Wallpaper (or “paper hangings” as it was called in the 19th century), was found in most homes up through the early 20th century. In some towns during the Civil War, wallpaper was more plentiful than printing paper. In 1863, The Daily Citizen, a Vicksburg, Mississippi newspaper, did not have enough printing paper to print the news on, as supplies were scarce due to Union blockades. For several days in June and July, they printed the news on the backs of wallpaper.
We think of the Civil War as North against South, brother against brother…but was it really always brother against brother? More than 400 women disguised themselves as men to fight on both sides during the war. Below are four of the more well-known female soldiers.
Loreta Velazquez (enlisted as Harry Buford) is known for the facial hair she applied in order to pass for a male soldier. She was discharged upon her true identity being revealed. She then re-enlisted but was again found out and discharged once more. She would end up becoming a Confederate spy, occasionally using her male disguise during her missions.
Sarah Edmonds (enlisted as Franklin Thompson) was wounded during battle. Rather than have a field surgeon tend to her (in which her identity as a woman would be revealed), she instead fled and checked herself into a private hospital, intending to return to military life once she had recuperated. Once she recovered, however, she noticed posters listing Franklin Thompson as a deserter, a crime punishable by death. Rather than returning to the army and risking execution for desertion, she instead chose to become a nurse, helping wounded Union soldiers.
It is unclear if Frances Clayton (enlisted as Jack Williams) decided to come clean about her true identity, or whether she was injured and her identity was discovered when doctors tended to her, but either way she was discharged from service. She would go on to write a story of her “adventures” in the army, which appeared in newspapers, though how much of it was embellished has been questioned.
Jennie Hodgers (enlisted as Albert Cashier – no photo of her dressed as a woman is known to exist) had been used to appearing as a boy from a young age, her father disguising her as one in order to find her work to help the family after her mother’s early death. Following the war, she decided to remain disguised as a man, enjoying the right to vote and receiving a soldier’s pension. In 1913, two years prior to her death, her mind deteriorated and she was admitted to a mental institution. Attendants at the institution discovered that Hodgers, still going by Cashier and wearing men’s clothing, was female upon giving her a bath, at which point she was forced to wear a dress.
Loreta Velazquez
Sarah Edmonds
Frances Clayton
Jennie Hodgers
Much discussion took place prior to the years of Kansas becoming a state in 1861. Will Kansas be a slave state or a free state? That was a very heated debate in the 1850s, one that led to a vicious attack on the Senate floor between a pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocate on May 22, 1856.
After much political bashing between the North and South, and a recently heated discussion on the Senate floor, Representative of South Carolina, Preston Brooks, approached Senator of Massachusetts, Charles Sumner, as Sumner was writing at is desk following a strong anti-slavery speech he had just given. Brooks and an accomplice waited for the galleries to clear, specifically so that there were no women present to witness what he was about to do. He then approached Sumner and said, “Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine.” (Andrew Butler was another senator from South Carolina).
As Sumner began to rise from his chair, Brooks, using his walking cane with a gold head, beat Sumner severely over his head before he could reach his feet. The force of the blows caused Sumner to momentarily lose his sight. “I no longer saw my assailant, nor any other person or object in the room”, Sumner would later say.
Sumner was knocked down and trapped under his heavy desk, which was bolted to the floor. Brooks continued to strike Sumner until Sumner rose to his feet, ripping the desk from the floor in an effort to escape. Sumner was blinded by his own blood at this time. He staggered up the aisle with his arms outstretched and attempted to defend himself, but Brooks continued to beat him across the head, face, and shoulders “to the full extent of my power.” Even after his cane snapped, Brooks continued beating Sumner with the half containing the gold head. Sumner collapsed unconscious, and when he did, Brooks grabbed him by the lapel with one hand, and continued beating the unconscious Sumner. Several other senators and representatives attempted to help Sumner but were blocked by Brooks’s accomplice, who pulled out a gun and shouted, “Let them alone, God damn you! Let them alone!”
After other senators and representatives pleaded with Brooks not to kill Sumner, the attack was eventually broken up, with Brooks calmly leaving the building. He then resigned but was later reinstated that year, though he passed away the following year from croup, a respiratory infection.
Sumner suffered a traumatic brain injury from the beating as well as PTSD and spent three years convalescing before returning to his Senate seat. He suffered chronic pain and debilitation for the rest of his life.
Sumner became a martyr to the North, and Brooks a hero to the South. The attack added more fuel to the fire, just one of the numerous events leading up to the Civil War.
