Patriotic thoughts for June and July (excerpt from the National Patriotic Instructor’s Instruction)…

Independence Day – July 4 First observed on July 4, 1777

July 4, 1776 is the momentous American date when John Hancock, the President of the Continental

Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence. This declaration of sovereignty was a result of many preceding incidences including the Boston Massacre, Townshend Acts, Boston Tea Party, and Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill between the British and the independent minded Americans.

In the beginning of 1776, Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet entitled Common Sense encouraging the

independence movement.

On April 12, North Carolina became the first state to instruct its delegates to

move towards independence. Other colonies followed suit helped by the strong encouragement of

patriots like James Madison and Patrick Henry. In June, Richard Lee of Virginia offered a resolution to

dissolve the political connection with Great Britain but it faced opposition still. Nevertheless, the

Continental Congress selected a committee to draft a declaration of independence to support Lee’s

resolution. The committee consisted of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert

Livingston, and Roger Sherman. Jefferson was appointed as author.

When the Continental Congress resumed sessions on July 1st, the Declaration of Independence was

complete and a test vote was taken. Nine colonies were in favor of the resolution. On July 2, the official

Independence vote was taken and twelve colonies supported the notion with New York abstaining. The

Declaration of Independence, as written by Jefferson, was approved by Congress on July 4th, 1777. On

that same day, it was printed and signed by John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress,

and Charles Thomson, secretary. A few days later, New York cast it’s vote in favor of the resolution thus making the independence movement unanimous among the thirteen colonies.

On August 2, the Declaration of Independence was signed by Congress with all but seven delegates

signing the document. The remaining seven delegates did eventually sign the document as well.

I hope everyone has a blessed and Patriotic Weekend!

 

• http://suvcw.org/PatInstructor/PI%20Jun%2011%20Busy%20Day%20at%20Miss%20Sheads.pdf
•  http://suvcw.org/PatInstructor/PI%20July%2011%20Franklin%20Thompson%20Spy.pdf

The Barlow-Gordon Affair

One of those rare but precious instances of humanity in the midst of war occurred on the afternoon of July 1, 1863, the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. As the Union Ninth Corps began to fall back from its positions north of Gettysburg as a result of heavy Confederate pressure, Brig. Gen. Francis Barlow, commanding the corps’ 1st Division, was wounded in his left side. Unable to ride, Barlow tried to walk off the field. As he did, he stumbled, collapsed, and was left for dead.

Soon the tide of the advancing Confederate troops swept over him. As he lay on the ground, Barlow was spotted by Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon, who was leading the attack with his brigade of Georgians from Early’s division of Robert E. Lee’s II Corps. Although he didn’t know the seriously wounded 29 year-old Yankee brigadier, Gordon stopped, gave Barlow what comfort he could, and had him carried to a Confederate field hospital. That evening, while speaking with the wounded man, Gordon learned that Barlow’s wife had accompanied the Army of the Potomac, much as his own had followed him to war with the Army of Northern Virginia. Gordon arranged for a safe conduct to be issued, and Barlow’s wife was summoned to her husband’s side.

Barlow spent ten months in a hospital before returning to duty and rising to command a corps. Gordon, meanwhile, ended the war a major general commanding a division. After the war, each man though the other dead, Gordon because Barlow’s wounds had seemed so grievous, and Barlow because a Brig. Gen. J. B. Gordon had been reported mortally wounded in May of 1864. During the post-war decades both men prospered. Barlow was several times elected secretary of state and attorney general of the State of New York, and was responsible for the prosecution of the infamous “Tweed Ring”, while Gordon served his state as governor and for many years in the United States Senate. Then, about twenty years after the war, various notables were being introduced to each other at a dinner party in Washington.

The Senator from Georgia and the Secretary of State of New York were introduced to each other. The Senator politely inquired as to whether Barlow was related to that general Barlow who had died at Gettysburg. Barlow responded by saying that, indeed he was in fact the very man, having recovered from his wounds. With equal politeness Barlow inquired if Gordon was related to that general Gordon who had succored him on the battlefield but tragically died at Richmond in 1864. Gordon said that the officer in question was in fact his distant cousin, Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon, and that he himself was the general Gordon who had been at Gettysburg. The two had a happy reunion, and remained friends thereafter. Or at lest that’s the way tradition has it.

 

Donald L Martin

National Patriotic Instructor

SONS OF UNION VETERANS OF THE CIVIL WAR

From the National Patriotic Instructor:

Donald L Martin

National Patriotic Instructor

SONS OF UNION VETERANS OF THE CIVIL WAR

January 2011

Don’t Complain: John Morgan Nance of the 34th Mississippi Infantry

The soldiers wore belts to carry their ammunition in. John Morgan’s belt was very heavy and made him tired to carry. In his mind, he decided that he was going to trade it for a lighter one. But, that very day he was hit with a bullet; it hit on the heavy belt and did not injure him. He decided then and there that he would wear that heavy belt for protection and he never complained about it again.

John Morgan was captured with a group of men and was sent to prison in Rock Island, Illinois. It was a very cold winter and they almost starved there. The men were all in one large room with one pot-bellied stove in the middle. To keep any men from hogging the stove, they drew a circle around the heater big enough that all the men were the same distance from the heater.

