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Some find inner peace by re-enacting war

BENSALEM — April 2008

A change comes over Rick Metzger when he puts on the Union blue.

In his daily life, Metzger is a no-nonsense Muhlenberg Township police sergeant, working traffic details and teaching school kids about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. But on weekends, Metzger slips on a different uniform, replaces his sidearm with a black powder rifle and goes off to fight the Confederate army. On a recent April weekend, Metzger and hundreds of other Civil War buffs gathered in Neshaminy State Park here in Bucks County to relive the history and struggles of the soldiers who fought in the war that killed the most Americans.

Metzger spent the night sleeping on cold ground in a tent that couldn’t keep the chill away. Still, there’s no place else Metzger would rather be. “You have no idea what it feels like to park my truck and turn off my cell phone,” Metzger said. “I am different when I am here. I am more relaxed here.” Metzger is a member of the 28th Pennsylvania regiment, a Philadelphia-based re-enactment group that organizes the Neshaminy re-enactment. The group participates in dozens of such events throughout the year. For the weekend, Metzger and his compatriots mostly shunned modern necessities. They lived like soldiers did during the Civil War, from the uniform to the bed of straw on the ground.

On this April weekend, more than 1,500 re-enactors camped at the park and staged two fights depicting the Battle of Chancellorsville, which was fought in Virginia.

For the entire weekend, the re-enactors remained in character as soldiers at war. Confederates stayed on one side of the park, the Union boys on the other.“The only time we see them is on the battlefield,” said Tony Matijasick, president of the 28th Pennsylvania. To be sure, there were lighthearted moments, and the talk often drifted to the success and failures of Philadelphia sports teams. But they wore woolen uniforms and uncomfortable leather shoes and slept on the cold ground. The life of a Civil War soldier was not comfortable or enviable.

Men sent off to battle had a better-than-average chance of getting maimed or killed. For re-enactors, the hobby is not cheap, and the accommodations are hardly glamorous. The uniform and musket can run upwards of $1,000. Yet these people find a romantic allure to life during the 1860s. And for different reasons, they invest their spare time, and thousands of dollars, for the chance to live in a troubled period of the 19th century.

Dave Snyder of Oley Township loves the chance to leave the real world behind for a weekend. Back in his daily life, he operates a financial advisory firm.

“There’s no cell phones, no television,” said Snyder, a member of the Reading-based 2nd Pennsylvania regiment. “The world can come to an end around us and we wouldn’t know.”

And there is the pull of history.

David Bolton, of Hamburg, has gained an appreciation for the mettle it took for men to stand in formation and fight. Bolton is captain of the 88th Pennsylvania regiment, and during re-enactments he leads men through the same drills that soldiers had to perform in the 1860s. Fighting was a bloody affair. Musket balls and cannonballs cut men to pieces. One Union soldier at Gettysburg, leading an artillery battery that poured fodder into advancing Confederate lines, described it as the red mist of battle, Metzger said. “When you read the accounts, you get some grasp of what the gore was like,” he said. That realization became clear when Bolton toured the Antietam battlefield in Maryland. More than 23,000 died there in one day, making it the bloodiest day of the war. Walking along the same sunken road where soldiers fell by the hundreds was haunting, Bolton said. “It gives you chills up the back of your neck,” he said.

But it is not until you see a re-enactment, and watch hundreds of men fall into a battle, that you can really begin to picture what it was like back then, Bolton said. Re-enactors can come as close as possible to experiencing what a soldier went through during the war, Bolton said. But they cannot understand what it was like to face bullets in battle, he said. “You cannot imagine the nerve it took to stand in line and do what they did,” he said. David Lightcap is no stranger to frayed nerves while in war. As a Navy medic during Vietnam, he often had to duck enemy fire trying to rescue injured soldiers, the Boyertown resident said. But that was a different time and a different type of war, he said. He feels sympathetic for the green recruits, fresh from the farms and factories, who were sent off to fight and die at places such as Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Antietam. History books can tell only so much about what life was like back then, he said. “I just wanted to get a feeling for what soldiers actually went through,” Lightcap said. The hobby can become an obsession.

Lightcap has a room in his basement dedicated to the Civil War. He used to play in a men’s softball league, but games got in the way of re-enactments.

Michael Harris, captain of the 28th, spends his spare time reading Army manuals from the Civil War and countless books on tactics used in the conflict. “I read about the strategies, and where the campaigns went and how it affected other parts of the country,” Harris said. Harris, who lives in Norristown, became involved in re-enactment when he was 14, serving as a drummer boy. As a lover of history, the hobby was a natural fit. He studied and was able to move up to the rank of captain. But the draw of history only tells part of the story, Harris said. Members of the 28th are like a fraternity united by their common love of history. “It is still about the history, but it is the brotherhood that keeps us going,” he said. “We go to each other’s weddings, kids birthday’s. It’s like a family.” Snyder, from Oley, became involved in re-enactments after his son Dillon expressed interest in the hobby.

