July 18, 1864---The Civil War Soldier

JULY 18, 1864:                   

About 2.75 million soldiers fought in the Civil War --- 2,000,000 for the North and 750,000 for the South. The average Yankee or Rebel was a white, native-born, male farmer, belonging to a Protestant sect. He was single, and aged between 18 and 29, with an average age of 25. The typical soldier stood about 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed about 143 pounds.  

Besides farmers, both armies were made up of men in more than 300 different careers, including accountants, surveyors, locksmiths, teachers, carpenters, shoemakers, blacksmiths, house painters, masons, teamsters, and mechanics. Given the greater population of the North, it is surprising that the Southern army contained a greater number of merchants, lawyers, and dentists.

Most Civil War soldiers were born in the United States, but approximately one-quarter of Federal troopers were recent immigrants. Some 200,000 (approximately 10% of all Union men who served) were German-born. At least 150,000 Irish immigrants served the Union cause as well. Other significant groups included 45,000 men born in England and 15,000 Canadian-born men. Not all of these men were citizens when they served.  The Union armies were also comprised of men born in France, Norway, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, Austria, and Poland. Fewer immigrants served in the Confederate armies, but the few that did represented the same broad spectrum. African-American soldiers made up roughly 10 percent of the Union army. Approximately 180,000 black soldiers wore the blue uniform; 40,000 lost their lives. Excepting Louisiana’s briefly extant Corps d’Afrique of 1861, African-Americans were not permitted to join the Confederate cause until its last days. Only a very few ever saw combat.

Soldiers on each side initially earned about $11.00 per month. In June 1864, the Confederacy raised each soldier’s pay to $18.00 per month, but due to rampant inflation, this sum was worth less than the lesser amount earlier in the war. The Confederacy struggled to pay even that, and many men fought for little or no money as time went on. The Union raised its monthly wage to $16.00 that same June. Black soldiers had initially been paid $10.00 per month, minus the $3.00 clothing allowance that white troops received --- in short, only $7.00. Eventually, there was wage parity (on paper) but many U.S.C.T. never saw the increase.

Officially, the daily Union ration consisted of 22 ounces of bread and either 12 ounces of pork or a pound of salted beef. Unofficially, and in reality, most men received hardtack, boiled beef, or bologna, usually less than fresh. Vegetables were provided as available. Coffee was the standard beverage, and smoking tobacco was a common addition to a soldier’s kit.   Confederates were supposed to receive (but rarely did) a daily ration of 12 ounces of bacon or 20 ounces of salted beef along with 18 ounces of flour or 20 ounces of corn meal or hardtack. Usually, Confederates got by on cornbread and coffee, and answered their oral cravings and pangs by smoking.   

In the Union army 80% of the men were in the infantry. 14% were in the cavalry. Six percent were in artillery units. In the Confederate army, 75% of the men served in the infantry, 20% served in the cavalry, and 5% served in artillery units.

Roughly 210,000 Union soldiers were captured and imprisoned in the South; 30,000 of them died. 215,000 Confederates were imprisoned in the North, and 26,000 of them died.

700,000 Americans died in the Civil War. Approximately 400,000 Yankees died in the war --- 150,000 in battle and 300,000 of disease, or roughly 20% of those who fought. The South lost about 300,000 men --- 100,000 in battle and 200,000 to disease (roughly 33% of those who fought).  Of every 1,000 Federals, 112 were wounded; 150 of every 1,000 Confederates were wounded. A Yankee stood a 1 in 8 chance of dying due to illness and a 1 in 18 chance of dying in battle. A Rebel faced a 1 in 5 chance of succumbing to disease and a 1 in 8 chance of dying in combat. About fifteen percent of the wounded became narcotics addicts due to the opium and cocaine used as standard medical pain killers in the 1860s. 

