How about a Civil War discussion thread?

How about a Civil War discussion thread?

I'm not entirely sure if it's appropriate on this board, but I would like to post some pictures I took on a recent trip to several battlefield parks from the Civil War's eastern theater.

In the meantime, how about some discussion of the American Civil War? Post favorite commanders, music, what-if's and battle scenarios, ask questions, whatever strikes your fancy. Let's try and keep things civil (hehe) however and not spend the whole thread arguing about states rights or slavery. I would much prefer to focus on the details of the actual war itself rather than the causes which have been debated to death in a dozen threads already.

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The Stonewall Jackson monument on Henry House Hill in Mananas National Battlefield park.

A few words of explanation before I go further:
These pictures are broadly arranged in order of chronological events rather than the order in which I visited the parks. That being said, they may be slightly out of order in some places.

I visited Mananas, Antietam, Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania/Chancellorsville/The Wilderness (All in one park), Gettysburg, Harper's Ferry, and DC.

Unfortunately my camera died in Fredericksburg about 2/3rds through the trip so I only have pictures up to that point, I was unable to get good photographs of Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, or anything in DC.

First up are images from the First Mananas/Bull Run battlefield.

This is the uniform of Captain Norris of the 27th Virginia infantry, who famously died leading his company against Ricketts battery on Henry House Hill after shouting, "Quick boys and we can whip 'em!"

These are some hand made models of different kinds of Civil War combatants on display in the Mananas visitor center.

I found them kind of fun to look at anyways.

Zouave uniforms on display.

The Red and Gray uniform is actually a Northern uniform, and the Blue and Red was Southern, illustrating part of the reason why First Mananas had a lot of confusion on both side regarding unit identification.

View of Henry House and Ricketts batteries from the visitor center. This is about half-way between the Confederate and Union positions for the bulk of the battle.

I just realised that some of these images are quite large in file size.

And also that autocorrect is changing Manassas to Mananas.

I think I will take a moment to reduce the file sizes after I finish with first Manassas.

Monument dedicated Gen. Barnard Bee, who gave Jackson his famous moniker Stonewall after shouting "There stands Jackson like a stone wall, rally behind the Virginians!"

Interestingly enough, some eye witnesses claimed that what Bee had actually said was, "There stands Jackson like a damned stone wall,"
implying that Bee was angry at Jackson rather than impressed.

Another view of the Jackson monument, which stands right in the middle of Henry House Hill.

Marker/Monument for General Barstow, another Confederate General who fell at first Manassas.

I think the plaque is wrong however. A General Garnett fell in the fighting in West Virginia before First Manassas, so Barstow can't be the first General staff officer to die on the field.

Quality thread, OP.

One part of the Civil War that always gave me chills was the Battle of Fredericksburg, with the annihilation of thousands of men with no gain. I remember reading that Burnside was eventually so emotionally distressed that he was restrained by his staff after attempting to lead a final charge up the heights himself.

My Father standing behind Union batteries on Matthews hill facing Henry House Hill.

Matthews hill is where the earlier fighting took place between Bee's brigade and the Federal advance. Several Union batteries of long range James Rifles were placed on the hill. The range from Matthews hill to Henry House hill is also, interestingly enough, about the furthest effective range of most Civil War field guns, with the exception of large Parrot rifles and siege ordnance.

Fredericksburg has always had a special interest to me because my birthday is on the 13th of December.

Luckily I did manage to get some pics of Fredericksburg before my camera died.

Close up of a James Rifle.

>what-ifs

I remember reading that Tsar Alexander sent the Russian fleet to San Francisco and New York in an attempt to discourage the British from entering the war on the Confederate side. What if the British went ahead and did it anyway, and the Russians joined on our side? Would the French have gotten involved, or were they too busy with Mexico? What about the Prussians?

Cold Harbor is one of the scarier ones for me. The soldiers were basically ordered to charge into Confederate fortifications and were just mowed down by the thousands. IIRC, something like 8,000 soldiers were killed between 6am and noon, when Grant finally called it off.

The whole thing was kind of a precursor to those infamous World War I charges into machine gun fire.

What a nice polite civil war thread

>Replies 13 / Posters 3

Oh that's why

People are most likely lurking, I know I am at least.

Sadly, threads only generate decent amount of replies if they're about a racial controversy or straight up bait.