At the time, Dillon was 13 — too young to pick up a gun. He decided to portray a drummer boy instead. Dillon, now a 16-year-old sophomore at Oley High School, has stayed active in the hobby along with his father. Both participate in living-history events at schools. “We want kids to understand that we are what we are today as a nation because of the Civil War,” Dave Snyder said. The Civil War was a watershed moment in the nation’s history, Metzger said. After the guns were silenced at Appomattox Courthouse, the nation had to figure out a way to unify itself, Metzger said. It is understandable, then, why the war and the lives of soldiers continue to hold so much fascination, Metzger said. Putting on that uniform, shouldering a musket and heading into battle is like paying homage to the men who fought. “Any tangible evidence of that time period we hold so close,” Metzger said. “People identify with the Civil War. It represents our history and our heritage.”

Civil War re-enactment a test of mettle It’s hardly fun and games. Amid the mayhem and the physical and mental challenges, it’s easy to forget it’s just a simulation of combat.
By Darrin Youker of the Reading Eagle

IN THE WOODS OF BENSALEM — The men of the 28th Pennsylvania regiment are spread out in a line, seeking shelter behind spindly trees and brush. You are among this thin string of soldiers, representing the first line of defense against a phalanx of rebel soldiers advancing through the woods. You seek shelter behind a small tree; your stomach is knotted as you hold a hefty black powder rifle. It’s your first battle, and you’re awaiting the first glimpse of the enemy. The noises of battle crash all around the woods like a wave of sound. Gunfire, the frantic shouts of soldiers and — in the distance — the chilling cry of advancing rebels. Soldiers here in this battle did not choose to be in these woods. Self-determination was surrendered the minute you signed up to fight for the Union. Instead, you are waiting for Capt. Michael Harris to give the order to fire; you look to him for leadership and guidance. And as you wait, the clamor of war draws closer.

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The men of today’s 28th Pennsylvania are here in these woods to re-create what life was like for Civil War soldiers. They come from different backgrounds, but all have a common love for the Civil War. They mimic the lives of soldiers, from the leather boots to the drills and tactics. The 28th Pennsylvania has organized this re-enactment of the Battle of Chancellorsville, which has drawn about 1,500 soldiers from the Mid-Atlantic region on a weekend in late April. “When we get together, we try to be as historically accurate as possible,” said Tony Matijasick president of the 28th Pennsylvania. Yet reminders of today’s world can’t be avoided. The camp is set up amid the modern roads and facilities of Neshaminy State Park in Bucks County. A large communication tower looms large over the park. Planes on approach to Philadelphia International Airport buzz overhead.

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You try to catch a few hours of rest on a thin bed of straw on a chilly spring morning. The first pink rays of morning spread across the sky as the men of the 28th emerge from their tents. Chirping birds, and a damp chill, make sleep impossible. Weak coffee helps shake the grogginess away. In the thin dawn light, Diane Harris — the camp’s cook — fries bacon and eggs over a fire, infusing the taste of wood smoke into the frying pan. There’s no leisure after breakfast. For two hours Capt. Harris runs his men through endless drills. It’s monotonous, repetitive and tiring. But they drill over and over again, to get it right, to be true to history. “It is a way of life,” Harris said later. “It is not just a hobby.” The company practices how to load their weapons and fire, how to form lines on the run and how to keep steady when advancing on enemy lines. After two hours, your feet are road-sore, and your arms are aching from the weight of the rifle. There’s a brief hour break and then ready for battle. Both Union and Confederate camps have agreed to participate in a tactical battle before re-creating another for spectators. The battle, which takes place in the woods, is unscripted. Generals move the rank and file men around the woods as the battle unfolds. Like the average soldier in the Civil War, the men of the 28th have no idea what will happen next. “Load up on ammo,” Sgt. Pete Matijasick says as the boys form rank.

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And amid the swirling confusion of the woods, you begin to wonder how anyone ever fought in war. Perspective is lost. The battle is fought in front of your eyes alone. You have no sense of what is happening in other areas of the woods. It must have been the same feeling for soldiers back then. The shuffling of men and battalions is left to the generals — the men on horseback. The grand scheme of battle, the details of who fought and fell where, falls to the historians and scribes. Instead, you scan the woods as the rebels advance. Suddenly, a quick percussion of gunshots to your left announces the appearance of a fresh company of rebels. The men are pinned and start to fall back. “First company, form a line!” Harris barks. The men cluster into two tight rows — a dozen men each. They load muskets. Across the road, the rebels do the same. Both sides fire in a cough of smoke. “First company, fall back, double quick,” Harris yells. And you run, down a rutted road, over brush and fallen logs to find a safe position. Eventually, you and the rest of the platoon make a stand along a road that runs between a field and the thicket of woods. Your backs are to the field. Not 100 yards in front, dozens of rebels are amassing.

Over the course of a half-hour, your company advances and retreats three separate times. Each advance is thwarted by fresh rebel troops. At last the company makes a final stand on the road. You crowd in, stacked shoulder to shoulder to the men next to you. You’re in the front row, pouring black powder down the hot rifle barrel. The second line is barely a foot behind. “Ready!” Harris shouts. You lift up the gun, the heavy stock resting firm against your shoulder. To the rear, the second row does the same. You feel one of their guns placed almost squarely on your other shoulder. The hammer is inches from your left ear. “Fire!” Harris screams. There’s momentary deafness. Silence is followed by a sharp ringing in your ears. Then comes the smoke, thick and choking, reeking of sulfur. Before you have time to breathe, the order comes again to reload and fire. A smoky haze begins to fill in the small gap between you and the rebels. Their numbers are simply too much for the men to keep up.

