My Dear Susie, the Bullets Began to Scream

As his wife, Susie, followed the news from Collinsville, Illinois, Kelso marched in the 1862 campaign led by General Samuel Curtis’s 12,000-man Army of the Southwest, chasing the Confederate army out of Missouri and into Arkansas. After the Union victory at the Battle of Pea Ridge, Kelso joined the 14th Missouri State Cavalry as a first lieutenant. His first major battle with that regiment was an embarrassing defeat at the Battle of Neosho. Kelso’s account of the battle is vastly different from that of his bumbling colonel, John M. Richardson. Throughout, he wrote letters to Susie, hoping she would admire his courage and sacrifice and fearing that she was being seduced by a former friend.

“This Causes Great Excitement”

This chapter examines the experiences of African Americans in the Shenandoah Valley from the beginning of 1864 through the Civil War’s end in the spring of 1865. In addition to utilizing a recruiting mission of the 19th United States Colored Troops (USCTs) in early April 1864 to discuss the challenges USCTs confronted, including the decision to enlist and the contributions they made to the Union war effort, this chapter also highlights the continued contributions of the Valley’s African Americans to the Union war effort via non-combatant roles, especially espionage. Of particular note are the efforts of Thomas Laws, an enslaved man from Clarke County, Virginia, who played a significant role in intelligence gathering for Union general Philip Sheridan during the 1864 Shenandoah Campaign. Finally, this chapter concludes with an examination of the simultaneous joy and uncertainty which gripped African Americans when they learned of Union victory in the spring of 1865. Although Union military success meant slavery’s annihilation, this chapter illustrates that African Americans realized they would confront an entirely new set of challenges in the postwar period.

Music and the Making of a Conservative Radical

This chapter explores the thus far unexamined early life of S. Willard Saxton. In the grand scheme of American history Saxton was not an especially significant figure: he spent most of his time in the 1850s as a Boston-based itinerant printer–perennially mired in debt–frequenting concerts and making small talk with girls he fancied. But Saxton’s unusually large and evocative manuscript diary offers unparalleled insight into the mind of a reform-minded young man who harbored a deep love for music and who cultivated an ever-developing taste for politics. Saxton’s relationship to music helped fuel his decision to cast a vote for the first time, volunteer at the polls, survive for a time as an avowed abolitionist in the South, and ultimately to interpret emancipation and Union victory as the realization of the better world that music had encouraged him to believe had always been coming. The chapter also includes details of Saxton’s relationship to John S. Dwight, experiences with Jenny Lind and the Hutchinson Family Singers, and the significance of his engagement with Fourierism and life at Brook Farm.

Conclusion

This concluding chapter explores William T. Sherman’s significant legacy of achievement. Several of his achievements are not controversial; two of them are indisputable. First, Sherman ranks alongside Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant as one of the three prime architects of Union victory in the Civil War. He thus played a major role in restoring the Union and setting the United States on the path to global pre-eminence: a goal that could be glimpsed in 1891. Secondly, though Sherman’s most resounding acts occurred during the Civil War, he achieved significant things afterwards, the most notable being his connection with the “winning” of the West and his identification with it. The chapter then considers Sherman’s style of warfare, looking at the three levels of military activity: tactical, operational, and strategy.

The Imbalance of Power

From the start of the war, the French agents in the U.S. saw the North’s demographic, economic, financial, and technological superiority. However, faced with the staunch determination of the enemy troops, the Union’s military superiority remained in question. French Consul Alfred Paul in Richmond aptly predicted from the beginning that war was inevitable, as was a Union victory. His analysis shaped the view of the Tuileries cabinet on the overall military situation. The imperial government considered that the South’s chances of winning its independence depended on the Federal government’s either backing out in the face of the rebels’ prodigious efforts or being rejected through the ballot box. Paris realized the extent of the North’s potential when Lincoln’s persistence in the war was rewarded with electoral triumph, strengthening his administration.

After the War

Even with victory in hand, northern black troops and their families had to wait longer for them to return home. While most white regiments were disbanded and their members mustered out, African-American regiments remained intact because their members had not completed their three years of service. The Union’s plan was for black troops to play a major role in the Union’s reconstruction of the South. Thus, black families would have to carry on long after the war had ended. Black troops worked to keep the peace in the defeated, resentful, and hostile South. In addition, black troops helped to facilitate the transition from slavery to freedom for the freedmen. The continued use of black regiments in the Union army forced their families to have to continue writing letters. What was different after April 1865 was that the goal of a Union victory no longer made sacrifices bearable for Union families.

Loyal to the Union

Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai explores perceptions of national loyalty held by college-educated northern men during the war. His work draws on the writings of a group of New England graduates, whom he labels the New Brahmins. He highlights how their sense of moral duty as educated elites, along with their commitment to the Union, compelled them to enlist into the army. Focusing on McClellan’s leadership, the controversy of emancipation, and the election of 1864, Wongsrichanalai shows how these men viewed military and political issues through nonpartisan lenses. Holding military success and union victory as the priority, these soldiers were quite critical of partisan devotionand unquestioned support of the government. According to the author, the New Brahmins reflect an understudied northern honor or nationalism, in which elite young officers pursued the greater good of society without fear of individual consequences.

5. Steam and Iron

From 1850, the issue of slavery’s future affected nearly every aspect of American politics and government. That same decade also witnessed a virtual technological revolution that affected large segments of American society and also transformed the tools of war. ‘Steam and iron: the Civil War navy (1850–1865)’ describes the introduction of new technology at sea during the Civil War, including steam propulsion, iron armor, and exploding shells fired from ever-larger naval guns, many of them rifled, which dramatically increased both range and accuracy. There was also significant enlargement of the Union navy both in ships and the enlisted force, which allowed the U.S. Navy to play an essential role in Union victory.

The Last Hour of the Slaveholders’ Rebellion

The essay elucidates how that belief took shape in the moment of Union victory, and the myriad ways it found expression in the postwar era. Varon demonstrates that the enshrinement of Appomattox as a “freedom day” rested on three interconnected claims: that the Union army’s victory over Lee dramatized the manly heroism and agency of African American soldiers; that the surrender brought many slaves their first consciousness and experience of liberation; and that the magnanimous terms of surrender which Grant offered Lee symbolized the promise of racial reconciliation between whites and blacks. Lee’s surrender figured as a prominent symbol in the bitter and protracted debates over race, reconstruction and reunion.