They Also Served
Fame is the echo of actions, resounding them to the world, save that the echo repeats only the last part, but fame relates all....
—FULLER
Poet SIDNEY LANIER fought as a private in the 2nd Georgia Battalion during the Seven Days' Battles near Richmond. In November 1862 he was captured on a Confederate blockade-runner and imprisoned at Point Lookout, Maryland. Sixteen years after the war he died from tuberculosis contracted while in prison.
New England poet ALBERT PIKE commanded the Confederate Department of Indian Territory. He wrote the stanzas of the popular Southern version of Dixie, a tune which originated not in the South, but in New York City during the 1850's.
At the battle of the Monocacy in 1864 Union General LEW WALLACE, author of Ben-Hur, commanded the force defending Washington against General Jubal Early's attack. After the war he served as Governor of New Mexico and Minister to Turkey.
When the Marion Rangers organized in 1861, SAMUEL CLEMENS (Mark Twain) joined as a lieutenant, but he left this Missouri Company before it was mustered into Confederate service, having fired only one hostile shot during the war.
Confederate Private HENRY MORTON STANLEY, of "Doctor Livingstone, I presume" fame, survived a bloody charge at Shiloh only to be taken prisoner. Later he joined the Union ranks and finished the war in Yankee blue.
ANDREW CARNEGIE was a young man in his mid-twenties when he left his position as superintendent of the Pittsburgh Division, Pennsylvania Railroad to pitch in with workers rebuilding the rail line from Annapolis to Washington. Later in 1861 he was given the position of superintendent of military railways and government telegraph.
HENRY A. DUPONT, grandson of the DuPont industries founder, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for gallantry at the battle of Cedar Creek in October 1864. Captain DuPont, who had graduated from West Point at the head of his class in 1861, went on to serve as United States Senator from Delaware.
ELIAS HOWE presented each field and staff officer of the 5th Massachusetts Regiment with a stallion fully equipped for service. Later, he volunteered as a private, and when the State failed to pay his unit, he met the regimental payroll with his own money.
At the age of 15 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE ran away from home and joined the Union Army. Neither he nor Elias Howe rose to officer rank, but both are today in the Hall of Fame for their achievements—the air brake and the sewing machine.
In 1861 CORNELIUS VANDERBILT presented a high-speed side-wheel steamer to the United States Navy. At the time, there were less than 50 ships in active naval service. The cruiser, named the Vanderbilt, captured three blockade-runners during the war and in 1865 participated in the bombardment and amphibious assault on Fort Fisher. The Federal Navy at that time had grown to a fleet of more than 550 steam-powered ships.
Admiral GEORGE DEWEY, of Manila Bay fame, served as a young lieutenant under Admiral Farragut during the attack on Port Hudson in 1863. His ship was the only one lost in the engagement.
Colonel CHRISTOPHER C. ("Kit") CARSON commanded the 1st New Mexico Volunteers (Union), and campaigned against the Comanche, Navajo, and Apache Indians during the Civil War. In 1866 he was promoted to brigadier general.
In his mid-teens JESSE JAMES joined the Confederate raiders led by William Quantrill. The famous "Dead or alive" reward for Jesse in 1882 was issued by an ex-Confederate officer, Governor Thomas T. Crittenden of Missouri.
The Soldier, the Battle,
The Losses
"There's many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell."
—WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN
Of the 2.3 million men enlisted in the Union Army, seventy per cent were under 23 years of age. Approximately 100,000 were 16 and an equal number 15. Three hundred lads were 13 or less, and the records show that there were 25 no older than 10 years.
The average infantry regiment of 10 companies consisted of 30 line officers and 1300 men. However, by the time a new regiment reached the battlefield, it would often have less than 800 men available for combat duty. Sickness and details as cooks, teamsters, servants, and clerks accounted for the greatly reduced numbers. Actually, in many of the large battles the regimental fighting strength averaged no more than 480 men.
In 1864 the basic daily ration for a Union soldier was (in ounces): 20—beef, 18—flour, 2.56—dry beans, 1.6—green coffee, 2.4—sugar, .64—salt, and smaller amounts of pepper, yeast powder, soap, candles, and vinegar. While campaigning, soldiers seldom obtained their full ration and many had to forage for subsistence.
In the Army of Northern Virginia in 1863 the rations available for every 100 Confederate soldiers over a 30-day period consisted of 1/4 lb. of bacon, 18 oz. of flour, 10 lbs. of rice, and a small amount of peas and dried fruit—when they could be obtained. (It is little wonder that Lee elected to carry the war into Pennsylvania—if for no other reason than to obtain food for an undernourished army.)
During the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1862 "Stonewall" Jackson marched his force of 16,000 men more than 600 miles in 35 days. Five major battles were fought and four separate Union armies, totaling 63,000, were defeated.
