As soon as Gettysburg was done, the losers wanted to blame someone and the winners wanted to heap praise upon the victors.  After watching portions of the film, Gettysburg, and reading about it in our text (Ch. 19, pgs. 352-359 is highly recommended reading), we can point to several instances or issues that are pivotal in victory or failure:

1. The absence of Confederate cavalry general Jeb Stuart for almost a week.  His absence allowed Meade’s Army of the Potomac to get within miles of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in southern Pennsylvania in late June.  Stuart was supposed to harass Meade and keep in touch w/ Lee while

  -In the article, “Jeb Stuart: Battle of Gettysburg Scapegoat,” the author takes a different angle on the scapegoat theory.   The authors of the article contend that Stuart had carried out his orders exactly as Lee had written them, and Lee still had cavalry with him (just not the best cavalry generals like Stuart that he needed at a very crucial time).  According to the article, two cavalry brigades guarded the Blue Ridge Mts. to protect the rear of Lee’s army and also keep their route to Pennsylvania secret, while Stuart took three brigades towards the Potomac to find where Meade’s army was located – following Lee’s oddly worded orders. 

“If General Hooker’s army remains inactive, you can leave two brigades to watch him, and withdraw with the three others, but should he not appear to be moving northward, I think you had better withdraw this side of the mountain tomorrow night, cross at Shepherdstown next day and move to Fredericktown [Frederick]. You will, however, be able to judge whether you can pass around their army without hindrance, doing them all the damage you can, and cross the river east of the mountains. In either case, after crossing the river, you must move on and feel the right of Ewell’s troops, collecting information, provisions, etc. Give instructions to the commander of the brigades left behind to watch the flank and rear of the army and (in event of the enemy leaving their front) retire from the mountains west of the Shenandoah, leaving sufficient pickets to guard the passes, and bringing everything clean along the valley, closing upon the rear of the army.”

Don’t the phrases “remains inactive” and “should he not appear to be moving northward” mean the same thing?   How can this be an EITHER / OR statement?   Then, Lee tells him to go “collect information, provisions, etc.”   So, what the heck is Stuart supposed to do? 

2. The 20th Maine’s charge down the hill on Little Round Top.   As we saw, the regiment was out of ammo and had been ordered to hold the hill.  Not much from a tactical standpoint could be done but stay and engage in hand-to-hand combat.   There was little hope of being relieved, and the rebels kept moving on their left flank.  So Chamberlain possibly makes the call of the war and swings the regiment – all 250+ men down the hill, surprises the Alabama regiment as it’s coming back up the hill. 

- Something to put in your noggin’ - what if the bayonet charge didn’t work?  What if, beyond the Alabama regiment and out of Chamberlain’s sightline, was a reserve Confederate regiment just coming into formation?  An exhausted and out-of-ammo 20th Maine would have had to reverse course and skedaddle back up that same hill, or (worse choice) fly headlong into that new regiment and hope that they could take most of them with them to the Great Beyond.

3. Pickett’s charge on the 3rd Day, July 3rd.   Lee threw everything he had left at Meade that day and the Union withstood the brutal assault.  15,000 Confederates raced across a mile-long field and fought to the point traditionally called the High Water Mark of the Confederacy (as if the CSA were some type of disastrous flood like Hurricane Katrina or the Mississippi River?) and only about 7,500 came back unscathed.  Almost 3,700 of the Confederate casualties were captured.  Though the attack lasted only fifty minutes, it still remains one of the most remembered assaults in American military history.   

Part of the reason why Pickett’s charge holds so much romance for many Southerners years ago (and maybe even some today) is because that’s where they feel that the war was lost.  If only they had tried a little harder.  If only they had done something different, maybe the Confederacy would have carried the field and eventually the day.  Read this quote by William Faulkner, true Southern writer from Mississippi in his novel, Intruder in the Dust:

“For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago”  (emphasis mine).

So, which of these three do you think was the most decisive factor in determining the outcome of the battle of Gettysburg?  Please tell me which one and why in 150 words or more by Monday, June 1.  Thanks.