In 1864, Harper’s Weekly wartime sketch artist, Winslow Homer, created a series of collector cards depicting the lighter side of life in civil war camps, including letter writing to significant others, smoking, and other recreational activities. Below are the only two cards in the set to depict playfulness among soldiers.
The scars of slavery can be seen across this man’s back. Many have likely seen this photo, which has become one of the most iconic photos of the physical abuse endured by slaves. Who is the man in this photo?
He was unofficially known as Gordon. There is no proof that was his real first name. His last name is unknown, as is his birth year and year of death. He escaped from a Louisiana plantation in March 1863, owned by John and Bridgett Lyons, who owned Gordon and nearly 40 other slaves according to an 1860 census. In order to mask his scent from bloodhounds, Gordon had taken onions from the plantation and rubbed them on his body during his escape. It worked, as it threw the dogs off his trail.
He traveled over 40 miles in ten days before reaching a Union camp in Baton Rouge. Once safely at the camp, Gordon underwent a medical examination on April 2, 1863, in which a Civil War photographer was on hand, who took a series of pictures of Gordon’s scarred back, one which was eventually colorized, seen below. The photos were circulated throughout newspapers across the country, allowing non-slave states to see the horrors of slavery. During the examination, Gordon is quoted as saying:
“Ten days from today I left the plantation. Overseer Artayou Carrier whipped me. I was two months in bed sore from the whipping. My master come after I was whipped; he discharged the overseer. My master was not present. I don’t remember the whipping. I was two months in bed sore from the whipping and my sense began to come – I was sort of crazy. I tried to shoot everybody. They said so, I did not know. I did not know that I had attempted to shoot everyone; they told me so. I burned up all my clothes; but I don’t remember that. I never was this way (crazy) before. I don’t know what make me come that way. My master come after I was whipped; saw me in bed; he discharged the overseer. They told me I attempted to shoot my wife the first one; I did not shoot anyone; I did not harm anyone. My master is Capt. John Lyons, cotton planter, on Atchafalya, near Washington, Louisiana. Whipped two months before Christmas.”
(An overseer was a slave, usually a very obedient one, which a master would hand the responsibility to of whipping disobedient slaves. If the overseer didn’t whip one of his own when asked to, or didn’t whip with the full extent of his strength for fear of causing pain to another slave, the overseer himself would be whipped by the master for disobedience.)
Gordon eventually joined the Union army in May 1863 as a member of the U.S. Colored Troops, who were said to be some of the fiercest fighters, for the obvious reason they were literally fighting for their lives. This is the time he went from being known as Gordon to being known as “Whipped Pete” among his unit. It’s obvious how he got the name “Whipped” but it’s unknown where “Pete” came from.
During one battle, Gordon was captured and taken prisoner by Confederates, who tied him up, beat him and left him for dead. He survived and escaped again back to Union lines.
It is unknown what happened to Gordon after that, if he was killed in battle or survived the Civil War. Records of African-American soldiers were not always well kept, and sadly many were not given proper burials if killed in action.
The photo of Gordon fully attired was taken shortly before he joined the U.S. Colored Troops in May, 1863.
From July 13 through July 16, 1863, deadly riots took place in New York City in protest to a Civil War draft, as more Union soldiers were being called for following the devastating loss of life at the battle of Gettysburg just ten days earlier.
New York citizens were already unsettled by the news of the draft. The first day of the draft, July 11, went peacefully. Violence began when it was announced that those drafted could purchase their way out. Working-class people resented that wealthier people could afford this. If someone was selected, they could pay $300 at the Marshal’s office, where the draft was taking place, and a replacement for that individual would be found.
At 10am on July 13, a furious crowd of around 500, led by volunteer firemen of Engine Company 33, attacked the Marshal’s office. The crowd threw large paving stones through windows, busted down doors, and set the building on fire. When other fire departments arrived to fight the blaze, the rioters destroyed their horse-drawn fire engines. Other rioters stopped innocent people’s carriages in the streets, killing the horses and smashing the carriages. Still, others climbed telegraph poles and cut wires so that help could not be requested of neighboring towns and cities.
Much of the working class in New York City at this time were Irish immigrants, who feared if they left for war African-Americans would take their jobs and they would have no work upon their return. The working-class now turned their anger toward blacks, feeling they, through slavery, were the cause of this war. Though African-Americans were free in the North, they now had a reason to fear for their lives during this riot.
