Add Reconstruction to the ongoing problems of the War and you extend this
"END" period of the War.
One of my cousins in Bonham Texas would indulge in some whiskey on Saturday
and ride through town, shooting and hollering, just like the charge he had
been in the war. Was this an early demonstration of PTSD?
Another uncle died in Missouri after being let out of Camp Chase POW, and
his brother, my ancestor, lived. Another ancestor died in a POW camp in
1864.
The War did not end at Appomattox, just the shooting, more or less. We still
had clashes with ex - CSA soldiers and Union soldiers fighti9ng into the
1870's and on.
Any of the more learned here, you have an excellent book staring you in the
old publishing business.
JPAdams
Texas
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Carter
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2012 5:02 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Unit Locations At Surrender
This thread is really getting interesting. It does raise a few questions
about when a war is actually over, and when do we stop listing soldiers as
casualties of that war. While there is no way of really knowing what
happened to all of the individuals on their way home, I would suggest a few
thoughts.
Thousands obviously did not die walking home after the war- that would have
been noticed. But how about hundreds? What it were only dozens? What is the
number we have to reach before someone comments with some alarm on their
collective, non-battle-related deaths? The individual deaths at the time
would not have been noticed or even recognized as part of some pattern of
disaster, even if the deaths were recorded. But who would record those
deaths? The Confederate Army was no longer keeping records, and those
soldiers were now out of the hands of the Union Army. How many soldiers
simply died along the way and were buried where they fell? They would just
be listed as missing and presumed dead by their loved ones.
There was no Confederacy left to organize the soldiers' homeward march.
There was also little or no infrastructure left intact in the South to
assist these soldiers in their travels. While the Union Army looked after
its own men, it did provide shipping for the Confederate prisoners- like
those at Point Lookout- to return to Virginia. Ships were also made
available in ports like Norfolk to carry soldiers, from outside Virginia,
around Florida to Mobile and to other southern ports. It has been noted many
times that Union soldiers at Appomattox provided food and clothing to many
of the needy Confederate soldiers, out of respect for their former foes.
After the Confederates left the area, however, they were on their own.
The road home was hardly "a walk in the park." The war was not over after
Appomattox, especially for those heading for Alabama and Tennessee. The
presence of Joseph Johnston's army in central North Carolina kept that part
of the war going- an area where Confederate soldiers would have to pass
through to reach home in beyond the mountains. Soldiers' letters from the
1st Tennessee Regiment and from the 9th Alabama Cavalry told of their being
attacked by Union pickets as they made their way back home, and having to
run through these lines just as they had done during the war. The Union
troops were shooting to kill, and some men were killed. Even without being
shot at and pursued, many men had not eaten in days and were weak and sick.
While some people were hospitable to the soldiers passing by their homes,
many of them had little or nothing to give. These soldiers were not staying
for long in any town or farm- there was an urgency to get home.
As far as deaths along the road are concerned, think about how many men died
along the road during war-time marches, for example, to Antietam and to
Gettysburg. If those men could die during a 150-plus mile march, out of an
army of 40-70,000 men, why wouldn't the same proportion have died during a
500-mile march home? General John Gibbon reported to General Ulysses S.
Grant that they had paroled between 25- 35,000 men at Appomattox- about half
the total on those marches. The Union soldiers' descriptions of the
Confederate soldiers at the Battle of Saylor's Creek and at Appomattox
indicate that many of them were not only ragged and weary-looking, but were
undernourished and weak. The men who were released from prisons like Fort
Delaware and Point Lookout were in even worse shape. Some of those men had
to be carried from the prison to the ships for the trip to Virginia. How
many of those died before they reached home, or even after they reached
home? Not all Confederate soldiers, however, were in such desperate
conditions. Union reports also told of Confederate soldiers and units who
were as healthy and well-fed and clothed as they were.
When it comes to not hearing about the deaths of large numbers of soldiers
returning home, keep in mind that even large losses of life could be
virtually ignored. The loss of the "Sultan," a ship carrying
recently-released Union prisoners in 1865 (which blew up killing 1,600 out
of 1,900) made very few of the newspapers of the time. After a war where
tens of thousands had recently died, people just didn't want to hear more
bad news. The war was largely over for the North- it was all about getting
back to normal, and they wanted to close the book on the war and move on.
Even today we are still revising (upwards) the casualty totals of all our
wars. Do we include people who died in hospitals where they spent the
majority of the war? Do we count the veteran who died, not only on the way
home from the war, but the one who died five years after the war due to
war-related injuries and illnesses?
Men did die and were killed on their way home. How many did, we may never
know. To say it didn't happen because we never heard about it, does not mean
that it didn't happen.
Another good book on the subject of the homeward march after the war (for
both sides) is: "Homeward Bound," by William B. Holberton. Also, "The Final
Bivouac," by Chris Calkins- a lot of first hand accounts of what happened to
both Confederate and Union troops (and the area around Appomattox) after the
surrender.
John
On Oct 11, 2012, at 9:18 PM, Craig Kilby <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> You took the words right out of my mouth.
>
> On Oct 11, 2012, at 5:30 PM, Lowe, Richard wrote:
>
>> One other thing: on the possibility that large numbers of returning
Confederate soldiers died on their journeys home -- the fact that no one (or
at least no one I've heard about) mentioned these deaths in a letter, a
diary, a newspaper article, a U.S. Army document is revealing. If large
numbers of soldiers had really died on the road home, someone would have
surely said something about it. What a perfect opportunity to slam the
Federals -- but, apparently, no one did write about it.
>
>
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