=============================================================== "A Nation Divided" A Free Bi-Monthly Newsletter Issue 08/10/2002 ===============================================================
********************** LACKING CEREMONY ***********************
During the battle of Wilson's Creek, Federal forces repulse two rebel charges on 'Bloody Ridge,' but with the death of their commander, Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon, they are finally forced to retreat. Amid the ensuing confusion, and the eagerness to get wounded men to field hospitals, Lyon's body is taken from a wagon and left behind on the field.
Finding the fallen general and recognizing him, Confederates send the body under an armed escort to Federals at Springfield, Missouri. But when Union forces are again forced a hasty retreat from superior numbers, the dead general is once again left behind.
Confederates for the second time find Lyons, this time stored in an icehouse belonging to Congressman John Phelps, and for the second time they return the remains of the man most of them put at the top of their "most hated" list.
******************** LACKING IDENTITY *************************
Before the end of 1865, efforts were made to locate graves of men who had died during the conflict. An early tabulation showed that more than 9,000 Confederate prisoners of war were buried in Northern cemeteries. Most of these graves were marked. Yet "from some unknown cause," a relatively small graveyard near the Alton, Illinois prison was reported by Lieutenant Asa B. Isham of the Seventh Michigan Cavalry to hold an astonishing 662 unidentified bodies of men who fought in gray.
Every state involved in the Civil War has at least one national cemetery. A painstaking tabulation issued in 1908 indicates that, collectively, they hold the bodies of 315,830 Federal soldiers. Of these graves, 148,833 were labeled "unknown" when 'A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion' was issued.
******************** LACKING TOLERANCE ************************
An exclusive story in the New York 'Tribune' of August 7, 1861, told how citizens of Memphis treated a young lady from Maine. Waiting to take a train headed for Cairo, Illinois, she was overheard by the railroad fireman to say to some Northern men, "Thank God! We shall soon be in a land where there is freedom of thought and speech."
Her spontaneous outburst, said the New York newspaper, triggered a quick reaction: "The fellow summoned the Vigilance Committee, and the three Northern men were stripped, and whipped till their flesh hung in strips. Miss Giernstein was stripped to her waist, and thirteen lashed were given to her bare back."
******************** LACKING FINAL REST ***********************
In life, Abraham Lincoln spent a great deal of his time on legal circuits that centered around Springfield, Illinois. After his assassination, an elaborate funeral train followed a circuitous route back to the city where he had practiced law.
His body was placed in a Springfield crypt, but it remained there only briefly. Counterfeiters headed by Jim Kenealy made plans to seize the body and use it as a hostage to secure the release of gang members. Their elaborate plans might have succeeded had not a member of the U.S. Secret Service been able to infiltrate their ranks.
Partly for security reasons, and partly because of changes and renovations in the Springfield cemetery, Lincoln scored a record after his death. Before his body was permanently laid to rest it was moved seventeen times during the thirty-six years that followed his assassination.
******************* LACKING COMMANDERS ************************
During the first hour of the July 1864 battle of Peachtree Creek, both sides lost a top commander.
James B. McPherson, commander of the Army of the Tennessee, ran into a band of Confederates by mistake. When they shouted for him to surrender, he spurred and wheeled his horse -- and was instantly shot.
Confederate Brigadier General William H.T. Walker had been praised by Joseph E. Johnston as "the only officer in the West who is competent to command a brigade." After a brief lull in fighting, he led his men toward Federal lines -- and died within an hour of McPherson.
****************** LACKING SEAWORTHINESS **********************
Having fought the CSS Virginia to a draw in the world's first clash between ironclad warships, the USS Monitor saw only limited action after March 6, 1862. While on the high seas headed toward a new assignment, the mighty vessel went down off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, on December 31, 1862. Its rusting shell lay on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean for ninety-one years before the U.S. Navy officially listed it as "out of commission" in September 1951. Then in 1974, scientists from Duke University located its rusting remains lying 220 feet underwater, fifteen miles off Cape Hatteras. While it is not feasible to try to raise it, experienced skindivers are allowed to view it.
****************** LACKING CREW LOYALTY **********************
Famous for having tried to re-supply Fort Sumter in January 1861, the sidewheel steamer 'Star of the West' soon fell into Confederate hands. Months later, members of the vessel's new crew took her into Mississippi's Tallahatchie River. They did so in full knowledge that Union warships were likely to appear at any moment. Hence advance preparations were made for the destruction of the famous vessel. More than two hundred holes were drilled into oak timbers that formed the side of the steamer. Then a plug was carefully inserted into each hole to keep out the water.
When fear of impending approach of Federal vessels turned into reality, Lieutenant Azro Stoddard signaled for a special crew to move into action. Its members quickly jerked out the plugs, one by one, so that water would pour into 'Star of the West' at a rate slow enough to permit the crew to escape before she went to the bottom of the river.
****************** LACKING RESPECT FOR COTTON *****************
William W. Adams of Kentucky was active in the unsuccessful effort to bring his state officially into the Confederacy. He served in semi-independent reconnaissance duty in Mississippi and Tennessee before becoming chief of artillery for Brigadier General Earl Van Dorn.
Elevated to the rank of brigadier as a reward for his service in the siege of Vicksburg, Adams led his brigade into Alabama late in 1864. He was in command at Montgomery when it became clear that Federal raiders were likely to take the city. In this emergency, Adams ordered the burning of the city's stored cotton.
Sherman had considered the seizure of 25,000 bales in Savannah sufficiently important to warrant a telegram to Abraham Lincoln. When New Orleans fell, warehouses in the South's largest city held about 15,000 bales. Learning that Montgomery held an estimated 90,000 bales of the South's most precious product, Adams ordered that all the warehouses be set afire.
In post-war days, the man notorious for "having made half of Alabama stink" was shot and killed on the streets of Jackson, Mississippi, by a newspaper editor with whom he had quarreled.
******************** LACKING CIVIL RIGHTS *********************
Taken prisoner by Federal troops on May 10, 1865, Jefferson Davis was imprisoned at Fort Monroe, Virginia. Accused of having participated in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, he never got a chance to defend himself. Instead of going on trial, he was released on bail after having spent more than seven hundred days behind bars.
Stripped of his citizenship, Davis considered it futile to petition for clemency, so he died a man without a country. His citizenship was restored by Congress during the administration of the post-war president -- Jimmy Carter.
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Newsletter written by: Alethea D. Sayers