With the crowd of rioters growing, they headed to the Colored Orphan Asylum, home to orphaned black children, to set the building on fire. The New York militia would normally have arrived on the scene, but every member of the militia had been sent to Gettysburg a week earlier. New York only had their police force to handle the rioters. The police drew their guns and batons and charged the crowd but were quickly overpowered. The police superintendent, arriving on scene in civilian clothing, was recognized by the rioters and badly beaten, left in the street severely bruised and bloodied with knife cuts on his hands. He was barely conscious. The crowd would have killed him if officers hadn’t dragged him away.
The crowd of rioters arrived at the Colored Orphan Asylum and set the building on fire. The children and staff escaped unharmed. The Bull’s Head Hotel was also set on fire after refusing to provide alcohol to the angry crowd. The crowd then went to attack The New York Times office but were turned away by staff members firing Gatling guns in defense. More firefighters arrived on the scene; some did not assist in putting out fires, as they were sympathetic with the rioters, having just been drafted themselves. Along their path, the crowd grabbed black men, beating, torturing and lynching them. Homes of black families were burned down as well as businesses owned by blacks. Hundreds of blacks fled their homes, and the city, for their lives.
On July 14, the governor of New York spoke at City Hall, ordering 800 soldiers from nearby forts to help manage the mob, as well as having the militia return from Pennsylvania.
On July 15, it was announced the draft would be postponed, which, along with soldiers now on the scene, aided in ending the major rioting, though smaller sporadic instances of rioting would last through July 16. In all, at least 120 people were killed, 11 of them black men lynched by mobs.
On August 19, the draft resumed without further incident. A total of 450,000 soldiers, sailors, and militia fighting in the Civil War were from New York, the most populous state at the time. Of that number, approximately 45,000 New York soldiers were killed during the war from diseases alone.
To this day, the 1863 New York City draft riots remain the deadliest riot in American history.
Even in the thickest of battle, humanity sometimes shines through. On July 2, 1863, in a battle between the 20th Maine and 15th Alabama at Little Round Top in Gettysburg, an Alabama soldier had two opportunities to kill now famed 20th Maine Colonel Joshua Chamberlain. Below is a letter written by this unknown Alabama soldier to Chamberlain shortly after the Civil War had ended, explaining how he couldn’t take Chamberlain’s life.
“Dear Sir: I want to tell you of a little passage in the battle of Round Top, Gettysburg, concerning you and me, which I am now glad of. Twice in that fight I had your life in my hands. I got a safe place between two big rocks, and drew a bead fair and square on you. You were standing in the open behind the center of your line, full exposed. I knew your rank by your uniform and your actions, and I thought it a mighty good thing to put you out of the way. I rested my gun on the rock and took steady aim. I started to pull the trigger, but some queer notion stopped me. Then I got ashamed of my weakness and went through the same motions again. I had you perfectly certain. But that same queer something shut right down on me. I couldn’t pull the trigger, and I gave up – that is, your life. I am glad of it now, and hope you are.
Yours truly,
A member of the 15th Alabama.”
Then and now. Taken from Baltimore Street in Gettysburg, comparing views shortly after the Civil War and today. Baltimore Pike is to the left. Steinwehr Avenue is to the right. The Wagon Wheel Hotel stands in the center, used by Union troops as a sniper’s position during the battle . The hotel burned down shortly after this picture was taken, with two more hotels built in its place over time. A gas station now occupies the location.
This arithmetic book, published in 1864, contains thousands of math problems, three of which are presented in a very unique way, using the still raging Civil War as a backdrop. This book, on display at the Gettysburg History Museum, was published in North Carolina, a Confederate state at the time.
To some, a lawn jockey, also known as a lantern footman, represents racism. In actuality, these “ornaments” have a very important historical significance.
Prior to, and up through the Civil War, lawn jockeys were used to guide runaway slaves to freedom. At one time, a slave was safe once he or she reached a northern state. However, this changed once the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850, which required any person living in the North to take part in capturing runaway slaves, where they would then be held by authorities for their owners to retrieve. Failure to take part in capturing runaways would result in imprisonment and/or fines. At this time, the only safe place for runaway slaves to go was to Canada, where slavery did not exist.
Lawn jockeys were a popular ornamental lantern on the property of many homes at this time. Those strongly opposed to slavery would tie ribbons onto the jockey’s arm in an effort to aid slaves to freedom. A green ribbon meant it was a safe area for the slave to stop and rest. A red ribbon indicated it was not a safe area to stop and to keep going. The way the jockey was dressed also indicated messages. A striped jockey shirt meant that was a place to swap horses (though most slaves escaped on foot), while a tailed coat meant the homeowner could provide lodging and food. If a jockey had on a blue sailor’s waistcoat, it meant that homeowner could take a slave to a port and get them on a ship to Canada.