I'd like to post something here but I have nothing to contribute myself.

A better view of Henry House Hill from Matthews hill. You can see the visitors center on HH hill.

The French were ready to fight against the Union but wouldn't act without British support.

Honestly though, I don't think much would have happened. Britain never really had a reason to fight against the Union.

A better question would be, what would have happened if the Trent affair had gone the other way and Britain DID have a reason to recognize the Confederacy?

Spotsylvania's bloody angle always seemed the worst to me. Fighting with rocks and clubs for 24 hours, with no sleep, in the rain and mud, against men only a few feet away.

Like WWI before that was even a wild dream.

I don't think the British had anything to gain from entering. They had a surplus of cotton and a union/confederate victory would both reopen the cotton trade. Also it would have put their other North American holdings at risk. You're right about France though, late in the war the confederates even offered to help the union invade Mexico to kick outer the French in exchange for independence.

My father about to walk over the Stone Bridge.

The Bridge was actually destroyed prior to the battle by the Confederates and the bulk of the Union had to cross at a ford further up, which ironically caused them to come in almost behind the Confederate lines on Matthews hill.

The bridge was later rebuilt and used to move Union troops across prior to 2nd Manassas.

Ricketts Battery on HH hill. Mostly composed of 10lb Parrot Rifles.

Rickett was ordered to move his battery onto the hill despite the fact that the infantry had not yet advanced onto the hill. Rickett protested but was assured that infantry support would follow, support that never arrived in sufficient force to protect the battery and eventually lead to it's capture.

Ricketts himself was severely wounded and thought dead until his wife found him in a Confederate field hospital. He was eventually exchanged as a prisoner and went back North.

A small monument near Ricketts battery.

One of the oldest monuments commemorating the Civil war and one of a handful of "original" (put up by veterans) monuments at Manassas.

Henry House. The House was rebuilt after the war. It burned down after 2nd Manasass.

The Widow Henry was said to have been killed by a stray artillery shell that flew into her room. She was bedridden and could not be moved out of the house.

A sign showing were Wade Hampton (a prominent Southern cavalry commander) was wounded.

The burial plot beside Henry house. The Widow Henry and two of her children (one of which was with her in the house when she died) are also buried here.

There was a really good article about this that I had read before, I'll see if I can find it. I remember it talking much of how the combined supplies of Russia and the United States would mean they could have pulled off winning a war of attrition against the CSA and Britain.

voltairenet.org/article169488.html

The oldest "original" monument on any Civil War battlefield. The "oldest" Civil War monument was also at Manassas, but disappeared in the 1870's.

Comparing the raw resources and industrial capacity of warring Nations is tricky at best though. You have to remember that the war was un-popular enough in the Northern states that only about 10% of the North's fighting age population signed up compared to around 85% of the Southern population.

I think in any scenario in which Britain recognizes the Confederacy, the Union would not have had the continued will power to keep fighting against the South without the help of the Blockade.

And Russian resources and equipement would have meant very little considering the would need to cross thousands of miles of ocean on ships crewed by fairly poor Russian sailors, who would be going against the greatest Navy in the world at the time.

The question is one of the Union's endurance really. A war with Europe involved might have increased war fervor in the North.

The woods in which Jackson's brigade laid down prior to repulsing the Union assaults on HH hill. This spot is roughly where Jackson was wounded.

The Confederate cannon were just in front of the woods, and every time they fired they came crashing back into the woods and had to be wheeled out again.

A big confederate howitzer, probably a 24 pounder from what I can tell. Howitzers were in use by both sides in 1861 but were quickly replaced by rifled guns like Parrots. Even at First Manassas they were rare however.

* 12 pounder, don't know why I typed 24 pounder

A view of Henry House and Ricketts Battery (the Union position) from the Confederate position on the other side of HH hill.

The last image in my First Bull Run set, another view of that Confederate Howitzer.

I should mention, I really like artillery pieces, so of I took pictures of a number of unusual guns on my trip. I don't claim to be an expert though and most of the guns didn't have any identification so if I ID something wrong I apologize in advance.

I'm also going to take a break to get some water and resize some more images before I continue.

Next up is 2nd Manassas and Antietam.

>Mananas

pro tip: it's Manassas

Time to pick up again. I may or may not get called in to work soon, but I will at least try to get through 2nd Manassas and some of Antietam.