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The Civil War was a bloody affair. More than 3 million men fought in the war. Battles claimed 620,000 lives. At Cold Harbor alone, 7,000 Union men fell dead in 20 minutes. Nine times as many soldiers died at Antietam than during D-Day. No one fell today. Everyone walked off the battlefield unscathed and into the bare comfort of camp. Finally, there was a chance for rest — on a bed of straw and a thin blanket. But rest indeed. No wounds to heal. No tragedies to relive. No friends to mourn. Just the quiet repose of an April afternoon.

•Contact reporter Darrin Youker at 610-371-5032 or dyouker@readingeagle.com

Civil War cannonball kills Virginia relic collector
By STEVE SZKOTAK, ASSOCISTED PRESS

CHESTER, Va.

Like many boys in the South, Sam White got hooked on the Civil War early, digging up rusting bullets and military buttons in the battle-scarred earth of his hometown. As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics, weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms. But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring exploded, killing him in his driveway.

More than 140 years after Lee surrendered to Grant, the cannonball was still powerful enough to send a chunk of shrapnel through the front porch of a house a quarter mile from White's home in this leafy Richmond suburb. White's death shook the close knit fraternity of relic collectors and raised concerns about the dangers of other Civil War munitions that lay buried beneath old battlefields. Explosives experts said the fatal blast defied extraordinary odds. "You can't drop these things on the ground and make them go off," said retired Col. John F. Biemeck, formerly of the Army Ordnance Corps. White, 53, was one of thousands of hobbyists who comb former battlegrounds for artifacts using metal detectors, pickaxes, shovels and trowels.

"There just aren't many areas in the South in which battlefields aren't located. They're literally under your feet," said Harry Ridgeway, a former relic hunter who has amassed a vast collection. "It's just a huge thrill to pull even a mundane relic out of the ground."

After growing up in Petersburg, White went to college, served on his local police force, then worked for 25 years as a deliveryman for UPS. He retired in 1998 and devoted most of his time to relic hunting. He was an avid reader, a Civil War raconteur and an amateur historian who watched History Channel programs over and over, to the mild annoyance of his wife. "I used to laugh at him and say, 'Why do you watch this? You know how it turned out. It's not going to be any different,'" Brenda White said. She didn't share her husband's devotion, but she was understanding of his interest. True relic hunters who have this passion, they don't live that way vicariously, like if you were a sports fanatic," she said. "Finding a treasure is their touchdown, even if it's two, three bullets."

Union and Confederate troops lobbed an estimated 1.5 million artillery shells and cannonballs at each other from 1861 to 1865. As many as one in five were duds. Some of the weapons remain buried in the ground or river bottoms. In late March, a 44-pound, 8-inch mortar shell was uncovered at Petersburg National Battlefield, the site of an epic 292-day battle. The shell was taken to the Battlefield, the site of an epic 292-day battle. The shell was taken to the city landfill and detonated. Black powder provided the destructive force for cannonballs and artillery shells. The combination of sulfur, potassium nitrate and finely ground charcoal requires a high temperature 572 degrees Fahrenheit and friction to ignite.

White estimated he had worked on about 1,600 shells for collectors and museums. On the day he died, he had 18 cannonballs lined up in his driveway to restore. White's efforts seldom raised safety concerns. His wife and son Travis sometimes stood in the driveway as he worked. "Sam knew his stuff, no doubt about it," said Jimmy Blankenship, historian-curator at the Petersburg battleground. "He did know Civil War ordnance."

An investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms will not be complete until the end of May, but police who responded to the blast and examined shrapnel concluded that it came from a Civil War explosive. Experts suspect White was killed while trying to disarm a 9-inch, 75-pound naval cannonball, a particularly potent explosive with a more complex fuse and many times the destructive power of those used by infantry artillery. Biemeck and Peter George, co-author of a book on Civil War ordnance, believe White was using either a drill or a grinder attached to a drill to remove grit from the cannonball, causing a shower of sparks. Because of the fuse design, it may have appeared as though the weapon's powder had already been removed, leading even a veteran like White to conclude mistakenly that the ball was inert. The weapon also had to be waterproof because it was designed to skip over the water at 600 mph to strike at the waterline of an enemy ship. The protection against moisture meant the ball could have remained potent longer than an infantry shell.

Brenda White is convinced her husband was working on a flawed cannonball, and no amount of caution could have prevented his death. "He had already disarmed the shell," she said. "From what I was told, there was absolutely nothing he had done wrong, that there was a manufacturing defect that no one would have known was there."

After White's death, about two dozen homes were evacuated for two days while explosives experts collected pieces from his collection and detonated them. Today, there is little evidence of the Feb. 18 blast. The garage where White did most of his work is still crammed with his discoveries, many painstakingly restored and mounted. Rusted horseshoes are piled high in the crook of a small tree.

White's digging partner, Fred Lange, hasn't had the heart to return to his relic hunting. "I truly miss him," Lange said. "Not a day that goes by that I don't think of him."