They had to do their own cooking. One man and a helper were chosen to cook. When several of the men complained that the food was not good (use your imagination) they passed a rule that whoever complained would automatically become cook. One cook had been cooking for several days and was ready to pass his job on, so he put a lot of salt in the big pot of food. Time to eat came and everyone got their share. The soup was very salty, but nobody dared to say a word. Finally, one man let it slip, “The soup is sure salty–but it’s very good!” It was too late! He was the new cook.

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Current Application…

We are all “snowed in” across the Camp. Be careful of complaints regarding the conditions of the roads – you may be promoted to snow removal by the TNDOT.

 

In F, C, and L,

 

George

Christmas During the Civil War

Dec 2010

Many of today’s American Christmas customs are rooted in the early 19th century. Perhaps ironically, they came to maturity during the Civil War, when violence, chaos, and staggering personal losses seemed likely to drown out the choruses of “Peace on Earth.”

Many of the artists of the period, Winslow Homer, Thomas Nast, and Alfred Waud created visual chronicles of the spreading influence of many holiday traditions we enjoy today, including Santa Claus Christmas trees, gift-giving, caroling, holiday feasting, and Christmas cards.

Nast and Homer drew scenes of the wartime practice of sending Christmas boxes filled with homemade clothes and food items to soldiers at the front. The war made an impact on the nation, both North and South, in the ways Christmas was observed.

Christmas boxes like the ones Homer and Nast pictured gave their recipients a much-needed mental and physical boost. When in 1861, for the first Harper’s Weekly Christmas cover of the war, Homer drew overjoyed soldiers reveling in the contents of Adams Express boxes from home.

The most beloved symbol of the American family Christmas–the decorated Christmas tree–came into its own during the Civil War. Christmas trees had become popular in the decade before the war, and in the early 1860s, many families were beginning to decorate them. Illustrators working for the national weeklies helped popularize the practice by putting decorated table-top Christmas trees in their drawings.

On the home front, the homes were mostly decorated with different kinds of pines, holly, ivy and mistletoe. While there were many families who spent lonely Christmases during the war, they still had a Christmas tree which was the centerpiece for the home. Most trees were small and sat on a table.

The decorations were mostly homemade, such as strings of dried fruit, popcorn, pine cones. Colored paper, silver foil, as well as spun glass were popular choices for making decorations. Santa brought gifts to the children. Those gifts were homemade, such as carved toys, cakes or fruits.

It was only a matter of time before the Christmas tree made its way into military camps. Alfred Bellard of the 5th New Jersey remarked about the arrival of the newly popular Christmas icon to his camp along the lower Potomac River.

“In order to make it look much like Christmas as possible, a small tree was stuck up in front of our tent, decked off with hard tack and pork, in lieu of cakes and oranges, etc”.

Christmas carols were sung both at home and in the camps. Can you imagine how homesick the soldiers would become singing these songs. Some of the most popular ones were “Silent Night,” “Away in the Manger,” “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” and “Deck the Halls”.

 

By 1863, the Union blockade of the Southern coasts had made it nearly impossible for Santa Claus to visit homes in the South; scarcity of goods and the consequent high prices put both store-bought presents and raw materials for homemade gifts out of the financial reach of many Southern consumers. Quite a few mothers explained to their children that even Santa Claus would not be able run the formidable blockade.

Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas of Augusta, Georgia, told how a simple act of faith on the part of her children caused her to dig deeper for a holiday offering on Christmas Eve:

“I have written so much that it is now after 9 o’clock and yet I have said nothing of Turner’s and Mary Bell’s party which we gave them last week in lieu of the Santa Claus presents. Mary Bell has been told that Santa Claus has not been able to run the blockade and has gone to war–Yet at this late hour when I went upstairs Thursday night of the party I found that the trusting faith of childhood they had hung their little socks and stockings in case Santa Claus did come. I had given the subject no thought whatever, but invoking Santa Claus aid I was enabled when their little eyes opened to enjoy their pleasure to find cake and money in their socks.”

Santa Claus apparently had a much easier time visiting homes in the North than those in the South that Christmas. According to a letter Sarah Thetford sent to her brother George, “Santa arrived in here in Michigan dressed in a buffalo coat with presents fastened to his coat-tail…and a corn-popper on his back.” She continued that she had “often heard Santa Claus described, but never before saw the old fellow in person.”

Sometimes Santa Claus worked behind the scenes of wartime savagery to bring a bit of Christmas cheer to those who otherwise had little reason to celebrate. Following General William T. Sherman’s capture of Savannah, Georgia, and presentation of it as a Christmas gift to Lincoln in 1864, about 90 Michigan men and their captain in turn gave a token of charity to Southern civilians living outside the city. Christmas Day, the soldiers loaded several wagons full of food and other supplies and distributed the items about the ravaged Georgia countryside. The destitute Southerners thanked the jolly Union Santa Clauses as the wagons pulled away under the power of mules that had tree-branch “antlers” strapped to their heads to turn them into makeshift reindeer.

 

(source, D. Martin, Nat’l Patriotic Instructor, SUVCW)