outer harbor. Soon after, Hunley sank for unknown reasons, killing all eight of her third
crew. This time, the innovative ship was lost.
Hunley and two earlier submarines were privately developed and paid for by Horace Lawson Hunley,
James McClintock, and Baxter Watson.
Hunley, McClintock, and Watson first built a small submarine named Pioneer in New Orleans,
Louisiana. Pioneer was tested in February 1862 in the Mississippi River and was later towed to Lake
Pontchartrain for additional trials. But the Union advance towards New Orleans caused the men to
abandon development and scuttle Pioneer the following month. The poorly documented Bayou St.
John Confederate submarine may have been constructed about the same time as Pioneer.
The three inventors moved to Mobile and joined with machinists Thomas Park and Thomas Lyons.
They soon began development of a second submarine, American Diver. Their efforts were supported
by the Confederate States Army; Lieutenant William Alexander of the 21st Alabama Infantry
Regiment was assigned oversight duty for the project. The men experimented with electromagnetic
and steam propulsion for the new submarine, before falling back on a simpler hand-cranked
propulsion system. American Diver was ready for harbor trials by January 1863, but it proved too
slow to be practical. One attempted attack on the Union blockade was made in February 1863 but was
unsuccessful. The submarine sank in the mouth of Mobile Bay during a storm later the same month
and was not recovered.
Construction and testing
Construction of Hunley began soon after the loss of American Diver. At this stage, Hunley was
variously referred to as the "fish boat," the "fish torpedo boat," or the "porpoise." Legend long held
Hunley was made from a cast-off steam boiler—perhaps because a cutaway drawing by William
Alexander, who had seen the real boat, showed a short and stubby machine. In fact, Hunley was
purpose-designed and built for her role, and the sleek, modern-looking craft shown in R.G. Skerrett's
1902 drawing is an accurate representation. Hunley was designed for a crew of eight: seven to turn
the hand-cranked propeller and one to steer and direct the boat. Each end was equipped with ballast
tanks that could be flooded by valves or pumped dry by hand pumps. Extra ballast was added through
the use of iron weights bolted to the underside of the hull. In the event the submarine needed
additional buoyancy to rise in an emergency, the iron weight could be removed by unscrewing the
heads of the bolts from inside the vessel.
Inboard profile and plan drawings, after sketches by W.A. Alexander (1863)
Hunley was equipped with two watertight hatches, one forward and one aft, atop two short conning
towers equipped with small portholes and slender, triangular breakwaters. The hatches were very
small, measuring 14 by 15¾ inches (36 by 40 centimeters), making entrance to and egress from the
hull very difficult. The height of the ship's hull was 4 feet 3 inches (1.2 m).
Hunley was ready for a demonstration by July 1863. Supervised by Confederate Admiral Franklin
Buchanan, Hunley successfully attacked a coal flatboat in Mobile Bay. Following this demonstration,
the submarine was shipped to Charleston, South Carolina, by rail, arriving August 12, 1863.
The military seized the vessel from its private builders and owners shortly after its arrival in
Charleston, turning it over to the Confederate Army. Hunley would operate as a Confederate Army
vessel from this point forward, although Horace Hunley and his partners remained involved in the
submarine's further testing and operation. While sometimes referred to as CSS Hunley, the
Confederate government never officially commissioned the vessel into service.
Confederate Navy Lieutenant John A. Payne of CSS Chicora volunteered to be Hunley's skipper, and a
volunteer crew of seven men from CSS Chicora and CSS Palmetto State was assembled to operate the
submarine. On August 29, 1863, Hunley's new crew was preparing to make a test dive to learn the
operation of the submarine when Lieutenant Payne accidentally stepped on the lever controlling the
sub's diving planes while the boat was running. This caused Hunley to dive with her hatches still
open, flooding the submarine. Payne and two others escaped, while the remaining five crewmen
drowned.
On October 15, 1863 Hunley failed to surface during a mock attack, killing Hunley and seven other
crewmen. In both cases, the Confederate Navy salvaged the vessel and returned her to service.
Armament
Hunley was originally intended to attack by means of a floating explosive charge with a contact fuse (a
torpedo in Civil War terminology) towed behind it at the end of a long rope. Hunley would approach
an enemy vessel, dive under it, and surface beyond. As it continued to move away from the target, the
torpedo would be pulled against the side of the target and explode. However, this plan was discarded
as impractical due to the danger of the tow line fouling Hunley's screw or drifting into Hunley herself.