Experts Find Shipwreck Evidence in River
By RUSS BYNUM, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Savannah Georgia - October 2007

Captured by Confederate sailors in a bloody midnight sneak attack in 1864, the gunboat Water Witch became one of the few Civil War ships to sail under the flags of both the Confederate and Union navies. Archaeologists say they found strong evidence they've located the Water Witch's wreckage, buried under more than 10 feet of mud in the Vernon River, south of Savannah.

Divers pushed a 20-foot metal rod through the river mud Thursday and tapped solid wood and metal underneath. It was the same location where an 1865 survey map showed Confederate sailors burned the ship to prevent Union Gen. William T. Sherman's army from recapturing it. "In all likelihood, it is the Water Witch," said Gordon Watts, an underwater archaeologist hired by the state of Georgia. "We'd have to absolutely dig something up to say for sure."

If Watts is correct, the Water Witch would be just the third Civil War shipwreck, along with the ironclad CSS Georgia and the blockade runner CSS Nashville, to be found out of dozens known to have been sunk in Georgia waters, said Dave
Crass, Georgia's state archaeologist. "There are lots more that are out there and we know where they are, but it's cost
prohibitive" to go after them. Crass said, archaeologists got lucky with the Water Witch. The state Department of Transportation had to survey a part of the Vernon River it plans to bridge with a parkway extension. The agency agreed to go ahead and check a spot just two miles away where the Water Witch was believed to have been burned.

Using a magnetometer, a giant metal detector, surveyors detected large iron objects scattered beneath the river's surface in an area 200 feet long. An 1865 map marked the same spot as the Water Witch's grave. Crass said the state will consult with the federal government, which technically owns the wreckage, to see if they support funding an expedition to verify whether the diver found the Water Witch.

The 160-foot, wooden-hulled Water Witch was built by the U.S. Navy in 1851 as a sort of hybrid of old and new seafaring technologies. Though outfitted with a steam engine and side-mounted paddle wheels, the ship also had 90-foot masts for
sailing. During the Civil War, the Water Witch patrolled blockades off the coasts of Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, but mostly in the waters of Ossabaw Sound between Ossabaw Island and the Georgia mainland 15 miles south of Savannah. That's where Confederate Navy Lt. Thomas Pelot got assigned to lead a raid to capture the ship in the early morning darkness on June 3, 1864. Pelot led a group of about 120 men who used small boats to slip alongside the Water Witch undetected. Their numbers gave them a healthy advantage over the ship's crew of 65 sailors.

Taken by surprise, the Union sailors still put up a fight, engaging the Confederates in close quarters combat with sabers and revolvers. Luther Billings, the assistant paymaster aboard the Water Witch, later estimated 40 men were killed or wounded in the raid. The dead included Pelot, who led the assault, and Dallas Moses, a slave who was also paid a $100 monthly salary as a Confederate river pilot. Moses piloted the lead boat in the sneak attack, and was supposed to steer the captured Water Witch back to Savannah, under the flag of the Confederate Navy. Though numerous ships were captured by both sides in the Civil War, few actually served on both sides during the war, said Bruce Smith, executive director of the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus. "It was fairly uncommon," Smith said. "It did happen a number of times, less than a handful."

Because Moses was killed before he could pilot the captured Water Witch, the ship never made it back to Savannah. Confederate sailors dared not take their prize back to sea, where Union battleships watched for it, and the inland waterways to the city were too shallow. The Water Witch remained in the waters near Ossabaw Sound for about six months until December, when Sherman's Union troops closed in on Savannah. Fearing the Union would reclaim the ship, Confederate sailors burned it in the water. Smith said written orders from the period show that sailors stripped the Water Witch of its guns, ammunition and most of its supplies before burning it. But he said any artifacts that could be recovered would be valuable. "If it was just doorknobs, that would be fantastic as far as I'm concerned, if it was the real deal," Smith said.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

From the "DID YOU KNOW?" column

Approximately 620,000 Americans died during the 4 years of the American Civil War, 1861 - 1865.

Officially, eleven Confederate states opposed twenty-three Union states.

On the day of Lincoln's celebrated Gettysburg address, the principal speaker at the ceremonies dedicating the military burial ground on November 19, 1863, was Edward Everett, former governor of Massachusettes and a well know orator. His speech lasted about two hours; Lincoln's lasted two minutes. Everett later wrote to President Lincoln: "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

The Emancipation Proclamation did not reflect President Lincoln's desired solution for the slavery problem. He instead favored gradual emancipation to be undertaken voluntarily by the states, with federal compensation to slaveholders, a plan he considered eminently reasonable in view of the common responsibility of North and South for the existance of slavery. As it turned out, the Emancipation Proclamation for Lincoln was chiefly a declaration of policy which, it was hoped, would serve as an opening wedge in depleting the South's great manpower reserve in slaves and - equally important - would enhance the Union cause in the eyes of Europeans, especially the British.

In combination with subsequent Union victories, the Emancipation Proclamation ended all hopes of the Confederacy for recognition from Britain and France. Doubts as to the proclamation's constitutionality were later removed by the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment.

