Happy Abraham Lincoln’s birthday!
Happy Birthday Abraham Lincoln
(via revwarheart)
It’s all right, Captain. Tell my friends at home I fell right under the old flag, and that is glory enough for me. NYTimes’ excellent Disunion blog tells the story of New Hampshire Captain Huse in the deep South.
“No person should die without seeing this cyclorama,” declared a Boston man in 1885. “It’s a duty they owe to their country.” Paul Philippoteaux’s lifelike depiction of the Battle of Gettysburg was much more than a painting. It re-created the battlefield with such painstaking fidelity, and created an illusion so enveloping, that many visitors felt as if they were actually there. (via The Great Illusion of Gettysburg)
In an age of fops and toys,
Wanting wisdom, void of right,
Who shall nerve heroic boys
To hazard all in Freedom’s fight,—
Break sharply off their jolly games,
Forsake their comrades gay,
And quit proud homes and youthful dames,
For famine, toil, and fray?
Yet on the nimble air benign
Speed nimbler messages,
That waft the breath of grace divine
To hearts in sloth and ease.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.
Wanting wisdom, void of right,
Who shall nerve heroic boys
To hazard all in Freedom’s fight,—
Break sharply off their jolly games,
Forsake their comrades gay,
And quit proud homes and youthful dames,
For famine, toil, and fray?
Yet on the nimble air benign
Speed nimbler messages,
That waft the breath of grace divine
To hearts in sloth and ease.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.
| — | Voluntaries by Ralph Waldo Emerson |
During the Civil War era, Nathaniel Hawthorne was among The Atlantic’s most celebrated contributors. But his ambivalence about the slavery question and the merits of the war put him at odds with much of the New England literary milieu. “The politics of the Magazine suit Massachusetts tolerably well (and only tolerably),” he once observed, “but it does not fairly represent the feeling of the country at large.”
![Co F 5th Reg’t Vermont Volunteers, Camp GriffinFebruary 1st, 1862
Dear Father & Mother
I now take my pen in hand to let you know that I am well & I hope to find you the same I came off from picket guard yesterday morning I caught a very hard cold I cant speak only in a whisper it snowed last night a very little it rains now like the old harry I dont know when this muddy weather will be over with it rains and snows all the time the mud is up to my knees now why you cant walk 15 Rods without stopping to Rest oh it is awful we have got to have a big monthly inspection to morrow General brooks & General Smith inspects us oh how I dread it there was a fellow by the name of John Smith in our company got a furlough to go home for 10 days that was 15 days ago he has not got back he was Reported a deserter yesterday morning if they ever catch him I pity him he will be shot there has 5 men deserted from our Regt since we been here there has two on [furlough] sworn to desert I would like to come home on a furlough pretty well if I could but I cant I shall have to wait till the Regiment is discharged and then I can come I got your likenesses put in a case yesterday I will get mine taken pretty soon and send it to you there aint a day passes but what 2 or 3 deserters from the Rebel army comes through our lines they are deserting by the Wholesale I tell you but I must stop for this time so
Good bye this from your Affectionate Son
Forrest
……………
Check out this account of a pair of soldiers executed in a Confederate unit.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyomwh6j1m1qfgxn3o1_500.jpg)
Co F 5th Reg’t Vermont Volunteers, Camp Griffin
February 1st, 1862
Dear Father & Mother
I now take my pen in hand to let you know that I am well & I hope to find you the same I came off from picket guard yesterday morning I caught a very hard cold I cant speak only in a whisper it snowed last night a very little it rains now like the old harry I dont know when this muddy weather will be over with it rains and snows all the time the mud is up to my knees now why you cant walk 15 Rods without stopping to Rest oh it is awful we have got to have a big monthly inspection to morrow General brooks & General Smith inspects us oh how I dread it there was a fellow by the name of John Smith in our company got a furlough to go home for 10 days that was 15 days ago he has not got back he was Reported a deserter yesterday morning if they ever catch him I pity him he will be shot there has 5 men deserted from our Regt since we been here there has two on [furlough] sworn to desert I would like to come home on a furlough pretty well if I could but I cant I shall have to wait till the Regiment is discharged and then I can come I got your likenesses put in a case yesterday I will get mine taken pretty soon and send it to you there aint a day passes but what 2 or 3 deserters from the Rebel army comes through our lines they are deserting by the Wholesale I tell you but I must stop for this time so
Good bye this from your Affectionate Son
Forrest
……………
Check out this account of a pair of soldiers executed in a Confederate unit.
The Baton Rouge dinner party in early 1860 had been enjoyable, but as it went on William Tecumseh Sherman couldn’t help but hear his name mentioned repeatedly down at the table’s far end. He suspected it had something to do with his position as superintendent of the newly formed Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy (today’s Louisiana State University). He had held the post for a few months and was well regarded by those who knew him personally, but many who didn’t were concerned that the state’s only college was run by a Northerner whose congressman brother was seen across the South as an abolitionist.
By Thom Bassett for New York Times
