Ron Franklin
This blog is Civil War BSC: Perspectives of a Black, Southern, Christian. That background gives me a perspective that is, I believe, underrepresented in the Civil War community. I hope you’ll enjoy seeing the Civil War through my eyes.
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During the U.S. Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman was one of the major architects of the Confederate defeat and the final overthrow of American slavery. Yet, in his personal attitudes, he was, by his own account, a racist and white supremacist.
In early July of 1863, the campaign that, more than any other, determined the outcome of the American Civil War was concluded. That campaign was not the battle of Gettysburg, fought during the first three days of the month, but Vicksburg, which fell to Union forces on July 4.
Gettysburg is commonly called the turning point of the Civil War, the “high tide of the Confederacy.” Yet, I think a compelling case can be made that the capture of Vicksburg by Union General Ulysses S. Grant had a greater impact on the war’s outcome.
By winning the Battle of Gettysburg, General George Gordon Meade made a monumental contribution to preserving the Union and dooming the Confederacy’s bid for independence. But by only wounding Robert E. Lee’s army and not destroying it before it could retreat back to Virginia, Meade broke Abraham Lincoln’s heart.
As a result of Meade’s failure to prevent Lee’s escape, the war continued for another two bloody years.
But should Meade really be blamed?
During the Civil War Battle of Shiloh in April of 1862, a Confederate soldier from Louisiana was captured by Union troops. Normally, the young man, whose name was Barrow, would probably have felt very apprehensive about the treatment he might receive as a prisoner of war. But he knew he had a friend among his captors, one who was in a position to help him.
That friend had been the founding superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy. Barrow had been a cadet there before volunteering to fight for the Confederacy when the war began. Now, his former mentor was the commander of the army that had captured the young rebel. And as ex-Cadet Barrow was sure he would, General William Tecumseh Sherman remembered his one-time student.
If you’re in the mood to start a good argument, just ask someone a very simple question: “What caused the American Civil War?”
In many parts of the United States, especially in the South, that question is almost guaranteed to provoke impassioned and contradictory opinions. That’s because it’s a question that’s often answered based not on historical data but on a particular viewpoint someone wants to defend.
It was early in 1862, and the Civil War had been raging for almost a year. Samuel Curtis Upham owned a little store in Philadelphia where he sold perfumes, drugs, cosmetics, stationery, and newspapers.
But suddenly, on February 24, 1862, Upham came face to face with what he quickly recognized as the biggest business opportunity of his life. As a result, he became a legal counterfeiter whose work helped undermine the Confederate economy and save the Union.
Robert Smalls was one of the most accomplished men of the 19th century. A ship’s pilot and Captain who fought in 17 engagements during the Civil War, he eventually would be commissioned a Major General in the South Carolina state militia. After the war, he served in the South Carolina House of Representatives and Senate. He then served five terms in the United States Congress.
What makes Robert Smalls’ story so unique is that he achieved all this after starting life as a South Carolina slave who, by the daring capture of a Confederate warship, was able to not only escape slavery himself but bring 15 others with him to freedom. In doing so, he became a national hero and an inspiration to blacks and whites throughout the North during the Civil War.
This is the story of the seminal event that started Robert Smalls in his career of achievement and honor.
When Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th President of the United States in 1861, he took the helm of a nation in crisis. Seven slave-holding Southern states had already proclaimed their independence and formed a new Confederacy, a step the incoming president was determined would not stand. And that meant civil war.
But the army Lincoln inherited had few soldiers and, worse, few leaders who knew what they were doing. To raise up a corps of commanders who had the leadership skills to turn an unorganized mob of civilian volunteers into an effective fighting force, Lincoln had to appoint and develop hundreds of new general officers.
And the person who would have to mentor these novice generals to become the leaders the new army so desperately needed was Lincoln himself. He did it through personal letters to his highest-level commanders that dealt with critical issues each of them faced.
One of the more extraordinary episodes of the American Civil War occurred when President Abraham Lincoln decided to relieve Major General John C. Fremont of his command.
The president knew Fremont would do everything he could, short of outright mutiny, to avoid being replaced. One way to do that would be for Fremont to ensure he never actually received the order dismissing him. So Lincoln took extraordinary precautions to ensure that his order relieving Fremont would get through to him.
Although you may never have heard it before, the name John Jefferson Williams has a unique significance in American history.
It’s not because he was a great military leader—Williams served as a private in the Union Army and only fought in one battle during the Civil War. Tragically, that first battle was also his last. When he was killed in that engagement, he became the last soldier to die in action in the American Civil War.
What made Williams’ first and only battle doubly tragic is that it occurred weeks after the outcome of the war had been decided and under circumstances that made his death a senseless and useless testament to the vanity (or bad judgment) of one man, his commanding officer. It was a sacrifice that need not and should not have happened.