Numerous African American men, women and children found their way to freedom by following paths of these types of lawn jockeys, set up from southern states and leading up into Canada. The pictures below are reproduction lawn jockeys but represent some of the messages which would have been conveyed by the way they appear.
Wounded soldiers in certain hospitals during the Civil War were able to read news of battles, as well as non-war related stories, in a hospital publication titled The Cripple. Many soldiers were likely already depressed from sustaining life altering injuries, let alone continually being reminded of those injuries each time they saw the title of this paper.
Jacob Miller, a Union soldier fighting with the 9th Indiana Infantry, was shot in the head at age 23 at the battle of Chickamagua (on the Tennessee/Georgia line), which occurred September 19-20, 1863. This Civil War battle resulted in the second highest number of casualties following the battle of Gettysburg. The Confederates proved victorious in Chickamagua, and as they were pushing the Union back, the unconscious Miller was left for dead.
Jacob Miller recalled in a 1911 story written for a local newspaper, “When I came to my senses some time after, I found I was in the rear of the Confederate line. So not to become a prisoner, I made up my mind to make an effort to get around their line and back on my own side. I got up with the help of my gun as a staff, then went back some distance, then started parallel with the line of battle. I suppose I was so covered with blood that those that I met did not notice that I was a Yank.”
Miller suffered for nine months with the bullet lodged in his head before surgeons finally removed it. However, pieces of the bullet remained inside the wound, gradually falling out over the next 31 years. Miller recalled, “Seventeen years after I was wounded, a buck shot dropped out of my wound and thirty one years after, two pieces of lead came out.”
Responding to inquiries on how he can remember details so vividly, he replied, “My answer is I have an everyday reminder of it in my wound and constant pain in the head, never free of it while not asleep. The whole scene is imprinted on my brain as with a steel engraving. I haven’t written this to complain of any one being at fault for my misfortune and suffering all these years; the government is good to me and gives me $40 per month pension.”
From the time he was shot, Jacob Miller lived another 54 years with a visible reminder of the battle of Chickamauga, passing away at the age of 76 in 1917.
During the Civil War, card manufacturers began designing Valentine cards specifically for soldiers to send to their significant others back home. Soldiers would also make their own cards to send home as well. Below is an example of each.
In case it’s difficult to read the cards themselves, the first card reads:
MY LOVE
‘Mid bugle’s blast and cannon’s roar,
And ‘mid the battles angry flame;
‘Mid clashing sabres red with gore,
I fondly breathe thy much-loved name.
I feel thee near at dead of night,
When I my vigil lone am keeping–
Thy image guards me, angel bright,
In dreams when wearied I am sleeping,
Each northward wind wafts on its breath,
To thee a yearning kiss of mine–
On glory’s field or bed of death,
I live or die thy Valentine.
The second card reads:
Fondly I gaze in
Thy sweet face,
And clasp thy little
Hand in mine,
Love swiftly speeds
Us to the place
Where I shall claim
My Valentine.
Is it ever too late to make an apology? No, even after 150 years.
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is one of the most important and well-known speeches in American history.
On November 24, 1863 (five days following the speech), a Pennsylvania-based newspaper, The Patriot & Union, thinking the speech foolish, dedicated just one paragraph to it, which read, “We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them, and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of.”
The newspaper, now named The Patriot-News, came across these remarks while going through their archives in 2013, searching for original content to reprint for the 150th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg and the Gettysburg Address. When editors noticed these remarks of the now historic speech, they felt the need to apologize for the paper’s insensitive opinion of it 150 years earlier.
The apology starts off in a lighthearted manner:
“Seven score and ten years ago, the forefathers of this media institution brought forth to its audience a judgment so flawed, so tainted by hubris, so lacking in the perspective history would bring, that it cannot remain unaddressed in our archives.”
The apology then takes on a more sincere tone:
“In the editorial about President Abraham Lincoln’s speech delivered Nov. 19, 1863, in Gettysburg, The Patriot & Union failed to recognize its momentous importance, timeless eloquence and lasting significance. The Patriot-News regrets the error.”
What happens when one conjoined twin is drafted to fight a war and not the other? This happened to Chang and Eng, the famous conjoined twins from Siam who toured “freak shows” throughout the United States and England from the 1830s through 1860s.
In early 1865, the conjoined twins had retired from touring and were living in their Mount Airy, North Carolina 110-acre plantation they purchased in 1843 with their sideshow earnings. They owned 33 slaves.