President Abraham Lincoln, speaking to a group of Missourians in 1863, aware that he would not be supported by the populace in all of his decisions said, "If at the end I shall have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend remaining and that one shall be down inside of me."

Many years after Gettysburg, a Massachusetts veteran recounts - "the hoarse and indistinguishable orders of commanding officers, the screaming and bursting of shells, canister and shrapnel as they tore through the struggling masses of humanity, the death screams of wonded animals, the groans of their human companions, wounded and dying and trampled underfoot by hurrying batteries, riderless horses and the moving lines of battle - a perfect Hell on earth, never, perhaps to be equaled, certainly not to be surpassed, nor even to be forgotten in a man's lifetime. It has never been effaced from my memory, day or night, for fifty years."

After the first Battle of Bull Run, Virginia, as Union defeats mounted in the early months of the war and close, personal friends of the president were killed in the line of duty, Abraham Lincoln is quoted to have said, "If hell is any worse than this, it has no terror for me."

In the vast agony of a nation at war with itself, the Confederate invasion of New Mexico Territory was a minor drama. The dreams behind it, however, were grandoise. Rebels dreamed of access to the Santa Fe Trail and the gold mines of Colorado and California. The Union knew it must deny those dreams. Some 4,000 Union and 3,000 Confederate soldiers fought in New Mexico, the westernmost campaign of the Civil War. More than 280 died. The Confederacy won tactical victories at every major battle before returning empty-handed to Texas, defeated by harsh land and determined people.

Connecticut factories produced 1,000 rifles a month, along with powder, cartridges, clothing and wagons in great quantities.

Disease killed more than twice as many soldiers as did bullets. Approximately 67 percent of deaths are attributed to disease.

While the efforts of the Army Medical department during the Civil War did little to bring immediate relief for the victims, many medical advances did result from the war experience. Doctors treating hundreds of thousands of cases of dysentery, diarrhea, typhoid, malaria and gunshot wounds compiled copious notes that would aid researchers after the war. These case studies were later published between 1870 and 1888 under the title MEDICAL AND SURGICAL HISTORY OF THE WAR OF THE REBELLION.

Opium, quinine and chloroform were effective medical remedies when used, but were often in short supply to armies in the field. Because of the shortage of effective drugs, most soldiers resorted to using the "home remedies" that they knew about. But these often did more harm than good. Leaves, bark and the roots from trees and bushes were used by the soldiers in greater quantities than the recognized drugs used by the army doctors and surgeons.

Many strange and foul-tasting medicines were mixed and tested on the battlefield, but by far the biggest favorite among the soldiers was that which was supposed to be a substitute for quinine, named "Old Indigenous". The ingredients for Old Indigenous consisted of the dried and ground-up bark of willow, dogwood and poplar and laced with a generous helping of whiskey.

Chimborazzo Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, was the largest Confederate military hospital. Satterlee United States Army Hospital, located in Philadelphia, was the largest Union Military hospital. Satterlee covered 16 acres of ground and contained 4,500 beds and was believed to also be the largest military hospital in the world.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, the Union army would not hire women doctors, so Mary Edwards Walker - a physician - volunteered instead as a nurse, and served also as a spy. Later she was contracted as an assistant surgeon with the Fifty-Second Ohio Infantry - the first woman to serve with the Army Medical Corps. In 1864 she was captured and spent four months in a Confederate prison. The next year, she was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for her Civil War Service, in an order signed by President Andrew Johnson. In 1917, the government revoked 900 such medals, and asked for Walker's medal back. She stubbornly refused to return it and wore it until her death two years later. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter restored her medal posthumously, making her the first woman to hold a Congressional Medal of Honor.

Slaves in Virginia could be hired for as much as $30 a month in 1863 - yet the pay of an army private was $11 per month.

At the outset of the civil war, approximately four million slaves were in bondage in the United States. Just two weeks after South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the Union, The state of Delaware rejects a similar proposal. There had been little doubt that Delaware would remain with the North. Delaware was technically a slave state, but the institution was rare by 1861. There were an estimated 20,000 African Americans living there, but only 1,800 of them were slaves. On August 25th, 1862, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton authorizes the enlistment of black soldiers into the Union army. Approximately 186,000 African Americans served in the Union Army and 29,000 served in the Union Navy. It is noted that Pennsylvania was the first state to abolish slavery by using a 1780 law that stated no child could be born a slave, thus gradually eliminating slavery within its boundaries.

Pro slavery and some modern Confederate racists sadly refer to Union General Ulysses S. Grant as a owner of slaves prior to the Civil War. The truth is that Grant's wife, Julia Dent, had family "servants" (household slaves, not field workers) before she married Grant in 1848. Julia could not part with them, and her husband chose not to make an issue of it. They legally belonged to Julia and she kept them until 1863. However Grant came into possession of one of his father-in-law's slaves at the family farm left in Grant's hands in 1858. The slave's name was William Jones. Although Grant badly needed money and could have sold Jones for a substantial profit, Grant emancipated him in a matter of months. So referring to Grant as a slaveholder - for a few months - may be technically correct, but it is a misrepresentation of the facts to suggest that he was either pro slavery or a hypocritical opponent of slavery.