July 17, 1864---Joe Johnston is dismissed

JULY 17, 1864

 

The Battle of Snicker’s Ferry (The Battle of Cool Spring): 

 

A small Union force of 5,000 tries to waylay Jubal Early’s 14,000-man force which is retreating from Washington. The Union force is comprised of infantry only, and is overwhelmed by Early’s cavalry and artillery. The Union suffers 500 casualties (mostly killed); the Confederacy suffers 400 casualties (mostly wounded). 

 

James B. Stebbins and Myron E. Stowell, both from Deerfield, Massachusetts, both members of Deerfield’s First Congregationalist Church, and both Union men, were both killed on May 18th 1864, 1,000 miles apart. Stebbins was killed at Yellow Bayou, Louisiana. Stowell was killed at Spotsylvania Court House. Today, Deerfield holds a memorial service for them in which the officiant, Reverend Perkins K. Clarke, called upon the community to renew its faith in "Christian combat." 

 

General Joseph E. Johnston C.S.A. is peremptorily relieved of command of the Army of Tennessee by an angry Confederate President Jefferson Davis:  

 

You failed to arrest the advance of the enemy to the vicinity of Atlanta, far in the interior of Georgia, and express no confidence that you can defeat or repel him, you are hereby relieved from command of the Army and Department of Tennessee, which you will immediately turn over to General Hood. 

 

The one-armed, one-legged General John Bell Hood, who has been angling for Johnston’s command for some time, is named to replace him.  

 

Almost since Fort Sumter, Johnston and Davis have been at odds, and when the news breaks, the Richmond newspapers blame the act on the increasingly disliked Davis’ “cold snaky hate” for Johnston, who is a popular commander. Johnston’s dismissal causes a spike in Confederate desertions. 

 

In truth, there is more to Johnston’s removal than “cold snaky hate”. Over the course of the Spring and Summer, Johnston has allowed his army to be pushed all the way from the municipal boundaries of Chattanooga to the municipal boundaries of Atlanta. The “Second City of The South” is now facing seizure by the Federals under General William Tecumseh Sherman. 

 

In some ways the battlefield interactions of Sherman and Johnston mirror those of Generals Grant and Lee in Virginia. The two armies have pirouetted around each other for 120 miles, about twice the distance Grant gained on Lee. With every move, Johnston has been forced to move his army into a blocking position in front of Sherman’s.  

 

Unlike Grant’s Overland Campaign however, Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign has been relatively --- relatively --- bloodless. There has been much low-level skirmishing, but few of the massive high-energy set-piece assaults that marked Grant’s interactions with Lee. For the last hundred miles, he has been seeking a place to stand and fight --- indeed he found one on May 20th, at Allatoona, Georgia, where he was set for a large battle, but was flummoxed when Sherman declined his invitation to dance by making a wide flanking movement around him. Johnston had to scramble to catch up to Sherman. When Johnston does fight --- as he did at Kennesaw Mountain --- he does well.
   

Grant is quiet and pugnacious. Lee is thoughtful and aggressive. Sherman is ferocious and reflective. Johnston is militant and intelligent.

 

Despite Sherman’s ferocious reputation and Johnston’s militant one, neither commander wants to waste a man, and Johnston particularly does not want to waste a shot.  

 

Johnston’s tendency to withdraw rather than fight has given him the reputation of being the George B. McClellan of the South. But very unlike McClellan, Johnston is not just imagining a massive force before him --- he sees it with his own eyes. Sherman’s army began the Atlanta Campaign with 100,000 men. Losses and garrisoning have reduced his effectives to about 85,000.

 

Johnston, who began the Campaign with roughly 40,000 men has had to detach some thousands to bolster Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, and has lost more to combat and illness. He has perhaps now 22,000 effectives, a shrunken supply train, and like Lee before Richmond and Petersburg, no place to go except in front of the enemy.   

 

Still, Lee has a larger army than Johnston (even though a reserve pool no longer exists), and can risk more. So, unlike Lee with Grant, Johnston fears to throw his entire force into a fray with Sherman. To lose men in any numbers will be the doom of the Confederacy in the Western Theatre. Johnston is cognizant of the fact that a costly set-piece battle with Sherman (even if he wins the day) could reduce The Army of Tennessee to little more than a Jubal Early-sized strike force; and then, in the foreseeable future, a replenished Union army could crush him at its leisure. Johnston has been utterly unwilling to allow that.  

