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February 29, 1862 doesn’t exist — Happy Leap Day 2012

 

Because I have no letters, diaries, or other tidbits written today, 150 years ago, I will “catch” up on some basics related to North Carolina and the national spotlight on her coastline during the early months of 1862.  As part of the overall Union’s Anaconda Plan to strangle the south’s ports, Brigadier General Ambrose Burnside and a Union force of 7,500 men landed on Roanoke Island on February 7, 1862.  Burnside’s forces quickly overwhelmed Confederate forces on the islands and forced the surrender of the Confederate garrison the next day.  During the Battle of Roanoke Island, Confederate forces suffered 23 killed, 58 wounded, 62 missing, and 2,500 captured.

 A month later, Burnside sailed his army from the island and captured the important town of New Bern in Craven County on March 14. From New Bern, he moved thirty-five miles southeast and seized Fort Macon, at Beaufort Inlet in Carteret County. These victories gave Union forces control of the strategically important Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds.

 Thousands of liberated African Americans rejoiced at the appearance of the Union forces and escaped their plantations to seek freedom.  Many of these “contrabands” worked for the Union army and later enlisted to fight in the United States Colored Troops that were organized in 1863.  A Freedmen’s Colony was established at Roanoke Island in 1862 to accommodate these escaped slaves. 

 

For more information on the Burnside Expedition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnside’s_North_Carolina_Expedition 

And http://www.nps.gov/fora/historyculture/thecivilwar.htm

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A companion blog: “Murmur of the Burnside Expedition” #civilwar150

First Wednesdays – Murmur of the Burnside Expedition

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Christopher

Information coming to the attention of Governor Henry T. Clark suggested that the U.S. was planning a major assault against the coast of North Carolina.  When Clark questioned the Confederate government concerning the defense of coastal North Carolina he received a telegram from Confederate Secretary of War, Judah P. Benjamin chiding him for his expressed concerns.  However, less than a week later he received an alarming telegram.  Benjamin Huger reported that at least thirty-five vessels were seen heading south off Cape Henry,Virginia.  According to Huger, the troop transports were of a moderate draft indicating a likely assault against a shallow inland waterway such as North Carolina’s coastal area.  A final telegram informed Governor Clark that the Federal occupied Hatteras Inlet held forty-three or forty-four vessels of the Burnside Expedition.  Clark’s unease over a possible assault on North Carolina’s coast shortly turned to certainty and led to his own call for defense of the coast.  The first offensive of the second year of the war would take place on North Carolina soil.

Governor’s Office, Military Board: Telegrams on the beginning of the Burnside Expedition, Jan. 1862

 

Source: This blog post is from the NC State Archives’ First Wednesdays blog.  Visit the blog here: http://civilwar150nc.wordpress.com/

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Nearing the end of 1861, catching up with major storylines

As we come to the end of 1861, not quite a full year into the Civil War, I thought that I would do a series of “catch up” entries to bring readers up to date with some of the regular names and story lines that continually pop up in my posts.  Let me know if there’s someone you want to know more about.  I’ll post these “catching up” entries over the next couple of weeks.   First will be Lewis Warlick and Cornelia McGimsey, two young lovebirds from Burke County separated by war. As always, I post my entries by categories according to the main authors of the collection so you can always find all entries by an author by searching posts through their name as a filter.

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Of Christmas carols and war…. re-post from another excellent blog #cw150

“I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day…”

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Meg Thompson

The Christmas carol “I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day” was originally a poem. Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, it was arranged and set to music by John Calkin, who took it upon himself to edit out two stanzas which refer directly to the Civil War, thereby creating yet another easily forgettable holiday musical offering and entirely gutting the meaning of the original 1863 work.

By that time, 1863, even the New England abolitionists were appalled aby the amount of blood and violence their cause had created. Although the Emancipation Proclamation was signed on January 1, eight hundred thousand slaves outside the Confederacy were not covered under its authority. The War seemed no closer to ending than when it had started, despite Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. The summer of Union optimism had turned into its winter of discontent.

Although Longfellow condemned slavery, he was not a fire-breathing abolitionist. He was, however, a close friend of Charles Sumner, who was. Sumner condemned “the peculiar institution” whenever and wherever he could, in harshest terms. Sumner delivered his infamous “Crime Against Kansas” speech on the floor of the Senate in May, 1856. This speech was particularly personal and inflammatory. Two days later, Preston Brooks, a Congressman from South Carolina and a cousin of one of the men insulted in the speech, approached Sumner and clubbed him over the head with his cane. Sumner was nearly killed.

Twelve years before, in 1842, Longfellow had published a thin book of poems for Sumner’s group, The New England Anti-Slavery Association. Longfellow himself claimed that the poems were “so mild that even a Slaveholder might read them without losing his appetite for breakfast,” but Sumner was satisfied with it, and the group reprinted it for further distribution.

Longfellow followed politics closely and, by 1860, realized that there must be some sort of resolution to the problems which beset the nation. His most famous poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” was written in time for a Christmas publication in The Atlantic Monthly.  He hoped it would be a call for a new Revolution, although he, like so many Americans, never envisioned one so long and brutal.

Longfellow, like many in the country on both sides of the conflict, endured a significant amount of heartbreak during the war. The fall of Fort Sumter, the secession of the southern states, including Virginia, and Great Britain’s declaration of neutrality were just some of the incidents that brought grief to the poet.