On August 22nd, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued a civil war citation stating, "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free."

No state was more divided by split loyalties during the Civil War than Tennessee. Early in the conflict, Tennesseans chose not to deal with secession or the war and decided to remain in the Union. However when President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to wage war against the South, only then did Tennessee vote to join the Confederacy. Still, many Tennesseans remained loyal to the Union, especially the eastern half of the state.

During the Civil War, both Union and Confederate armies made use of balloons as observation posts.

In October 1861, Western Union completed the first transcontinental telegraph line to California. The telegraph was used by both the Union and Confederate forces during the war. Stringing up telegraph wires became an important part of military operations.

The money order system was developed primarily to provide a safe means for Union soldiers and their families to exchange money through the mail.

Photography in the United States was twenty-one years old when the Civil War started. The craft had undergone dramatic changes since the daguerreotype was introduced in the United States in 1839, and even more progress was made during the war. Photographs taken in the field by nationally known photographers and firms such as M.B. Brady, Alexander Gardner, George S. Cook and the E&H.T. Anthony Company were taken on glass plate negetives and printed on albumen photographic paper. An estimated 5,000 or more battlefield, camp and outdoor photographs were created for military use and for commercial sale. The majority were three-dimensional photographs, called stereo views or stereographs, taken with a twin lens stereoscopic camera.

Ulysses S. Grant fell into alcoholism and hard times after his service in the Mexican War. He had been working as a clerk in his father's leather shop in Galena, Illinois, when the Civil War began. After obtaining a commission as a Colonel of volunteers, a string of victories helped him rise quickly through the ranks. On March 10th, 1864, President Lincoln named him commander and general in chief of all Union forces.

Galusha Pennypacker was the youngest general in either army during the Civil War. From Chester County, Pennsylvania, he enlisted at the age of sixteen. Just before his twenty-first birthday, Pennypacker was made a Brigadier General.

General Winfield Scott authored the Anaconda Plan to blockade and isolate the Confederacy. Scott did not believe that a quick victory was possible for Federal forces. He devised a long term plan to defeat the Confederacy by occupying key terrain, such as the Mississippi River and key ports on the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico, then moving on Atlanta. The Anaconda Plan was derided in the press, however, the strategy adopted by General Ulysses Grant and executed by General William T. Sherman followed Scott's concept broadly.

The town of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania holds the dubious distinction of being the only settlement destroyed by Confederate cavalry. The attack was said to have been retribution for Union depredations in Virginia. Others say however, that the ransome demand made of the town was desperately needed by the cavalry.

The city of Winchester Virginia was the site of several major Civil War battles and changed hands more than 70 times over the course of the war. Today, graffiti from captured and hospitalized soldiers is still visable in the 18th century courthouse in the town's main square.

Union general Daniel Butterfield and his men had the distinction of being the first Federals to march in battle against the Confederacy on Southern soil. The bugle call "Taps" began as a call for Buttlerfield's troops. of all the military bugle calls, none is more easily recognized or more apt to render emotion than the call "Taps." The melody is both eloquent and haunting and the history of its origin is interesting though somewhat clouded in controversy. As one story goes, Union General Daniel Butterfield was not pleased with the call for "Extinguish Lights," feeling that the call was to formal to signal the day's end. With the help of the brigade bugler, Oliver Willcox Norton, Butterfield wrote "Taps" to honor his men while in camp at Harrisons Landing, Virginia, following the Seven Day's Battle in 1862. The new call soon spread to other units of the Union army and was reportedly also used by the Confederates. "Taps" was made an official bugle call after the war.

Bugle calls became an important part of armies in the field. Calls often directed cavalry and artillerymen, whereas the drummer's beat formed and marched the infantry. Bugle calls also formed reveille, assembly and a host of other activities, including a call to meals. The "battle" call or "charge" of a bugle would often send chills down the backbones of men at war.

General Joseph Mansfield spent months pestering the War Department for a field command that would be his career's crowning glory. He got his wish and was made commander of the Federal XII Corps. In less than an hour, he was killed leading his corps into action.

At the battle of Ball's Bluff in Virginia, Paul Revere's grandson was captured, Oliver Wendell Holme's son was wounded and Fireside Poet, James Russell Lowell's nephew was killed.

Confederates used "Quaker Guns", logs used to make the army appear to have more fire power than they truly had.

A Union expression for a retreating Confederate was that he was said to be "going in search of his rights". A popular Confederate expression for cowardice was "developing a case of the Yankee chills".

A soldier under attack wanted to "peddle lead" or to shoot fast. To "make a cathole" ment to shoot someone.

unreconstructed: a Northerner's description of an unrepentant, bitter, Confederate vetern who refused to accept defeat.

Each of the suits on a deck of cards represents the four major pillars of the economy in the middle ages; hearts represents the Church, spades represented the military, clubs represented agriculture and diamonds represented the the merchant class. The king of hearts is the only king without a moustache.

Prior to 1860, young women of marriage-able status in Biloxi, Mississippi, referred to themselves as "Proper Bostonians". The Civil War changed that.

William Tecumseh Sherman was quoted as saying "I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all, there would be news from Hell before breakfast."