When the Union pushed its way into North Carolina, ending up in Mount Airy, they held a lottery to draft locals, even though those who were drafted were in support of the Confederacy. Names of men over the age of 18 were put into a lottery wheel, in which names were selected at random. Eng’s name was selected but not Cheng’s. After a short period of confusion over what to do by those orchestrating the draft, Eng was eventually dismissed from having to serve.
On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox, Virginia, effectively ending the Civil War. As fate would have it, the Civil War began and ended on the same man’s property.
Wilmer McLean was a retired Major in the Virginia militia, now working as a wholesale grocer and living in Manassas, Virginia at the time of the Civil War’s outbreak. The property his house sat on was involved in the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861. In fact, a cannonball fired by the Union crashed through McLean’s kitchen fireplace, destroying the dinner being made. McLean moved to Appomattox, Virginia to distance himself from the fighting. While away, his home in Manassas was used as Confederate headquarters.
Lee’s surrender to Grant was to take place at Appomattox Courthouse, which just happened to be the current home of Wilmer McLean, who agreed to let the generals use his home for the occasion. McLean is reported to have later said, “The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor.”
Capers followed the woman back, where he found her daughter on the ground, a stray bullet having struck her in the abdomen. Capers noticed the bullet did not exit her body and therefore must still be lodged within her though he could not locate it. Capers did what he could for her wound and returned to the battlefield.
It immediately became apparent there was something wrong with the baby boy. He had a dangerously enlarged scrotum. Capers examined the boy and decided to operate. What he found was a minnie ball lodged inside the boy’s scrotum. It was then that Capers remembered the soldier he tended to many months earlier who had been shot through the testicle. It appeared the bullet carried the soldier’s semen and impregnated the young woman upon striking and entering her body.
“Dr. L.G. Capers, of Vicksburg, Miss., disclaims responsibility for the truth of that remarkable case of impregnation by a minnie ball, as reported in No. 19 of this Journal. He tells the story as it was told to him. He does not say it is untrue, but is disposed to appositely remember the truth of the old adage, that ‘accidents may happen in the best regulated families.’ “
On May 15, 1862, Union General Benjamin Butler issued General Order No. 28, also known as the “Woman’s Order”, as he and his troops entered New Orleans, where they were immediately harassed by the women there, both verbally and physically.
General Order No. 28 announced that any female who insulted or assaulted a Union general or soldier by word or action “shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation”. In other words, she’d be seen as a prostitute. Furthermore, the order would allow any Union general or soldier who is physically assaulted by a female to physically assault her in return, as prostitutes were not looked at as “ladies”, and therefore not to be respected. This hit the Southern concepts of honor toward all women. The order was read by Confederate generals to their troops to stir their blood. It was also printed on enlistment flyers in an effort to get Southern men to join the Confederate cause, if even just to defend women’s honor in the south. One southern newspaper put a $10,000 reward on Butler’s head.
General Order No. 28, however, was effective. During the remainder of their time in New Orleans, General Butler and his troops no longer experienced harassment from the town’s women.
Below are two Confederate enlistment posters, both containing General Order No. 28, and a cartoon from Harper’s Weekly, dated July 12, 1862, which demonstrates the behavior of women in New Orleans, both before and after the order was issued.
It’s a little known fact that soldiers during the Civil War had the option of wearing bulletproof vests. So why didn’t they?
Bulletproof vests were mass produced for the first time in 1862 (as seen in the March 15, 1862 advertisement below), and were available to all soldiers and officers. Though they were not standard issue for the army, soldiers could purchase a vest for $5 from a number of manufacturers.
These vests were heavy, weighing about 12 pounds. The average soldier already carried between 30 to 80 pounds of extra weight in weapons, equipment and other necessities. The additional weight of the vest wasn’t wanted. Along with weight came additional heat. Uniforms for both the Union and Confederacy were made of heavy material, such as wool, making marching on hot days extremely uncomfortable. Soldiers who had in fact purchased a bulletproof vest ended up abandoning it due to the heat and extra weight. They would rather face enemy fire unprotected than suffer the heat and fatigue the vests created.
Bulletproof vests also held a stigma of cowardice, as most soldiers fought unprotected. Being considered a coward implied a lack of manliness. Manliness was linked to honor, and there was nothing more honorable than laying down your life for your country or cause.
Bulletproof vests quickly faded into obscurity. They would eventually become popular, and accepted by soldiers, during World War II.