Go Wings!

Sources:

Pickett’s Charge: http://www.posix.com/CWmaps/

Intruder in the Dust quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickett’s_Charge 

I love talking about inevitabilities, b/c usually from a historical standpoint, everything looks like it had been destined to happen. 

Looking back at the pivotal years that you were just tested upon, 1860-61, think about a few of the key turning points and discuss whether or not you think the Civil War was inevitable. 

• Did the compromises have to fail?  
• Once Lincoln was elected, did several of the Southern states have to secede?  
• Once the Confederacy was formed, did the attack on Fort Sumter have to happen?  And once that occurred, was war inevitable? 
• What if Lincoln had focused predominantly on ending slavery as the main reason for war instead of saving the Union during the first two years of the war? 
• How would the war have changed if McClellan had LOST the battle of Antietam?   There were several swings of “fate” that went into this battle and the days leading up to it (finding Special Orders No. 191 wrapped in 3 cigars; the Confederate sympathizer warning Lee of the order being found; McClellan waiting many hours to pounce on Lee which gave the ol’ grey fox time to regroup at Sharpsburg; Union General Mansfield of XII Corps being killed as soon as his attack began; McClellan holding back the middle reserve V Corps and ineffectively using VI Corps; Confederate General A.P. Hill’s in-the-nick-of -time rescue of the CSA’s right flank after Burnside’s men finally got across the bridge).  (General Mansfield).

Afterwards, it looks as if Antietam, and not Gettysburg, could be the most important battle of the war.  This isn’t because of the staggering losses or b/c it stopped a Confederate invasion (there will be another one at Gettysburg) or because it swung momentum back to the Union side temporarily (b/c it will most definitely swing back to Lee’s side again and again).  Antietam was key b/c Lincoln released the Emancipation Proclamation four days later and changed the entire scope of the war from not only being about saving the Union but also fulfilling the promise the Founders made in the Declaration – “all men are created equal.” 

  Burnside’s bridge today.

So, pick one of the following bullets above and explain why you think a particular point might not have been so inevitable or fated to happen.  Please use specifics from video or notes or discussion or reading (all of the above is fine) and complete by Thursday, May 14.  Thanks.

 150 words minimum. 

Odd tidbit: Firefighter from Connecticut thinks he’s a reincarnation of Confederate General John B. “Shot-5X” Gordon.  http://www.psychicsahar.com/artman/publish/article_258.shtml  Excerpt below:

“Not only are the pictures of both Keene and Gordon incredibly and uncannily striking, but the fact that they both share the same six placement of scars on their bodies just adds that much more credibility to the entire story. Keene presents such compelling evidence, that one comes away with wonderment. Even parallels with their writing styles are pretty incredible!”

  Apparently it’s not only Keene that thinks he’s the reincarnation of a Civil War general; the article states that a couple other members of the same firehouse feel that they are reincarnated members of Gordon’s same unit.   Here’s Keene’s website: http://www.confederateyankee.net/  He’s been on TV a lot. 

Editor’s note: I will not criticize reincarnation, nor will I judge by the guy’s picture whether he was Gordon in a past life, but I guess the saying goes that if you believe in something hard enough…

Wow!  I tell ya, guys and gals, I couldn’t have planned this little TEA party tax protest and the resultant secession talk any better if I had tried. 

Hundreds, if not thousands of people are angry about the way their tax money is being wasted on bailout progams and CEO / executive bonuses, and Fox News Channel personalities apparently helped organize these TEA (Taxed Enough Already) parties nationwide.  Conservative talk radio is fanning the flames with overheated rhetoric, and

  2   4

If that wasn’t enough, Texas governor Rick Perry mentioned that Texas might have to hitch up its horse and go find another nation to be a part of.  See the New York Times quote below (1):

It has long been part of Texas folk mythology that because the state was once an independent republic, it has the option of seceding. But historians and law professors say there has been no serious argument since the Civil War on behalf of a legal basis for a state’s secession.

Like many other Texans, however, Mr. Perry still treats leaving the Union as a possibility.