On Monday, April 4th, 1862, the Federals began the Peninsula Campaign, aimed at capturing the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia - thus putting a quick end to the Southern rebellion. It would not, however, turn out as planned by Major General George B. McClellan, who commanded Union forces and the bloody war lasted for three more years.

President Lincoln said of McClellan's effort, "Sending armies to McClellan is like shoveling fleas across a barnyard. Not half of them get there".

Called the Seven Day's Battles, the following clashes near Richmond, Virginia, ended the Peninsula Campaign of 1862: the battles of Mechanicsville, Gaine's Mill, Savage's Station and Malvern Hill.

On March 8th, 1862, the battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, was the largest Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi, ending in a Union victory.

More than 165,000 soldiers participated in the Battle at Gettysburg. The Union was represented by 18 states, 246 infantry units, 38 cavalry regiments and 68 artillary batteries. The South was represented by 12 states with 167 infantry units, 28 cavalry regiments and 67 artillary batteries. Both sides fielded units from Maryland.

From the Battle of Shiloh, in Tennessee, the following landmarks were produced: Fraley's Field, Bloody Pond, the Peach Orchard, Hell's Hollow and the Hornet's Nest.

Clara Barton, known as the "Angel of the Battlefield" for her heroics in helping wounded Union soldiers at the Battle of Antietam, in Maryland, September 1862, said, "What could I do but go with them [civil war soldiers], or work for them and my country? The patriot blood of my father was warm in my veins".

It is difficult to overstate the bitterness of the Civil War in Missouri, or how thoroughly it reshaped politics there. By 1865, approximately one out of every three Missourians had dissapeared from its boundaries. They had died, fled or been banished from the state that had split into three political factions: the seccionists, the Unionist Conservatives and the Unionist Radicals.

Former Texas governor, Sam Houston stated, "Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives, you may win Southern independence, but I doubt it. The North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche".

Missouri sent 109,000 of its native sons to fight for the Union cause. Approximately 40,000 Missourians were believed to have joined and fought with the Confederacy. With about 1,200 battles and skirmishes fought within its boundaries, Missouri trails only Virginia and Tennessee in the number of Civil War clashes.

Union soldier Calvin Shedd, in a letter to his family while at Fort Jefferson, Florida, on March 15th, 1862, said, "Dear Wife and Children, . . . . . the good soldiers are scarce in this regiment. That is, that do their duty from sence of patriotism and love of country. I can not find a man that sticks up to the rack as I do. I feel the same courage to keep on, as I did when I enlisted, although if the war was over, I should wish to be at home. For a soldiers life as such, I don't like I can tell you, and I never have seen the man yet that did . . . . . "

Union soldier Sullivan Ballou, in a letter to his wife wrote, " My very dear Sarah, . . . I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans on the triumph of the Government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us, through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing - perfectly willing - to lay down all the joys in this life, to help maintain the Government and to pay that debt." Ballou was killed at the Battle of 1st Bull Run, Virginia, one week after writing this.

Army shoes were called brogans or "gunboats".

Soldiers often referred to hardtack as "Sherman's pies" and biscuits as "sinkers", "weevil fodder" or "death bells".

A bread bag was called a "haversack".

Bullets were know as "bumblebees" or "swifts".

Backpacks were called "beehives".

"Chin music" did not refer to baseball, it was a synonym for conversation.

Soldiers often called their blanket rolls "horse collars".

A soldier short on "shin plasters" was known to be low on paper money.

Officers shoulder straps were also know as "sardine boxes" and "pumpkin rinds".

"Forty dead men" referred to forty rounds of ammo in the cartridge box.

Soldiers who displayed cowardice were said to be "showing the white feather".

During the Civil War, soldiers often referred to coffins as "wooden overcoats".

Bacon was called "sow-bosom" by soldiers during the Civil War.

Union soldier, Harrison E. Randall of Lena, Ohio, writing from Camp Parole, Anapolis, Maryland, in a letter to his parents in March 1864 said, "Dear Father and Mother . . . . The boys are all, more or less, ailing as they eat to much for their own good. The food is so much richer than they have been used to. But after they get filled up once, it will not be so bad on them. It is a wonder that the boys did not kill themselves when they first got to our grub. We got boiled pork for breakfast, vegitable soup for dinner, coffee for supper and a loaf of light bread. I do not get potatoes enough. If I had money, I would buy them and sweet milk. That is what I want most . . . "

On May 23rd, 1861, Virginian Elizabeth Van Lew wrote in her diary, "It broke my heart when Virginia seceded. Mother and I prayed for our country. Secession and war would be the worst thing to happen to the South. It could not possibly survive. Its best hope was for a short war. Tearing a country apart is never good for anyone." Elizabeth pledged her life, fortune and honor for the preservation of the Union by creating a spy ring so complex and widespread that it reached into Confederate president Jefferson Davis's home.

After three days of battle at Gettysburg in July 1863, most of the Confederate troops who were killed were tumbled into mass graves by Union burial details and local farmers, who had been paid fifty cents per body to give them "a decent burial". It was eight years later, in 1871, before several hundred of these bodies were exhumed, boxed for shipment and brought back to Richmond, Virginia, for honorable reinternment. Further exhumation began on April 1872, and by October 1873, 2,935 bodies were recovered and shipped to Richmond. Reinternment took place on "Gettysburg Hill" in the Hollywood Cemetary in Richmond.

