150 years ago tonight, Confederate troops under P.G.T. Beauregard were preparing to fire on the federal fort in Charleston, South Carolina. Most southerners believed that the "Yankees" would never fight to defend the "old flag." One southern politician proclaimed that he would, "mop up all the blood spilled in the Civil War with my hankerchief." The most popular southern perspective was that northerners cared only about money and had no understanding of "honor." The next day, April 13, 1861, after an all-night bombardment, Ft. Sumter surrendered. The federal troops, led by officers Robert Anderson and Abner Doubleday carefully folded their flag and boarded a ship bound for New York City. When they arrived they were greeted by half-a-million "Yankees" who joined them in a patriotic ceremony as they raised the "old flag" over the statue of George Washington in Central Park where it flew until the end of the war... Four years later, on April 14, 1865, the day that Mr. Lincoln was assassinated, Robert Anderson, Abner Doubleday and all of the other survivors of the original Ft. Sumter soldiers returned that exact, same "old flag" to its original flagpole in Charleston harbor, as the band played and the people sang and every cannon that had fired on that flag was forced to fire a salute in it's honor.
Great piece of history, Jim. Thanks! 150 years later, I still cannot fathom how citizens of the same country can go to war against each other. God forbid anything close to the Civil War should ever happen again in our country. Tell me, Jim, was that the same Abner Doubleday who.........?
:idea: re: taping shows Check out the Civil War series that began running on the National Geographic Channel tonight. It's the best Civil War series that I've seen since Ken Burns documentary. They recruited people who're alive in America today and who're also related to Civil War participants. They take them on location to where their ancestors were part of history and examine what really happened, using special animations of old photgraphs, letters, with research done by historians who're experts in that subject. It's awesome! From a Confederate who fought at Little Round Top during Gettysburg; to a black soldier was was wounded with the 54th Massachuttes at Ft. Wagner; to an army doctor who was in Ford's Theater in the box directly across from Mr. Lincoln and saw the whole thing. Check out Nat Geo! re: Abner Doubleday The answer is like "Yes, we have no bananas." Yes, it's the same Abner Doubleday who allegedly invented baseball. Now for the real history... No. He did not invent baseball. He had nothing to do with it and nobody seems to know how that story got started. On the other hand, he really did create all kinds of American history for which he gets no credit at all. He invented the famous cable cars that still run in San Francisco and he got a patent on that invention. He was a genuine hero during the Civil War and was the only soldier to participate in it from beginning to end. It was Doubleday who fired the first shot in defense of Ft. Sumter; he was also a Union hero on the first day at Gettysburg; and he was there at the end for Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. How strange that this great man is only remembered for the one thing that he DIDN'T do!
Some really good photos on Yahoo.... http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Civil...us/040711civilwar150#photoViewer=endslideshow
I'm one of those people who thought Abner Doubleday invented baseball and I didn't know he was a career Army Officer and a West Point graduate. Learn something new every day. So what is the alternate theory of how baseball came into being?
I never really connected the start of the Civil war with my dads birthday. He was born on 4/12/1906....45 years after Beauregard fired on Ft. Sumter. When I was growing up Southeners in general did not accept that the war was about slavery. It was always about "states rights". Of course one of those states rights was maintence of slavery. I wonder if our racial history would have been different if the Southern states had agreed to give up slavery. I wonder if Slavery would have gone away on it's own if there hadn't been a war, and how long would it have taken?
Great stuff Jim....thanks for sharing. We're heading down to Charleston for a little spring break side trip.....I'll make sure and tell the story as we're looking out towards Sumter from the Battery. The kids will both gag as they have to endure another history lesson from Dad. My fondest hope is that someday they will be sitting in History class listening to their teacher describe the same story and realize that dear old Dad wasn't making that stuff up just to torture them....! :lol:
I wish....in fact, where we are headed has lots of golf carts but doesn't even have a golf course....or cars! A small barrier island off the coast of Charleston - boat access only....DeWees Island. A very cool get away kind of place.....very close to Charleston but a world away.
:idea: Baseball is an American invention that was based on the English game of "Rounders." George is correct. The very first game of "baseball" played under the rules of Alexander Cartwright was in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1846. The game became very popular during the Civil War as the favorite game of the Union Army, who played it whenever they could and the movement of those northern armies spread the popularity of the game all over the country. This may have been the source of the Abner Doubleday myth. Baseball was the favorite game of General Doubleday's army too and he went to high school in Cooperstown, New York... http://www.baseball-almanac.com/firsts/first1.shtml
8) I notice that Alexander Cartwright's son went to the same high school as Barack Hussein Obama. I wonder if he had a birth certificate? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Cartwright The Elysian Fields: birth place of baseball... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysian_Fields,_Hoboken,_New_Jersey BTW- Just north of these Elysian Fields is the dueling ground where Vice President Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton's son Phillip was also killed in a duel there in 1801. Hoboken, New Jersey is ground zero for a lot of American history...
When I was in Quantico, VA for Warrant Officer TBS, we took a field trip to several CW BF sites, including the one where Stonewall was shot by his own man, and we veiwed the tree that he passed away under.
:idea: re: Stonewall That was a strange situation. Jackson attempted to launch a night attack, which was very rare in those days. He was returning to his own lines when his own men opened up on him. I've always wondered if it was a real mistake or something else. Stonewall was hated by his troops. What do you think A.J.? I've never been there. Did it look like the kind of place where his men could have made such a mistake with their own commander? Or did it look like a place where they should have recognized him? .........JO'Co
146 years ago tonight...a little after 10:00 PM...at Ford's Theater in Washington...this eyewitness saw something that he would never forget... http://youtu.be/I_iq5yzJ-Dk
About slavery going away by itself. You actually ask a good question Terry. I've had the pleasure to meet several Southern historians, and not just Civil War experts, but rather experts on the history of these specific regions and towns. I live in big time cotton country, still is to this day in many parts. Prior to the falling out of last year, one house I was looking into buying was the Martin Home in Florence. The house itself is registered with the National Historical Places. The family were early settlers to the area and had opened a textile mill down by the river. Anyway, in my reading up on the property and family. The elder Martin had long been an advocate for the elimination of slavery. His main reason wasn't exactly noble, but was still good in heart for the most part. The reason he wanted to eliminate slavery was that it created and perpetuated large communities of poor, uneducated white southerners. He felt that the company (as his had done) could build their mills near the plantations and create company communities that were complete with schools, medical and shopping facilities. The case was made that this is a 'rising tide' type of situation in which you are employing the fathers and sometimes mothers, while educating the children. You are supplying a clean, safe and enriching atmosphere that would eventually create a more dignified and productive work force in the South. Unfortunately, at the time, the bottom line was that it was more expensive to do business this way. His argument was that they could make slightly less money today, to ensure the longevity of the company and community. Obviously, not everyone listened to him.
:idea: Brazil was the great slave country of the New World, not the United States. There were more than ten times the number of slaves brought to Brazil than in any other country, yet they never had a Civil War. Slavery just died a natural death in the 1880's, because it was an inefficient anachronism. It became cheaper just to buy or rent machines with part-time, seasonal labor.