 

Atlanta is critical to holding the lower South. Though it is not yet the political capital of Georgia, the very new city is the economic and manufacturing capital. Founded in 1837, it is the railroad hub of the Deep South, one of the few places where a large manufacturing infrastructure exists, and has a burgeoning population of over 10,000, including most of the South’s Captains of Industry. The loss of Atlanta will be a psychological blow as well, perhaps equal to the loss of Richmond itself.  

 

All this is at risk. In short, if Atlanta falls, Georgia falls, and the South falls with them. This puts iron into the backs of Atlanta’s defenders.  

 

And then, just as Joseph E. Johnston is about to make his stand, John Bell Hood takes his place.

 

Marietta Street, Atlanta GA, 1864 

 

 

July 16, 1864---"To watch for an opportunity"

JULY 16, 1864:                   

As consternation grows in Richmond over the fate of Petersburg and Atlanta, Confederate President Jefferson Davis wires General Joseph E. Johnston demanding to know why Johnston’s only apparent plan of attack is to retreat. Johnston wires back a worrisome and unsatisfactory answer which reads in part:

. . . As the enemy has double our number, we must be on the defensive. My plan of operations must, therefore, depend upon that of the enemy. It is mainly to watch for an opportunity to fight to advantage. We are trying to put Atlanta in condition to be held for a day or two by the Georgia militia, that army movements may be freer and wider.

Across the Atlantic, the generally pro-Confederate Illustrated London News carries a belated account of the sinking of the C.S.S. ALABAMA and the rescue of its crew by the H.M.S. DEERHOUND. The newspaper castigates its interviewee Captain John Winslow U.S.N. for not having the U.S.S. KEARSARGE aid the sinking vessel:

[H]e made no such attempt to rescue them as a generous enemy would have done . . . It is therefore probable that, if it had not been for Mr. Lancaster's prompt interference, Captain Semmes and his brave comrades would have shared the fate of Mr. Herbert Llewellyn, the surgeon (an Englishman, the son of a clergyman in Wiltshire), who perished with their sinking vessel. The DEERHOUND has therefore earned, in our opinion, the fairest honours of the day.

July 15, 1864---The Blockade tightens

JULY 15, 1864:                   

The Confederate war effort has reached a point where it relies almost entirely on the bravery and brass of blockade runners to carry on. “Scott’s Anaconda,” the Union blockade of Southern ports, is growing ever more stringent, and as the Union captures more and more of the Confederate coastline, the South has fewer and fewer ports where ships can drop anchor. It takes speed, cunning, and a kind of piratical skill --- not to mention a pirate’s dash and daring --- to find success in evading the Union’s naval cordon.  

The preferred ship for this type of work is a small, light ship with little draft that can move well in uncertain shoal-prone waters at night.  This, of course, means that successful blockade runners are poorly suited to carrying large amounts of heavy weaponry, metals, and other supplies badly needed by the South. 

Blockade Runner ROBERT E. LEE

To help the Confederacy, a blockade runner really has to make many trips, but each trip stacks the odds against the ships that dare the blockade. Eventually, most are captured or sunk. During the war, some 1,500 blockade runners are captured or destroyed. Still, as late as the summer of 1864, five out of six attempts to evade the Union blockade are successful.

Blockade Runner A.D.  VANCE, also known as the "ADVANCE"

Although the original blockade runners of 1861 and 1862 were either ordinary steamships or sloops or brigantines, slow moving, noisy vessels had no fortune with the Union Navy; neither did most of the sailing vessels, since they were at the caprice of wind, tide, and weather. By 1864, most blockade runners are spanking new low-profile, shallow draft, high-speed steamships built in Britain. Paddlewheel-driven, they can make 17 knots on average. As often as possible they are fueled with smokeless anthracite coal.