The most personal tragedy was the death of his wife, Fanny, in 1861. Her clothing caught fire (a frequent occurrence at the time, unfortunately) as she lit the household candles, and she was badly burned. She died the next day, sending the writer into a prolonged period of grief.

Two years later, their seventeen-year old son, Charles Appleton Longfellow, ran away and joined the Union Army. Initially, the distraught father did not know where to find his son. The young man had gone to Washington, D.C. to seek a friend, Captain W. H. McCartney, commander of the 1st Massachusetts Artillery. Not wanting to enlist the son of a family friend, McCartney wired Longfellow for permission for “Charley” to enlist.  Patriotically, he gave it.

This was not the harebrained scheme of a teenager to get away from home and his father’s preoccupation with the death of his mother. Charley wrote, “I have tried hard to resist the temptation of going without your leave, but I cannot any longer. I feel it to be my first duty to do what I can for my country and I would willingly lay down my life for it if it would be of any good.”

The young man was soon promoted to Lieutenant, and his first combat experience came at Chancellorsville. In June, Charley contracted typhoid and malaria, and was sent home to recover. He rejoined his unit on August 15, 1863.

On November 27, as part of the Mine Run Campaign in New Hope Church, Virginia, he was severely wounded by a bullet that entered his left shoulder, travelled across his back, nicked his spine, and exited the right shoulder. He was carried by ambulance to a field hospital on the Rapidan River, and then sent to a hospital in Washington. His recovery was not at all certain.

Longfellow learned of his son’s injury on December 1, 1863, and left immediately, along with his younger son Ernest, to recover Charley. All during his journey to the capital, the father was not certain if he would be bringing back a wounded son, or a dead one.

In the midst of his sorrows—the War, a dead wife, a young family to raise alone, and a son who hovered near death—Longfellow thought of all the other households in the Union whose holidays were marred, some forever, by the events of the last three years.  He did what writers do: he wrote. The resulting poem was the one we know as “I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day.” The poem was not intended to join the pantheon of sugary sweet Christmas carols already in place.

There are two stanzas of the poem that never made it to the song we know today. They describe the effect of the War, and the sadness of the inhumanity it had caused, so antithetical to the spirit of Christmas. Below is the entire poem:

“Christmas Bells”

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered from the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned

Of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearthstones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on Earth, “ I said:
“For Hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead; nor doth He sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on Earth, goodwill to men!

Charley survived, and by December 8, he was back in Cambridge to recover at home.  He lived, but the wound was considered too severe to allow Lieutenant Longfellow to return to his unit.  He was mustered out on February 15, 1864.

*     *     *

If you have already heard this story and wonder why repeat an old, sentimental chestnut, let me remind you. If we do not tell the stories of our past, whether it is a past just gone by, or one bound up in myth and legend, we will lose it, and so will future generations.  There is no better gift to give than that of a memory.

And if it is new to you, enjoy!

Recommended Reading:
God Rest Ye Merry, Soldiers by James McIvor

Source: Emerging Civil War Blog http://networkedblogs.com/rsi3p

 

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Image and more details about the Union/Confederate Chicamacomico Races #civilwar150

Dare County, Hatteras Island, N.C. “Loyal inhabitants of Hatteras Island expelled from their homes by the rebel troops, overtaken by the 20th Indiana Regiment, while retreating to Fort Hatteras for protection, October 4th, 1861.” North Carolina Collection Civil War Portfolio: http://www.lib.unc.edu/ncc/pcoll/civilwar/80-432.JPG

 From the National Park Service Cape Hatteras National Seashore website:

“Roanoke Island remained a Confederate outpost and was the only thing standing in the way of Union control of the Albemarle Sound, which along with Pamlico Sound, would mean total Union dominance of eastern North Carolina. Confederate troops began massing on the island, and if their numbers swelled sufficiently, they could cross the sound to recapture Hatteras Island and regain Pamlico Sound.

In October 1861, Union forces established an outpost 40 miles north of Hatteras Inlet at Chicamacomico, today known as Rodanthe. When the Confederates discovered the Union presence in the village, they launched an attack on the troops there. When the Federal commander saw Confederate ships crossing Pamlico Sound, he ordered his men to flee south to Fort Hatteras.

It was not easy going for the Union soldiers as they fled from the Confederates. They struggled over the burning sand, shedding their clothes and shoes, running for forty miles in bare feet. Wearied by exhaustion and dehydration, the Union soldiers camped at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. Confederate troops camped further north near the village of Kinnakeet, now known as Avon.

 Abandoning their planned attack, the Confederates began the march back to Chicamacomico the next day. Additional Federal troops traveling north from Fort Hatteras passed the lighthouse and caught up with the Confederates. Now it was the Confederates’ turn to run, all the way back to Chicamacomico.
 
Both sides exchanged fire on land and sea, but recorded few casualties. The Confederates returned to Roanoke Island, the Union to Fort Hatteras. This comic “battle” was derisively dubbed “the Chicamacomico Races.” No changes in the balance of power occurred, but the Union continued planning for the eventual battle for Roanoke Island and North Carolina’s northern waterways.”   

 For more on the Civil War on the Outer Banks:

National Park Service’s Page: http://www.nps.gov/caha/historyculture/civilwar.htm

 

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Earthquake – and a hurricane?

It’s been active as we have been watching – and feeling – mother nature today!  Our correspondents and diarists of 150 years ago would have had much to record!

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Let me know what you want to see/hear/read!

Just a few days left to have your say…..

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Poll: What else would you like to read on CivilianWartime?

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