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"Battle of the Wilderness"
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Heroes and cowards
When are people willing to sacrifice for the common good? What are the benefits of friendship? How do communities deal with betrayal? And what are the costs and benefits of being in a diverse community? Using the life histories of more than forty thousand Civil War soldiers, Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn answer these questions and uncover the vivid stories, social influences, and crucial networks that influenced soldiers' lives both during and after the war.
Drawing information from government documents, soldiers' journals, and one of the most extensive research projects about Union Army soldiers ever undertaken, Heroes and Cowards demonstrates the role that social capital plays in people's decisions. The makeup of various companies--whether soldiers were of the same ethnicity, age, and occupation--influenced whether soldiers remained loyal or whether they deserted. Costa and Kahn discuss how the soldiers benefited from friendships, what social factors allowed some to survive the POW camps while others died, and how punishments meted out for breaking codes of conduct affected men after the war. The book also examines the experience of African-American soldiers and makes important observations about how their comrades shaped their lives.
Heroes and Cowards highlights the inherent tensions between the costs and benefits of community diversity, shedding light on how groups and societies behave and providing valuable lessons for the present day.
eBook
Digital Curation of the Henry O. Nightingale Diaries
This paper details the University of California Merced Library's digital curation of two diaries written between the years of 1864 and 1865 by a Union soldier and abolitionist named Henry O. Nightingale. The Library first learned of the diaries' through communication with a historian named Steve Nagy. Nagy, along with two of his family members, had inherited letters that were written by Nightingale to a female ancestor during 1865. In 2008, while one of the letters was being transcribed, a passage revealed a claim by Nightingale of having procured a signature from Abraham Lincoln shortly before the President's assassination. Curious to learn more, Nagy eventually located Nightingale's descendants, Edith and Mel Denio, in Atwater, California. The Denios were in possession of the two diaries referenced above, and entrusted digitization of these two documents to the UC Merced Library in late 2009. While the Lincoln autograph has not been substantiated, the diaries nonetheless provide fascinating details of the latter period of the American Civil War; the 1864 diary includes accounts of Union regimental movement along with a description of Nightingale's injury from rebel fire during the Battle of the Wilderness. The 1865 diary includes a first-hand account of President Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theatre. Following digitization of the diaries, library student workers were enlisted in curation activities to create the complex digital object records using Archivists' Toolkit, an open source digital management tool. Ingestion of the digital files into the UC Data Curation Repository, Merritt, involved an innovative automated process in which an initiated URL comprised of an XML file could extract the diaries' digital files from the server and ingest them directly into the repository. Student workers were also trained to assist with the transcription of both diaries, an activity that has greatly enhanced the metadata in the collection's finding aid. The ultimate goal of the project was to make the finding aid and associated complex digital objects freely accessible to the public through the Online Archive of California and Calisphere. Adapted from the source document.
Journal Article
Somebody's Darling
In his latest book, Kent Gramm examines the meaning of the Civil War experience in our lives and explores philosophical and personal aspects of the War that lie outside the scope of traditional historical study. He probes the meaning of Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Antietam; the lives of U. S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, O. O. Howard, and Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce; and the legacy of the unknown participant, \"somebody's darling,\" for whom the war would come to encompass all things. The Iron Brigade appears, along with its 20th-century successor, the 32nd \"Red Arrow\" Division. Readers of Gramm's previous books will not be surprised to find essays that touch on Walt Whitman, John Keats, Henrik Ibsen, and Halldor Laxness, as well as such literary and religious works as the Iliad and the Bhagavad Gita. Gramm also treats more popular fare, such as the movie Gettysburg and a series of books on the ghosts of Gettysburg. In each of his subjects, Gramm finds the deep, personal significance of the profoundly universal experience of the war, as he ponders the special meaning of the Civil War in the lives of many Americans.
eBook
Valley of the Shadow of Death
This episode of Ken Burns's The Civil War begins with a biographical comparison of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee and then chronicles the extraordinary series of battles that pitted the two generals against each other from the wilderness to Petersburg in Virginia. In 30 days, the two armies lose more men than both sides have lost in three years of war. With Grant and Lee finally deadlocked at Petersburg, we visit the ghastly hospitals north and south and follow General Sherman's Atlanta campaign through the mountains of north Georgia. As the horrendous casualty lists increase, Lincoln's chances for re-election begin to dim, and with them the possibility of Union victory.
Streaming Video
Warfare in Woods and Forests
Fighting in woods and forests is a very special form of war. Avoided by military commanders unless such terrain is to their advantage, for soldiers forest battles are a chaotic mix of dread, determination, and, all too often, death. Adversaries remain in constant fear of concealed ambush, casualties usually must be abandoned, and prisoners who cannot be guarded are killed. Heightened fear can lead to excesses. Too often, armies have been badly prepared and trained for such warfare and have suffered severely for it. In Warfare in Woods and Forests, noted military historian Anthony Clayton describes major events in woods and forest warfare from the first century CE to the 21st. These events involve Roman soldiers in Germany 2,000 years ago; North Americans in 18th- and 19th-century conflicts; invaders of Russia in 1812 and 1941; British, French, and Americans in France in 1916 and 1918; Americans in the Hürtgen Forest in 1944; and modern-day Russian soldiers in Chechnya.
eBook
Overland Campaign, 1864
The Overland Campaign has traditionally been viewed as a brutal slugfest between the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Although Grant did not command the Potomac Army, he traveled with it and so micromanaged its commander, Meade, that, then and now, it is commonly known as “Grant's Army” when referring to the 1864 and 1865 campaigns. The Overland Campaign is the origin of Grant's reputation as a butcher who undertook one unimaginative frontal assault after another, only to be thwarted by a masterful defensive effort by Lee. Recent scholarship has challenged this myth, instead emphasizing the sophistication of Grant's operational vision and the limitations of Lee's generalship. However, the Overland Campaign's reputation as perhaps the Civil War's most brutal military campaign remains intact.
Book Chapter
Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee
Continuing the study of field fortifications he began inField Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War, Earl J. Hess turns to the 1864 Overland campaign to cover battles from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor. A grueling form of trench warfare became a key feature of tactical operations during this phase of the war in Virginia.Drawing on meticulous research in primary sources and careful examination of trench remnants at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor, and Bermuda Hundred, Hess describes Union and Confederate earthworks and how Grant and Lee used them in this new era of field entrenchments. According to Hess, the heavy reliance on earthworks by both armies in the Overland campaign was driven by Grant's relentless attacks against Lee, not by the widespread use of rifle muskets, as historians have previously argued. Entrenchments kept the armies within striking distance and compelled soldiers to dig in for protection. Despite suffering massive casualties, Grant seized control of the strategic initiative and retained it for the rest of the war in the eastern theater.Illustrated by rare, historic photographs and new detailed maps of the trench remnants, this book constitutes the second installment of a three-volume study of field fortifications in the eastern campaigns.
eBook
