March 21, 1864---Abraham Lincoln, Esq.

MARCH 21, 1864:      

It is sometimes forgotten that Abraham Lincoln was a well-known commercial litigation lawyer before he became President. Lincoln had a quite successful career in promoting and defending the railroads, among many other corporate clients. Today, he writes a letter to the New York Workingmen's Democratic Republican Association, in which he addresses the issue of “Property” and says:

Property is the fruit of labor . . . property is desirable . . . is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

March 20, 1864---The Fourth Spring of The War

MARCH 20, 1864:     

On the first day of Spring, 1864, Aldace F. Walker of the 11^th Vermont Infantry writes home from garrison duty in Washington, D.C. His letter reads in part:

We are having pleasant weather thus far in our Equinoctial---a beautiful day, and on the whole a quiet one. Our inspection was by company at 4 p.m. Yesterday we went to Fort Bunker Hill. Got some tired, though not much. I have not been doing any especial of late but my usual routine. We have commenced target practice again on Tuesdays and Fridays, which will probably last a month or so. I am detailed on another General court Martial, to convene at Fort Stevens to-morrow.

March 19, 1864---Georgia Demands Peace Terms

MARCH 19, 1864:      

The Georgia State Legislature passes two bills into law --- The first is a clear-cut vote of confidence in the leadership of President Jefferson Davis. The second is far more Machiavellian: It requires that the Confederacy offer peace terms after each Confederate military victory. The basic premise of the peace terms are independence for the Confederate States and self-determination for the Border States. Though there is no chance that the Lincoln Administration will ever consider disunion, the Georgia bill does leave a back door ajar for eventual peace negotiations between the two warring States of America. The passage of the bill marks a definite schism in the Confederate approach to the war.

March 18, 1864---The Battle of Laredo, Texas

MARCH 18, 1864:     

The Battle of Laredo, Texas. Union forces attempt to burn 5,000 bales of cotton destined to cross from Texas into Mexico. Colonel Santos Benavides, the highest-ranking Tejano officer in the Confederacy repulses 200 Union men with only 42 garrison troops. 

March 17, 1864---One by land, two by sea

MARCH 17, 1864:      

After both attending the Virginia conference of all senior Union Generals, Grant and Sherman meet privately in Cincinnati, Ohio to discuss their overall strategy for the war. Like General Winfield Scott’s naval blockade begun in 1861, the land-based Grant-Sherman Plan eventually acquires the same name, the “Anaconda Plan.” In sum, the Union land-based armies are to do as the Union Navy has done --- envelope geographic regions of the Confederacy, isolate them, and squeeze the life out of them one by one. 

Confederate States General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne was born on St. Patrick's Day 1828, in Ovens, County Cork, Ireland. He was only eighteen months of age when his mother died, and fifteen when his father died. He failed the entrance examinations to Trinity College in that year. Frustrated in his choice of the medical profession, Cleburne joined the British army. In 1851, he emigrated to the United States and became a citizen in 1860. He settled first in Arkansas and then moved to Mississippi, where he was admitted to the Bar.

When the Civil War came, he sided with the South. He rose to become a Confederate Major General. General Cleburne was publicly engaged to Susan Tarleton of Mobile, Alabama, though he was openly gay. His sexuality did not trouble the Southern leadership, however. General Robert E. Lee referred to him as “a meteor shining in the clouded sky”.

Cleburne fought with distinction in the Battles of Shiloh, Richmond, Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Ringgold Gap and Franklin. He was killed at the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee on November 30, 1864.

He despised slavery, and was the first leading Southerner to advocate arming and emancipating slaves who fought for the Confederacy.

150,000 Irishmen fought for the Union during the Civil War. 30,000 Irishmen fought for the Confederacy. Among the most famous of the Union's Irish units was the "Fighting 69th" of New York, but the 8th Alabama, the 10th Louisiana and the 10th Tennessee of the Confederacy were also all-Irish units.

The Fighting 69th