In June 1864, the U.S.S. Kearsarge sank the C.S.S. Alabama in a fierce engagement in the English Channel off Cherbourg, France. Frenchmen gathered along the beach to witness the hour-long duel, which inspired a young French artist, Edouard Manet, to paint the battle scene that now hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The Confederate cruiser Shenandoah sailed completely around the world raiding Union commerce vessels and whalers. The ship and crew surrendered to British authorities at Liverpool in November 1865, seven months after Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
The greatest naval bombardment during the war was on Christmas Eve, 1864, at Fort Fisher, North Carolina. Fifty-seven vessels, with a total of 670 guns, were engaged—the largest fleet ever assembled by the U.S. Navy up to that time. The Army, Navy, and Marines combined in a joint operation to reduce and capture the fort.
In July, 1862 the first Negro troops of the Civil War were organized by General David Hunter. Known as the 1st South Carolina Regiment, they were later designated the 33rd Regiment United States Colored Troops. Some 186,000 Negro soldiers served in the Union Army, 4,300 of whom became battle casualties.
At the battle of Fredericksburg in 1862, the line of Confederate trenches extended a distance of seven miles. The troop density in these defensive works was 11,000 per mile.
Over 900 guns and mortars bristled from the 68 forts defending the Nation's Capital during the war. The fortifications, constructed by the Engineer Corps during the early part of the war, circled the city on a 37-mile perimeter.
During Sherman's campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta, the Union Army of the Tennessee, in a period of four months, constructed over 300 miles of rifle pits, fired 149,670 artillery rounds and 22,137,132 rounds of small-arms ammunition.
To fire a Civil War musket, eleven separate motions had to be made. The regulation in the 1860's specified that a soldier should fire three aimed shots per minute, allowing 20 seconds per shot and less than two seconds per motion.
At the battle of Stone's River, Tennessee, in January, 1863, the Federal infantry in three days exhausted over 2,000,000 rounds of ammunition, and the artillery fired 20,307 rounds. The total weight of the projectiles was in excess of 375,000 pounds.
At the Battle of First Bull Run or Manassas, it has been estimated that between 8,000 and 10,000 bullets were fired for every man killed and wounded.
The campaign against Petersburg, the longest sustained operation of the war, began in the summer of 1864 and lasted for 10 months, until the spring of '65. The fighting covered an area of more than 170 square miles, with 35 miles of trenches and fortifications stretching from Richmond to the southwest of Petersburg. During September, 1864, nearly 175 field and siege guns poured forth a daily average of 7.8 tons of iron on the Confederate works.
The greatest cavalry battle in the history of the western hemisphere was fought at Brandy Station, Virginia, on June 9, 1863. Nearly 20,000 cavalrymen were engaged for more than 12 hours. At the height of the battle, along Fleetwood Hill, charges and countercharges were made continuously for almost three hours.
The greatest regimental loss of the entire war was borne by the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery. The unit saw no action until 1864, but in the short span of less than one year, over half of its 2,202 men engaged in battle were hit. In the assault on Petersburg in June, 1864, the regiment lost 604 men killed and wounded in less than 20 minutes.
The largest regimental loss in a single battle was suffered by the 26th North Carolina Infantry at Gettysburg. The regiment went into battle with a little over 800 men, and by the end of the third day, 708 were dead, wounded, or missing. In one company of 84, every officer and man was hit.
Of the 46 Confederate regiments that went into the famous charge at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, 15 were commanded by General Pickett. Thirteen of his regiments were led by Virginia Military Institute graduates; only two of them survived the charge.
The heaviest numerical loss during any single battle was at Gettysburg, where 40,322 Americans were killed or wounded. On the Union side 21 per cent of those engaged were killed or wounded, in the Confederate ranks 30 per cent—the largest percentage of Confederates hit in any battle. The largest percentage of Union soldiers hit in battle was at Port Hudson in May 1863, where 26.7 per cent of those engaged were killed or wounded.
During May and June 1864 the Armies of the Potomac and the James lost 77,452 men—a greater number than Lee had in his entire army.
Union Army hospitals treated over 6 million cases during the war. There were twice as many deaths from disease as from hostile bullets. Diarrhea and dysentery alone took the lives of 44,558 Union soldiers.
From 1861-1865 the Quartermaster Corps of the Union Army made 116,148 burials.
In the 79 National Civil War cemeteries, 54 per cent of the graves are those of unknown soldiers. The largest Civil War cemetery is at Vicksburg, where 16,000 soldiers rest; only 3,896 are known. At the Confederate prison site in Salisbury, North Carolina, where 12,126 Union soldiers are buried, 99 per cent are unknown.