“When we came into the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “My hope is that America, and Washington in particular, pay attention. We’ve got a great Union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that?”

Who knows what may come of that?  We know what happens, Governor Perry!  620,000 Americans died the last time states followed up with that threat.  The federal government won that fight in 1865 and left the losers devastated for at least a generation and millions impoverished and African Americans living in a Jim Crow nation for almost 100 years. 

Sorry if I’m going off on a little rant here, but what Gov. Perry is doing is pandering to the right wing in his home state of Texas.  It’s going to be reelection time soon, and he is getting some serious pressure from current Texas U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson for the Republican nomination.  So, here he is capitalizing on some anti-DC rhetoric and sentiment in order to pander for votes.  Well, the same thing – partisanship – helped split the nation apart back in the 1850s – South vs. North.  Whig vs. Democrat.  Republican vs. Democrat. 

   5

Question: Can you see this kind of partisanship lead to more talk of secession?  Why or why not? 

We’ve had two impeachment proceedings within the past 35 years (one for Nixon -R, one for Clinton -D), and the party in charge of Congress has swung back and forth a couple of times in the past 20 years.   There has been bitter fighting between the parties over many things since Watergate, and it hasn’t let up since. 

150 words minimum. 

Sources:  1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/us/politics/18texas.html?ref=global-home ;

2. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2201/2082795663_5fbb3bc985_o.jpg 

3. http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090417/us_time/08599189182900 

4. http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/if-at-first-you-dont-secede/ 

5. http://www.mercedsunstar.com/216/story/794898.html 

After reading the article “Why The North Won and The South Lost”, I kind of disagree with the way that the Union generals were ranked in order of contribution to the war effort. I think that William T. Sherman should have been ranked number 5 and Phillip Sheridan ranked number 4. The article even said that during the first three years of the war, Sherman’s contribution to the Union was very minor and negative and he didn’t even achieve success until the Atlanta Campaign in 1864, where he only directed because he was tight with Grant. Also, he had never won an offensive battle during his career.

Unlike Sherman, Phillip Sheridan’s contributions to the Union victory in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley when he demolished Lieutenant General Jubal Early’s army and at Five Forks, Virginia where he seized a vital road junction that compelled Lee to evacuate Richmond and begin what ended with his surrender at Appomattox.
So, what do you think? Is Sheridan better than Sherman? Is Sherman all hype?
-Brittany

When I start watching Gone with the Wind, and believe me it’s hard to watch, I find myself watching a biased, historically inaccurate film portraying the Civil War from a Southern perspective. When I see black soldiers from the south telling the main character Scarlett that she doesn’t have to worry because they’re going to fight the Yankees, I can’t help but smile from the irony and historical inaccuracies. The film portrays slaves and southern whites living in a symbiotic relationship and it’s the damn Yankees that have come and spoiled it. It’s the Yankees’ fault that the Civil War has come to fruition and the Yankees should have just left the Confederacy alone because they didn’t do anything wrong. The movie fails to portray the true horrifying aspects of being a slave and that if you were an abled bodied slave, you would have run away long before Sherman’s army had gotten to Atlanta. I’m amazed by the ignorance that existed at the time the film and book were made, and I hope people look at the film as being fiction and historically false.
MIKE

Is Jackson’s death responsible for the C-Feds to lose the war?

For some reason whenever we are reading or watching a movie I always find myself rooting for the C-feds. When Jackson was shot I knew it was all over for them and it broke my heart.
Jackson’s unorthodox attacks was always keeping the union on their feet and always guessing what they were going to do next. Come Gettysburg’s, incompetent generals were now in Jackson’s position and didn’t know what to do. Gettysburg was disastrous for the C-fed’s and was a major set back for them.

Personally I do not think that Jackson’s death had, in any way, contributed to the loss at Gettysburg. Although Jackson is considered one of the greatest generals in the history of the United States, he did have many blunders. In the 7 days battle, it was noted that he was shaking and unorganized during the battle. Jackson’s replacement were not up to par to where he was and was also Lee’s right hand man. Lee had to work with generals other than Jackson’s and that also threw him off. Although Jackson was good and won a couple battles for the south, the Union was on such a rampage and had so much steam that it wasn’t much longer until the south could not go any farther.