The floating explosive charge was replaced with a spar torpedo, a cask containing 90 pounds
(41 kilograms) of black powder[2] attached to a 22-foot (6.7 m)-long wooden spar, as seen in
illustrations of the submarine made at this time. The spar was mounted on Hunley's bow and was
designed to be used when the submarine was some 6 feet (1.8 m) or more below the surface. The spar
torpedo had a barbed point, and would be stuck in the target vessel's side by ramming. The spar
torpedo as originally designed used a mechanical trigger attached to the attacking vessel by a cord, so
that as the attacker backed away from her victim, the torpedo would explode. However, archaeologists
working on Hunley have discovered evidence, including a spool of copper wire and components of a
battery, that it may have been electrically detonated. Following Horace Hunley's death, General
Beauregard issued an order that the submarine was no longer to attack her target underwater. In
response to this order, an iron pipe was attached to the bow of the submarine and angled downwards
so the explosive charge would still be delivered under sufficient depth of water to make it effective.
This was the same method developed for the earlier "David" type surface craft so successful against
the USS New Ironsides. The Confederate Veteran of 1902 printed a reminiscence authored by an
engineer stationed at Battery Marshall who, with another engineer, made adjustments to the iron pipe
mechanism before Hunley left on her last mission on the night of February 17, 1864. A drawing of the
iron pipe spar, confirming its "David" type configuration, was published in several early histories of
submarine warfare.
Attack on Housatonic
Hunley made her first and only attack against a live target on the night of February 17, 1864. The
vessel was the USS Housatonic. Housatonic, a 1240-ton (1.1 million-kilogram)[1] steam-powered
sloop-of-war with 12 large cannons, was stationed at the entrance to Charleston, South Carolina
harbor, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) out to sea. In an effort to break the naval blockade of the city,
Lieutenant George E. Dixon and a crew of seven volunteers attacked Housatonic, successfully
embedding the barbed spar torpedo into her hull. The torpedo was detonated as the submarine
backed away, sending Housatonic and five of her crew to the bottom in five minutes, although many
survived by boarding two lifeboats or by climbing the rigging until rescued.
Loss
After the attack, Hunley failed to return. There is evidence that Hunley survived as long as an hour after
the attack, which took place at approximately 8:45 p.m. The commander of Battery Marshall reported
the day after the attack that he had received "the signals" from the submarine indicating it was
returning to her base.[3] The report did not state what manner of signals were observed. A postwar
correspondent stated that "two blue lights" were the prearranged signals,[4] and a Housatonic lookout
reported that he saw a "blue light" on the water after his ship sank.[5] "Blue light" in 1864 referred to a
pyrotechnic signal[6] in long, common use by the US military.[7] It has been falsely represented in
published works as a blue lantern, even though the lantern found on the recovered Hunley had a clear,
not a blue, lens.[8] Pyrotechnic "blue light" can be seen easily over the four mile distance[9] between
Battery Marshall and the site of the Hunley's attack on the Housatonic.[10]
After signalling, Dixon would have taken the sub underwater to try to make it back to Sullivan's
Island. What happened next is unclear. The finder of the Hunley suggested that the submarine was
unknowingly rammed by the USS Canandaigua, which was coming to the rescue of the Housatonic's
crew.
One possibility is that the torpedo was not detonated on command, but rather malfunctioned due to
damage incurred during the attack. It was intended that the torpedo be detonated when Hunley had
retreated, playing out its detonation rope, to approximately 150 feet (46 m) from the target, [11] to
minimize damage to the sub. However, witnesses aboard Housatonic uniformly stated that the
submarine was no more than about 100 feet (31 m) away when the torpedo detonated. This is because
the crew of the Hunley were fighting the waves, so they stopped one hundred feet away from the
Housatonic to wait until the current could carry them away. The crew of the Housatonic fired on the
Hunley, and one man hit the detonation box with his pistol. This caused the explosion that sank the
Housatonic and may have damaged the Hunley.
In October 2008, scientists reported that they had found that Hunley's crew had not set the pump to
remove water from the crew compartment, which might indicate that it was not being flooded. "It now
really starts to point to a lack of oxygen making [the crew] unconscious," the chairman of the South
Carolina Hunley Commission said. "They may have been cranking and moving and it was a
miscalculation as to how much oxygen they had."[12][dead link]
Although there is no conclusive evidence as to the cause of the sinking of the H. L. Hunley, Head
Archeologist, Maria Jacobsen, of Clemson University and George Wunderlich, Executive Director of
the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, conducted experiments with modern castings of the H.