This is infamous railroad cut. I'm standing where the Union forces under Fitz-John-Porter (including some of the famed Berdan Sharpshooters) made their initial advance toward the cut. The ground has only recently been cleared by the park-service and they are still restoring the terrain, so it would not have been this bushy and grassy when the battle occurred.

See Autocorrect was fucking me up.

View from the top of the railroad cut.
I should have taken more pictures of the cut itself but I was on a ranger walk at the time and was so focused on his talking I forgot to take more pictures.

This is the view that Jackson's men would have had during the battle. You can see how the Union men were described as briefly disappearing before appearing on the crest in front of me again.

The Cut itself is a few feet behind me. It's basically a deep ditch running the length of the hill. Apparently, sources differ as to whether or not the Southern forces were IN or BEHIND the cut.

Looking towards the woods where Longstreet's counter assault was launched by brigades that would late take part in Pickett's Charge.

Some of the fiercest fighting of the battle occurred here as outnumbered Union brigades advanced piece meal against Longstreet's forces in an effort to buy time to warn and evacuate the army.

Looking roughly from Longstreet's second position toward regrouping Union forces on that small ridge in the distance. At this point Pope was beginning to retreat his army to Henry House Hill.

>1497628
I just went to Manassas a few weeks ago and stood in some of the exact places you did. What day did you go?

Another view of the railroad cut, this time from a Union artillery position on a hill to the South.

The Stone House, next to a crossroads and almost squarely in the center of both battlefields.

Although no real fighting occurred around the house, many soldiers on both sides noted it in diaries and letters and it served as a field hospital in both battles.

On the top floor you can still see where two soldiers carved their names into the floor.

Lets see,
July 5th, I also went to a lot other battle sites and museums while down in Virginia as well, so we could have run into eachother.

July 1-3 I got to spend at Gettysburg which was phenomenal as well. We spent a rainy 4th in DC, which was fun but crowded.

Final pic for Manassas, the NY Zouaves monument.

Tbh, by this point I was too tired to walk up to it and get a better picture because we had been walking around in 100 degree heat and 90% humidity all day, and i'm too much of a fat-ass to spend all day in that kind of weather.

Alright, let's move on to Antietam now.

This is Stephen Lee's battery near the visitor center, overlooking the battlefield near the Dunker church.

The Dunker church, which served as a Confederate HQ and hospital and was the point of deepest penetration by Union forces before being recaptured by Jackson's men

The Church burned down after the war but is the only part of the battlefield that had to be reconstructed. Almost everything else was unchanged when the Park service began preservation of the site.

Inside the church, my father gives his best fire and brimstone preacher impression.

Looking out from the Dunker church toward the Cornfield and the North and East woods.

Looking into the West woods from the Dunker church. The West woods are where most of the fighting occurred in the later part of the day between Jackson's command and Hooker and Sumner's corps.

Looking from the North of the Cornfield toward the Dunker Church and confederate positions.

The North woods are a bit NE of this position.

This is where the soldiers in Hooker's corps bivouacked the night before the battle. In the morning they would advance a quarter of a mile through this cornfield toward Jackson's position.

Some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting occurred in the Cornfield, which is estimated to have changed hands more than seven times over the course of the day.

I went to Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown sometime around July 4th. I watched a firework show in Williamsburg on the 4th.

I went to DC on July 6th then left on the 8th. I was at Manassas on the 8th. We probably missed each other by a couple days.

I do remember it being very rainy that week as well.

The East woods, where Sumners corp bivouacked the night before the battle. Sumner would not survive the battle, and his forces would get cut to pieces in the woods after being unintentionally flanked by retreating Southern units.

*I lied, Sumner survived but was removed from command, Sedgewick's division was the hardest hit however, and Sedgewick was wounded in the fighting but not killed.

A view of the Cornfield from the South-west, a bit forward of Jackson's starting position when the battle opened.

Some of costliest fighting at Antietam would occur when Jackson sent General Hood's Texas brigade into the cornfield.

And on that note, i've been called in to work. If this thread is still up and people are still interested I can continue posting when I get back in a few hours.

Genuinely a great thread OP, nothing much to add but thank you for sharing your pictures.

Anyone read pic related?