Blockade running is a business that is jointly run by Southern merchants and foreign investors. Private British investors spent perhaps £50 million on the runners ($250 million in 1860 U.S. dollars, equivalent to about $2.5 billion in today’s dollars). Most of their crews are made up of British subjects from throughout the Empire, including the officers, with only a Southern shipper’s agent aboard. The predominance of British crews is easy to explain, in that most of the few Southern sea dogs are already serving with the Confederate States Navy, and are unavailable for the civilian pursuit of blockade-running.

This brings to light an interesting sectional divergence: Most of the U.S. Army officer corps before the war is populated by Southerners (especially sons of the Old Dominion), most of whom went out with the Confederacy, leaving a smaller pool of men to manage the Union’s land war. Most of the U.S. Navy’s officer corps are Yankees (and Bay State men). In this very narrow sense, the conflict is a war between Boston Brahmins and Tidewater Cavaliers.

Except insofar as going to sea is inherently risky, blockade-running is not a particularly dangerous business. Although Union Navy ships often shoot across the bows of blockade runners, few Yankee skippers really want to harm anyone, particularly foreign nationals; interdiction, not destruction, is the rule of thumb.  Until the summer of 1864, the captures are not numerous enough to take up more than a slight margin of the enormous profits. Shipowners can afford, if they have to, to lose a vessel after just two successful trips.

Blockade running is highly lucrative: The blockade runners charge from $300 to $1,000 per ton of cargo brought in; two round trips a month generates perhaps $250,000 in revenue (plus $80,000 in wages and expenses). A Royal Navy officer on leave might earn several thousand dollars in gold in salary and bonus per round trip, with ordinary seamen earning several hundred dollars.

The blockade runners were based in the British islands of Bermuda and the Bahamas, or Havana, in Cuba. The Union-held city of Key West was a popular transshipment point, as by mutual consent the pro-Union and pro-Confederate elements in town had put their animosities aside in favor of everyone becoming extremely wealthy.

The Blockade Runners' Haven

 

The goods the blockade runners were to carry were brought to New Providence, Freeport, Havana, or Key West by ordinary European (and sometimes Yankee!) cargo ships, and loaded onto the runners. The runners then ran the gauntlet between the Caribbean ports and the Confederate ports, some 650 miles away. On an outbound trip, a runner carried perhaps 400 tons of compact, high-value cargo such as cotton or tobacco. On an inbound trip, the runner would have rifles, medicine, brandy, lingerie, coffee, and mail. The sale of weapons and ammunition brought in as much as 1000% of cost.  By 1864, Lee's soldiers were eating expensive imported meat --- all paid for in silver and gold.

As the blockade tightened in the summer of ’64, the government in Richmond stepped in, and eventually regulated the traffic, requiring that half the imports be munitions; it even purchased and operated some vessels on its own account and made sure they loaded vital war goods.

The Blockade Runner OWL avoids capture

With such profits to be made, abuses were the rule of the day. It was documented in 1864 that a wholesaler in Wilmington, North Carolina asked his agent in the Bahamas to stop sending so much chloroform and instead send "essence of cognac" because that perfume would sell "quite high."

Hardcore Confederate patriots held rich blockade runners in contempt for profiteering on luxuries while ordinary people were in rags. On the other hand, blockade running was the lifeblood of the Confederacy. Many women in the back country flaunted imported $50 hats as patriotic proof that the "Damn Yankees" had failed to isolate them from the outer world. But starting this summer, that would change.

The DENBIGH was a textbook-type Blockade Runner. Painted gray with a low freeboard and burning anthracite coal, she was virtually invisible against the sea at any distance, particularly at night

July 14, 1864---In retreat, but no pursuit

JULY 14, 1864:                    

Badly battered, and having lost 1,350 of his 9,000 men, Nathan Bedford Forrest retreats from the strong Union position at Harrisburg MS. As soon as Forrest’s column vanishes over the horizon, the Union force returns to Memphis, Tennessee. No one pursues Forrest. Just as this is happening, far away Jubal Early is crossing the Potomac into Confederate-held Virginia.  No one pursues Early.