L. Hunley's forward conning tower, the original of which showed damage at one viewing port. The
experiments used replica U. S. Naval firearms, and showed that a .58 caliber minie ball, fired from the
U.S.S. Housatonic, could have penetrated at the viewing ports, producing a breach sufficient to admit
water. This comports with the findings of Dr. Jaime Downs, FBI Forensic Pathologist, which show
variations of the preserved brain tissue from front to rear Hunley crewmen. It is conjectured that
ramming by the U.S.S. Canandaigua would have caused severe damage to the sub, but no such
damage was evidenced when the H. L. Hunley was raised. [13]
Her crew perished, but H.L. Hunley had earned a place in the history of undersea warfare as the first
submarine to sink a ship in wartime.[14]
The United States Colored Troops: Fighting for Freedom (part one)
Posted on September 29, 2011 by stewardthenderson
At the beginning of the Civil War, black men tried to enlist in both the Union and Confederate armies. Most were not
allowed in either army. By the end of the war, though, some 180,000 blacks served in the United States Army, and another
20,000 served in the United States Navy. Approximately 38,000 of them died, most from disease; another 30,000-plus
were wounded.
These men were instrumental in helping win the Civil War and freedom for our people.
While there were a few black men in state militias, most states—North and South—banned blacks. However, on May 2,
1861, Louisiana accepted into the state militia a regiment of the Louisiana Native Guard, a group of free black men with
black officers, a white commanding officer, and a white officer as second in command. In fact, black men in the Louisiana
militia had been a tradition as far back as 1727, although black men in other state militias were rare. The Native Guards
were drilled without weapons in the Confederacy, even though they had their own arms.
Both armies used thousands of blacks as servants, teamsters, cooks, and other support positions. Such duties did not
qualify them as soldiers. However, there are stories of some men who picked up arms and used them against their
enemies.
Some of these men may have joined the armies later in the war once blacks were allowed to enlist. For example, after
blacks were allowed in the Confederate army in March of 1865, some of those black soldiers had already served in other
capacities for the Confederacy. There were about forty blacks in the integrated companies that left at the fall of Richmond.
On the Union side, Sergeant Nimrod Burke of the 23rd USCT started the war as a civilian teamster and scout for the 36th
Ohio Volunteer Infantry in April 1861. There were also many slaves who had worked for the Confederates and escaped to
the Union army and became USCT soldiers.
Some light-skinned blacks managed to pass themselves of as white and enlisted that way. One example was Lieutenant
Colonel William N. Reed of the 1st North Carolina Colored Infantry (later designated the 35th USCT), who was listed as
both white and a mulatto. Reed was an abolitionist from New York, but he had graduated from the military school at Kiel,
Germany, and served in the German army before coming back to the states. He was very interested in his men, and he
helped protect his black doctor, Major John V. DeGrasse, from the prejudices of the white doctors. Reed lead the 1st NC at
the Battle of Olustee, where he was killed in action. He is now recognized as the highest-ranking African American in the
Civil War by the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS).
The first black troops in the Civil War were actually enlisted in 1862. They were raised in Kansas, Louisiana, and South
Carolina. On July 17,1862, the Second Confiscation Act was approved and subsequently signed by President Lincoln. This
act allowed as many persons of African descent as necessary to be “employed to help suppress the rebellion and use them
“in such manner” as he may judge best for public welfare.” To some, this meant that they could be used as soldiers.
In Louisiana in July 1862, General John Phelps began to recruit blacks to reinforce his troops outside of New Orleans;
General Benjamin Butler could not authorize General Phelps to do this. Phelps resigned. Less than a month later, General
Butler, fearing an attack on New Orleans, asked for reinforcements. Being turned down, he organized three regiments of
the Louisiana Native Guards. The members of the Guard actually approached Butler first and confirmed their loyalty to
the Union on August 15. The Confederates had never used the Native Guard to fight and never armed them, but these men
had old muskets of their own. Butler allowed them to keep their black officers: the 1st and 2ndregiments had black
captains and lieutenants, while the 3rd had black and white officers. General Butler changed their name to the Corps
d’Afrique. Later in the War, their designations would be changed to the 73rd, 74th, 75th USCT.