Nice thread you have here but the South had it coming.

t. Victorious Yank

I would not recommend it. At- work will maybe describe why later with quotes if this thread is still a thing

Not American but I've always noticed it's northerners who begin shitposting in these threads, what's their problem?

Yankees are tired of Dixie trying to rise again

also on the internet (from what i've seen) the north gets basically ignored whenever there's discussion of the civil war

They're salty they lost more than double the amount of men and that reconstruction was a massive failure.

>dirty yankee
>also Satan
No surprise there.

so you decided to shit up a good thread? you really got them.

Interesting, I've usually only seen Lost Cause sympathizers starting it with something about "states' rights".

>52 replies before the thread goes to shit

New high record! normally these threads start out with a picture of Sherman

Battle of Spotsylvania Court House

"Throughout the afternoon, Confederate engineers scrambled to create a new defensive line 500 yards further south at the base of the Mule Shoe, while fighting at the Bloody Angle continued day and night with neither side achieving an advantage. At 4 a.m. on May 13, the exhausted Confederate infantrymen were notified that the new line was ready and they withdrew from the original earthworks unit by unit. The combat they had endured for almost 24 hours was characterized by an intensity of firepower never previously seen in Civil War battles, as the entire landscape was flattened, all the foliage destroyed. An example of this can be found in the Smithsonian Museum of American History: a 22-inch stump of an oak tree at the Bloody Angle that was completely severed by rifle fire. There was a frenzy to the carnage on both sides. Fighting back and forth over the same corpse-strewn trenches for hours on end, using single shot muskets, the contending troops were periodically reduced to hand-to-hand combat reminiscent of battles fought during ancient times. Surviving participants attempted to describe in letters, diaries, and memoirs the hellish intensity of that day, many noting that it was beyond words. Or, as one put it: "Nothing can describe the confusion, the savage, blood-curdling yells, the murderous faces, the awful curses, and the grisly horror of the melee." May 12 was the most intensive day of fighting during the battle, with Union casualties of about 9,000, Confederate 8,000; the Confederate loss includes about 3,000 prisoners captured in the Mule Shoe."

If you're still here I'd like to know why you didn't like it.

bump

You would think that somebody in Europe would have looked at those battles and thought "hmm, maybe we need to change our own strategies" sometime in the 49 years before the end of the Civil War and the start of WWI.

Last surviving Floridan Confederate soldier going for a ride.

I'm back from work now.

I think i'll finish up Antietam for tonight and then post the rest of my pictures tomorrow.

This is another view of the Cornfield. You can see the edge of the east woods in the distance.

What makes that even more interesting is that the Franco-Prussian war in Europe had many of the same issues and developments and yet everything learned by the European powers in that war was promptly forgotten at the beginning of WWI.

I think that some things can only be learned after lots of trial and error.

Mind boggling to think that there were Civil War soldiers that lived long enough to see/fly on modern monoplanes.

Must have been one hell of a life.

A monument in the West woods.

The West woods are behind the Cornfield and to the immediate front left of the Dunker Church, which was the center point of Jackson's line.

The fighting in the West woods was more sporadic than the fighting in the Cornfield and elsewhere, but still deadly.

Walking into the West Woods, facing the Dunker church and the Confederate batteries defending the woods.

A confederate howitzer. By 1862 howitzers were extremely rare, particularly in the Eastern theater, and this Confederate Howitzer was the only one of it's kind present at Antietam. This gun traded shots with Union batteries almost a mile away behind the Cornfield near the North woods.

Looking down the howitzer's barrel toward the Cornfield.

This particular is example of the howitzer is interesting in that it is made of steel rather than bronze like other smooth-bore cannon. The Confederacy had severe shortages of bronze, and they often made smooth bores out of iron to make up for that deficiency.

Looking deeper into the West woods. This is the terrain elements of Hooker's Union corps had to fight through before very briefly capturing the Dunker church. Hooker's corps would withdraw and only fight minor skirmishes by the early afternoon, when the focus of battle would shift to the center of the line near the Bloody Lane.

The Mumma cemetery.

This cemetery was built by the Mumma family after the war over the remains of their house, the only building deliberately destroyed during the battle.

Union forces set the house on fire fearing Confederate sharpshooters.

Looking from Mumma cemetery toward the bloody lane. These buildings belonged to the Mumma family after the war but where not there in 1862.

Stairs leading down toward the Bloody lane.