Of the 16,000 Civil War soldiers laid to rest in Vicksburg, Mississippi, less than 4,000 are identified. Nationwide, only 46 percent of the remains of soldiers and sailors buried in Civil war cemetaries are identified. The quartermaster corps of the Union army recorded just more than 116,000 burials between 1861 and 1865, yet nearly three times that many Union soldiers were killed in the war. Likewise, Southern casualty records are woefully inaccurate or nonexistant.

On February 14th, 1862, the USS Galena, one of the first ironclads built by the US Navy, was launched in Connecticut.

On March 9th, 1862, the USS Monitor and the Confederate Merrimac (also known as the Virginia) battled each other to a draw at Hampton Roads, Virginia.

In the 11 years that the Starr Arms Company was in business, it produced carbines, revolvers, derringers, and pepperbox pistols, 95 percent of which saw service in the Civil War. Despite the enormous success of the company and the dependability of the weapons it produced during the war, the end of hostilities in 1865 spelled doom for the manufacturer. By the end of 1867, the company was in the midst of severe monetary difficulties, was sold and then disappeared forever into the pages of history.

"Fragging", or purposely killng a fellow soldier, was the cause of the death of Union Brigadier General Thomas Wilson, a tyrannical Federal officer. He died in action at the battle of Baton Rouge, Louisana, when according to one account, he was seized by a group of his own men, who held him in front of a cannon before it was fired at the enemy.

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance", chided Union General John Sedgwick to his more cautious infantrymen, just moments before being shot dead by a Confederate sniper at Spotsylvania, Virginia.

When Confederate general Jubal Early marched into Frederick, Maryland, he offered to not torch the town, in exchange for a payment of $200,000. It took the townspeople a day to borrow the money - and eighty-seven years to pay it back. Similarly, when Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, failed to raise a ransom of $500,000, Early's subordinate, General John McCausland, burned the town to the ground.

A unidentified Confederate soldier, after fraternizing with a Union soldier between the lines was quoted as saying, "We talked the matter over and could have settled the war in thirty minutes had it been left to us".

After the war, Confederate soldier, Sam Watkins of the First Tennessee Infantry is reported to have written, "America has no north, no south, no east, no west. The sun rises over the hills and sets over the mountains, the compass just points up and down and we can laugh now at the ubsurb notion of their being a North and South. We are one and undivided."

In the official exchange of prisoners, sixty enlisted men were to be traded for a general.

The Cherokee Nation, while not a state, was involved in the Civil War as a foreign ally. While some Cherokee troops were aligned with the Union, some were aligned with the Confederacy. The result was a war between two Cherokee factions within the Cherokee Nation. Among all Native Americans, the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws and Seminoles were the only tribes that took an active part in the Civil War. Cherokee indian, John Benge holds the unique destinction as the first member of a Native American unit to be killed during the Civil War and died at the Battle of Wilson's Creek in Missouri.

In the largest battle fought in Florida during the Civil War, a Confederate force under General Jooseph Finegan decisively defeats an army commanded by General Truman Seymour at the Battle of Olustee. Union forces moved west from Union captured forts in Jacksonville before encountering Confederate forces. The victory keeps the Confederates in control of Florida's interior for the rest of the war.

During the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, thousands of Union soldiers lay wounded and dying. Their cries and moans for help echoed throughout the chilling night. The next morning, nineteen year old Confederate sergeant Richard R. Kirkland of South Carolina could no longer bear the horror. He gathered water canteens and crossed over a stone wall into the battle area. Moving from soldier to soldier, he administered water and spoke to the men. The fighting ceased on both sides as he made his way through the injured and dying. As he left the field, men from both sides loudly cheered his deeds. Young Kirkland was subsequently killed in action at Chickanauga, Georgia, on September 20, 1863.

At the battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, hundreds of casualties were left behind the battle lines. By afternoon, wounded Union soldiers lying helpless faced a new danger: FLAMES, started by the battle's gunfire that crept steadily toward them. Lieutenant Colonel William P. Martin, commanding the First and Fifteenth Consolidated Arkansas Regiment, jumped onto the earthworks and ordered his Confederates to cease fire. Waving a white flag of truce, Martin shouted to the Federals, "Come and remove your wounded. They are burning to death". For a brief time, Northerners and Southerners alike rescued the wounded and put out the fires. The next day, Union officers presented Martin with a pair of Colt revolvers in appreciation of his humanitarian act.

Partley for security reasons, and partly because of changes and renovations in the Springfield, Illinois cemetary, Abraham Lincoln's body was moved 17 times during the thirty-six years that followed his assassination before the former President was permanently laid to rest.

Waterloo, New York was designated by Congress as the "birthplace of Memorial Day" in 1966 - a century after the first Memorial Day celebration Day on May 5th, 1866.

In present day America, 30 acres of historic Civil War battlefield land are destroyed every day. Nearly 20 percent of America's Civil War Battlefields have already been destroyed. Of those that remain today, only 15 percent are protected by the federal government.

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