FOOTNOTES
[1] Jackson was mortally wounded by a volley from his own men, who mistook him and his escort for Union cavalry, in the dusk of evening of the second day at Chancellorsville. His last words were: "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."
[2] Read "The Third Day at Gettysburg" in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. III, pp. 369-385. The field of Gettysburg is now a national park dotted with monuments erected in memory of the dead, and marking the positions of the regiments and spots where desperate fighting occurred. Near by is a national cemetery in which are interred several thousand Union soldiers. Read President Lincoln's beautiful Gettysburg Address.
[3] With the exception of a small body of regulars, the Union armies were composed of volunteers. When it became apparent that the war would not end in a few months, Congress passed a Draft Act: whenever a congressional district failed to furnish the required number of volunteers, the names of able-bodied men not already in the army were to be put into a box, and enough names to complete the number were to be drawn out by a blindfolded man. In July, 1863, when this was done in New York city, a riot broke out and for several days the city was mob-ruled. Negroes were killed, property was destroyed, and the rioters were not put down till troops were sent by the government.
[4] William Tecumseh Sherman was born in Ohio in 1820, graduated from West Point, and served in the Seminole and Mexican wars. He became a banker in San Francisco, then a lawyer in Kansas, in 1860 superintendent of a military school in Louisiana, and then president of a street car company in St. Louis. In 1861 he was appointed colonel in the regular army. He fought at Bull Run, was made brigadier general of volunteers, and was transferred to the West, where he rose rapidly. After the war, Grant was made general of the army, and Sherman lieutenant general; and when Grant became President, Sherman was promoted to the rank of general. He was retired in 1884 and died in 1891 at New York.
[5] Joseph Eggleston Johnston was born in Virginia in 1807, graduated from West Point, and served in the Black Hawk, Seminole, and Mexican wars. When the Civil War opened, he joined the Confederacy, was made a major general, and with Beauregard commanded at the first battle of Bull Run. Johnston was next put in charge of the operations against McClellan (1862); but was wounded at Fair Oaks and succeeded by Lee. In 1863 he was sent to relieve Vicksburg, but failed. In 1864 he was put in command of Bragg's army after its defeat, and so became opposed to Sherman.
[6] Early in October Hood had reached Dallas on his way to Tennessee. From Dallas he sent a division to capture a garrison and depots at Allatoona, commanded by General Corse. Sherman, who was following Hood, communicated with Corse from the top of Kenesaw Mountain by signals; and Corse, though greatly outnumbered, held the fort and drove off the enemy. On this incident was founded the popular hymn Hold the Fort, for I am Coming.
[7] To destroy the railroads so they could not be quickly rebuilt, the rails, heated red-hot in fires made of burning ties, were twisted around trees or telegraph poles. Stations, machine shops, cotton bales, cotton gins and presses were burned. Along the line of march, a strip of country sixty miles wide was made desolate.
[8] While the siege of Petersburg was under way, a tunnel was dug and a mine exploded under a Confederate work called Elliott's Salient (July 30, 1864). As soon as the mass of flying earth, men, guns, and carriages had settled, a body of Union troops moved forward through the break thus made in the enemy's line. But the assault was badly managed. The Confederates rallied, and the Union forces were driven back into the crater made by the explosion, where many were killed and 1400 captured.
[9] On October 19, 1864, St. Albans, a town in Vermont near the Canadian border, was raided by Confederates from Canada. They seized all the horses they could find, robbed the banks, and escaped. A little later the people of Detroit were excited by a rumor that their city was to be raided on October 30. Great preparations for defense were made; but no enemy came.
[10] Philip H. Sheridan was born at Albany, New York, in 1831, graduated from West Point, and was in Missouri when the war opened. In 1862 he was given a command in the cavalry, fought in the West, and before the year closed was made a brigadier and then major general for gallantry in action. At Chattanooga he led the charge up Missionary Ridge. After the war he became lieutenant general and then general of the army, and died in 1888.
[11] Sheridan had spent the night at Winchester, and as he rode toward his camp at Cedar Creek, he met such a crowd of wagons, fugitives, and wounded men that he was forced to take to the fields. At Newtown, the streets were so crowded he could not pass through them. Riding around the village, he met Captain McKinley (afterward President), who, says Sheridan, "spread the news of my return through the motley throng there." Between Newtown and Middletown he met "the only troops in the presence of and resisting the enemy…. Jumping my horse over the line of rails, I rode to the crest of the elevation and … the men rose up from behind their barricade with cheers of recognition." When he rode to another part of the field, "a line of regimental flags rose up out of the ground, as it seemed, to welcome me." With these flags was Colonel Hayes (afterward President). Hurrying to another place, he came upon some divisions marching to the front. When the men "saw me, they began cheering and took up the double-quick to the front." Crossing the pike, he rode, hat in hand, "along the entire line of infantry," shouting, "We are all right…. Never mind, boys, we'll whip them yet. We shall sleep in our quarters to-night." And they did. Read Sheridan's Ride by T. Buchanan Read.
[12] Read Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. IV, pp. 729-746.
[13] On the flight of Davis from Richmond, read Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. IV, pp. 762-767; or the Century Magazine, November, 1883.
[14] After firing the shot, the assassin waved his pistol and shouted "Sic semper tyrannis"—"Thus be it ever to tyrants" (the motto of the state of Virginia) and jumped from the box to the stage. But his spur caught in an American flag which draped the box, and he fell and broke his leg. Limping off the stage, he fled from the theater, mounted a horse in waiting, and escaped to Virginia. There he was found hidden in a barn and shot. The body of the Martyr President was borne from Washington to Springfield, by the route he took when coming to his first inauguration in 1861. Read Walt Whitman's poem My Captain.