The Bloody lane or the Sunken Road was a small, sunken cart path used by Confederate infantry as an ad hoc trench. Repeated Union assaults began at Noon and lasted through most of the day.

Walking up the lane toward the observation post.

Most of the right flank (the part down by Burnside's bridge) was used to periodically reinforce this lane by Lee thought the day. The Union attacks on the lane were, for the most part, launched head on and piecemeal, allowing the Confederates to easily repulse overwhelming numbers.

The field in front of the Lane was said to be so thick with corpses that a man could walk across it without stepping on the ground.

View from the top of the lane toward the observation post.

Through some miracle of fate the lane was completely empty while I was there, so I got to explore it without any sound but the chirping birds. It gave me literal chills.

View from the observation post down the lane.

It was said that after the battle, Confederate dead lay so thick in the lane that you could walk across them from one side to the other without going down.

It's estimated that roughly the same number of Americans were killed or wounded in the fighting here as the were killed in the entire revolutionary war. Or in another perspective, more Americans died on this specific part of the battlefield than the War of 1812 and the Mexican war combined. It's possible that more men died here in or around the bloody lane than on D-day.

A wild blimp appears in the distance. It's hard to tell in the picture, but it's a met life blimp. I thought it was kinda random for a blimp to be flying over the middle of no where so I took a picture.

The death marker for Gen. Richardson, a Union general who was killed while attempting to move cannons to this position to flank the Confederate troops during the fighting.

This spot is roughly where a section of Union troops was able to flank the Confederate line and they began pouring a devastating enfilade fire into the Southern ranks. The Confederates were forced to retreat but later re-took the road at great cost.

I also double checked and a Union general Mansfield was killed in the East woods, leading the XII Corps. I knew a general had been killed there but for some reason I thought it was Sumner.

My Dad in front of the Irish Brigade monument at the top of the Bloody lane. The 69th New York, popularly known as the Irish Brigade or the Fighting Irish, was one of the Union units able to enfilade the Confederate line.

At the top of the observation tower looking down the bloody lane. If you look carefully, you can see parts of the Cornfield and the West woods.

Looking down toward Sharpsburg and Burnside's bridge.

There was a couple in the tower with us who were doing a Civil War bike tour and were vary obviously not used to the Country. I pointed out some deer in the woods and they were fascinated because they had never seen deer before.

Just an interesting little anecdote.

Approaching Burnside's Bridge. This paved overlook is part of the ridge on which 500 Georgians under Robert Toombs held off an entire Union Corps for nearly 6 hours. The rest of the Confederates on this part of the field were called off and used to reinforce the Center and left of the line.

The Bridge itself. Unfortunately, the Bridge is currently undergoing restoration efforts after it was discovered that the supports were dangerously weak from erosion.

On the bright side, the bridge will be able to once again be safely traversed once the work is done and several previously undiscovered mini-balls and other artifacts have been found during the restoration efforts.

Looking back up toward a portion of the Georgian overlook. The biggest wasp i've ever seen was flying around behind me while I took this pic and I seriously thought I was going to die for a second when I could hear it right behind my ear.

Burnside's men would eventually storm the bridge en masse, and several other elements of his Corps would cross at Snavely's ford further down stream, flanking the Georgians and collapsing this portion of the Confederate line.

This is looking down toward the bridge from the line of the final Union push toward the end of the day.

A.P. Hill's division would march nearly 30 miles from Harper's Ferry during the day in order to engage Burnside's Corps and save Lee's right during this part of the fighting. Hill's men were more experienced combat veterans while most of Burnside's troops were raw recruits, and thus easily repulsed.

An equestrian duo riding past a monument near the scene of the final Union assault.

The final picture from my Antietam set. This road is almost on top of the furthest forward Union position held by Burnside's troops before being bloodily repulsed by AP Hill's men.

Overall, the battle of Antietam was a costly Union "victory," although the South did not retreat until two days later and North's casualties were much greater than the Souths. Still, the Union forces managed to halt the Confederate advance and gave them a brutal reminder that they were NOT invincible. Antietam was a story of almosts and so close for the Union, and had McClellan committed the 20k odd reserves at his command who never fired a shot during the battle, he may have completely crushed the Army of Northern Virginia and ended the fighting in 1862.

Tomorrow we will pick up again with Harper's Ferry, Fredericksburg, and finally, Gettysburg.