November 24 1864---Thee Roosevelt and the Union League Club Give Thanks To The Troops

NOVEMBER 24, 1864:      

The second annual Thanksgiving holiday:         

 On this day the Union League Club of New York provided Thanksgiving dinner to every soldier and sailor in the Union Armed Forces. Led by Theodore “Thee” Roosevelt (whose wife Mittie was sister to the same James Dunwody Bulloch who commissioned the C.S.S. ALABAMA, and whose son would someday be President of the United States) the Union League Club of New York solicited donations from citizens throughout the North and distributed shipments of makings for the feast to as many regiments and vessels as they could reach.

The main challenge the Union League Club had to meet was to organize the donations while at the same time keeping the food from spoiling during transport (by ship or railway) throughout the country and across the seas. It was a prodigious task: 373,586 pounds of poultry (mostly turkey of course) was shipped, along with "an enormous quantity of cakes, doughnuts, gingerbread, pickles, preserved fruits, apples, vegetables, and all the other things which go to make up a Northern Thanksgiving Dinner." Amazingly, most of the units received their food and it was in edible condition. Thee Roosevelt declared the effort a "grand success."

Writing to his wife from his post in Key West, Major Benjamin Lincoln, 2nd United States Infantry U.S.C.T., described the Thanksgiving dinner he’d had:  

 

Thanksgiving night we had a first rate supper which Mrs. French & Weeks prepared. Some most excellent cakes and other things which I did not think possible to manufacture on this Island. We had a very pleasant time after supper all our officers were together and had a social chat.

I wished you were here but then wishes did not bring you, so I shall have to remain content until you can come, whenever that happy event may be.

Many sermons are given in the North, all on the subjects of “victory,” “gratitude” and “winning God’s war.”

While the Northerners feasted, units of Sherman’s army raided farmsteads, stealing food and wares from the hapless folk of Georgia. It was decidedly not a day of Thanksgiving in the South.

November 23, 1864---A "bitterly cold day" in Georgia

NOVEMBER 23, 1864:      

On this “bitterly cold day” Sherman’s men debase Milledgeville by stabling horses in the State Chapel and by ruining its magnificent pipe organ by pouring honey down its pipes. The State Capitol is burning, the State Penitentiary is burning, and the State Arsenal is blown up. As they march out they burn the bridge over the Oconee River. Not far beyond the city line, they are met by a small force led by General William Hardee C.S.A.  A brief but vicious firefight breaks out. Hardee, who is outnumbered ten-to-one at Milledgeville retires from the field before his soldiers are slaughtered to a man. 

November 22, 1864---Abandoning Georgia

NOVEMBER 22, 1864:      

Sherman’s men reach the Georgia State capital of Milledgeville. Governor Joseph Brown and the State legislators flee for their lives but not before passing one final piece of legislation, “The Mass Levy,” essentially drafting every person in the State to fight for Georgia’s defense. Brown, who has been notably recalcitrant in sending State Militia to fight in the national Confederate ranks for the balance of the war, takes a final swipe at Jefferson Davis for “abandoning” Georgia just before he, Brown, abandons Milledgeville. Sherman, for his part leaves the city in ashes.

At the other end of the rail line, General John Bell Hood C.S.A.’s men cross over into Tennessee, hoping to force Sherman to abandon his March To The Sea. Hood is anxious to fight Sherman in open combat. But Sherman has already seen to Hood’s Army of Tennessee, having seconded General George H. Thomas to haunt Hood’s steps. Although Hood could attack Thomas at any time, he continues to ignore the nearby Army of The Cumberland in favor of drawing Sherman’s attention.

November 21, 1864---Our Eloquent President

NOVEMBER 21, 1864:     

President Lincoln, once a corporation lawyer for the railroads, writes a prescient letter to Colonel William F. Elkins:

  

We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end. It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. . . . It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.

On the same day, our eloquent President writes what has become known as “The Bixby Letter” to a Mrs. Bixby, a mother of five slain Union soldiers. Beginning with the salutation “Dear Madam” it reads:

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

November 20, 1864---"Damned Yanquis!"

NOVEMBER 20, 1864:      

Rebel forces in Georgia led by General Joseph Wheeler C.S.A. stand and fight at Clinton, Walnut Creek, East Macon, and Griswoldville, all trying to delay or divert Sherman’s March To The Sea which has entered its fifth destructive day. The skirmishes are brief, loud, and ineffective. 

After the war, Wheeler returns to service with the United States Army, and as an old man leads troops in Cuba (including Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders) during the Spanish-American War. Wheeler, who is suffering from incidents of dementia by 1898 sometimes forgets whether he is fighting the Spaniards or the Yankees. 

Joshua Hill, once a U.S. Senator and friend of the Sherman-Ewing family, now a C.S. Senator, asks “Cump” Sherman to spare his hometown of Madison, Georgia. Sherman agrees not to burn the town, but it is heavily looted as Union troops pass through.