In Kansas, a paragraph in the Daily Conservative of October 6, 1861, described Senator James H. Lane’s cavalrymen as
such:
One peculiarity of this mounted force is curious enough to be noted down. By the side of one doughty and white cavalier
rode an erect well-armed and very black man: his figure and bearing were such that, without any other distinguishing
characteristic he would still have been a marked man. It is well known that Negroes and Indians serve in the rebel army
but this is the first instance which has come to our personal knowledge – although not the only one in fact – of a
contraband serving as a Union soldier.
This was the fall of 1861, and Kansas had black soldiers, but they had come through the fighting during the KansasNebraska Act in 1854 up until the Civil War. That Negroes were openly enrolled in the Kansas army should be no surprise
because of the radical abolitionism in the Kansas territorial history.
Officially, Lane organized the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry on August 5 with his notification to Secretary of War Edwin
Stanton. The next day, he wired Stanton again, stating that he was raising his regiment based on the Second Confiscation
Act. The 1st Kansas had the distinction of being the first colored troops to engage the enemy in October 1862 with a
raiding party in Missouri. They eventually became the 79th USCT.
In South Carolina, General David Hunter had organized a regiment of former slaves, the 1st South Carolina Colored
Infantry, only to have them disbanded because President Lincoln would not approve of Hunter’s emancipation of the
slaves in his military district nor authorize the raising of black troops.
While Hunter failed, orders were addressed to General Rufus Saxton on August 25, 1862 to raise 5,000 black soldiers. The
1st South Carolina reformed, and they became the 33rd USCT. The importance of this order was that these soldiers were
raised by the authority of the United States War Department and not by some enterprising general on his own authority.
On September 22, 1862, President Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to take effect on January 1,
1863. The emancipation freed slaves in the Southern states still in rebellion against the United States. The actual
emancipation also allowed for the enrollment of freed slaves into the United States military.
The United States resumed raising troops, and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Colored was the second regiment raised.
They are probably the most famous black regiment because the movie Glory was based on their story. They were
authorized in March 1863 by Governor John Andrew; Colonel Robert Gould Shaw served as their commander. Shaw’s
parents were abolitionists, as was Shaw and most of the officers. The soldiers were recruited by abolitionists, including
Frederick Douglass, who sent his two sons to the 54th. The regiment trained at Camp Meigs in Readville, Massachusetts
near Boston and were mustered into service on May 28, 1863.
The 54th is most famous for spearheading the attack on Fort Wagner, at the tip of Charleston harbor, on July 18, 1863.
While the 54th and some white units took the outer walls of the fort, they could not take the fort itself. Colonel Shaw and
271 of his men were casualties. Sgt. William H. Carney won the Medal of Honor for grabbing the U.S. flag taking it to the
enemy ramparts and bringing it back, even though he was severely wounded.
The 54th fought in two other slightly famous battles, too: the Battle of Olustee and the Battle of Honey Hill. They were also
involved in a pay controversy, where white troops were paid $13 a month but black troops were paid only $10 a month,
with an additional $3 withheld as a clothing fee, making their pay $7 a month. Massachusetts offered to make up the
difference, but to the soldiers, it was the principle of getting equal government pay. On September 28, 1864 pay was
equalized by Congress, and they received 18 months pay from the time of their enlistment. Their hold-out controversy
affected the entire USCT.
The actual order creating the Bureau of Colored Troops was General Order number 143, issued on May 22, 1863. By the
end of the war, 166 regiments of infantry, cavalry, heavy artillery, engineers, and light artillery served and constituted one
tenth of the army.
Only four state regiments kept their state designations throughout the war: the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Colored, 55th
Massachusetts Infantry Colored, 5th Massachusetts Cavalry Colored, and the 29th Connecticut Infantry Colored. The
others all became USCT regiments.
There were some prominent African American recruiters for the Union army, including John Mercer Langston, William
Wells Brown, and, of course, Douglass. “Such is the government, fellow citizens, you are now called upon to uphold with
your arms,” Douglass said. He continued:
Such is the government that you are called upon to cooperate burying rebellion and slavery in a common grave. Never
since the world began was a better chance offered to a long enslaved and oppressed people. The opportunity is given us
to be men. With one courageous resolution we may blot out the handwriting of ages against us. Once let the black man
get upon his person the brass letters U.S.; let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in
his pocket, and there is no power on the earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of
citizenship in the United States. I say again, this is our chance, and woe betide us if we fail to embrace it.