Amy

Women in the Civil War played pivotal roles. Women who wanted to be soldiers found it very easy to join the military. They would reinvent themselves as men. The women who passed as men prior to the war were largely motivated to adopt male identies because of their legal, social, and economic status. The women who were living as men before the war were seeking economic opportunities and social privileges that were untainable. They were able to take male power, and male independence.

I think that this shows the devotion the women had for their country. They were willing to do whatever it took to defend their nation. For some women, she would do nothing less than being a soldier. Some of the more daring women served as local scouts and spies. Thousands of women aided the soldier by contributing clothing and supplies. Some women actually asked permission to join in the conflict. Some women soldiers had a hard time enlisting. Every single women in the army was a willing volunteer. Women joined the army for the same reasons the males did: to be with loved ones, to get away from home, for the bounties and the pay, and because they were patriotic. Some women disguised themselves as a man and enlisted for a way to escape social restrictions placed on women.

I think many women took advantage of this. Not only would they be defending their nation, they would be able to stay with their husbands, brothers, sweethearts, whomever. A small number of woman used the war to escape from prostitution. For poor, working-class, and farm women, pay was important to sign up. Regardless of background, many women enjoyed the adventure and freedom of being away from home. Regardless of women’s initial motivation, once they became members, they had to remain there. I think that puts women into a difficult role, but it was a position that they put themselves into.

Kate

I am writing my blog about Stonewall’s death. We recently read the article “Minus Stonewall” and this article really got me thinking. For the paragraph we had to write on the back, I really thought about the role Stonewall played and how his death impacted the war. I believe that Stonewall wouldn’t have defeated the Union and won the war for the rebels, but he has a great general and definitely a symbol of the rebellion. His loss is more of a moral victory rather than a millitaristic loss. His death spurred hope into the Union and set fear and loss of hope into the South. The team of Lee and Stonewall wouldn’t be the same either. With Stonewall around I think the war would have dragged out longer, but would have had the same outcome.

Jeff

Margaret Walker wrote Jubilee and I think it’s a pretty good book. The segment from the last quiz we took was interesting. When Marster Dutton first showed signs of gangrene I was a little disappointed. Up until that point, I thought Marster Dutton was a pretty nice guy, for a southern plantation owner in the antebellum period. But they way he died exposed him as an evil coward. He hated Abe Lincoln and died with too much pride. He yelled at Vyry for no reason saying “I ain’t dead yet, so you cant be free.” He was a liar and a coward just like any other plantation owner. The book took a strange turn of events from chapters 24-29. It was strange because Vyry had hardly been mentioned in those chapters. It mainly focused on the events during 1862 when the Confederacy was actually winning in the east mainly thanks to the South’s General superiority. It was also nice to see the way Jim, brother Zeke, and Randall Ware met up in the North. I was glad to see brother Zeke die knowing that their Moses had finally arrived. It was also nice to see things work out for Randall Ware when he got the opportunity to do what he loved best, being a blacksmith and helping the Union army.

Bashar

Editor’s note: Here are a few websites for Margaret Walker and Jubilee.
http://www.shs.starkville.k12.ms.us/mswm/MSWritersAndMusicians/writers/Walker.html

This week we wrapped McClellan and I am glad about that, I dont like talking about failures. I did not like talking about him because he was such a bad general. He claimed to be greater than he was and probably was the cause of many unnecessary lives. Jubilee is getting good. It started out slow, but is picking up. I am able to connect what is happening in the book to the things that I have learned in the class; like John Dutton going to war and how life on the plantation has changed since the beginning of the war. Reading about Johnny Dutton story in the war personalizes the war for me and makes it more real. Also, I like that the book does not idolize the war by having Johnny Dutton die, having Johnny Dutton die makes the war more surreal and puts a personality to another dead body.

Elisabeth