The only Civil War battle in Virginia in which nearly all the Union troops were Black.

May their memory be eternal. Both Union AND Confederate.

Fort Pocahontas was established by the Union in 1861 to defend Richmond from naval assault by Confederate forces. Nearly half of it has been dug up in order for researchers to reveal James Fort of historic Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Read the whole story here...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/civil-war-fort-at-jamestown-is-dug-up-to-get-at-1607-site/2012/05/04/gIQAWfiC8T_story.html

 

Confederate imports supporting the war effort

As a former trade analyst I found the following article of great interest. It covers the commodities imported by the Confederacy and role played by Confederate government purchasing agents. Enjoy these excerpts...

... ham, bacon, beef, and other preserved meats were not the only food products brought into the Confederacy from foreign nations. Coffee, too, was an important article of import. It became so rare that the Surgeon General ordered it not to be used even as food for the sick. "In consequence of the very limited supply," he wrote, "it is essential that it be used solely for its medicinal effects as a stimulant." All sorts of substitutes were suggested and used,'  but it was imported too. Five hundred and twenty thousand pounds of coffee arrived in the South on government account during the thirteen months ending December 8, 1864. (p. 494)

Medicine and drugs were scarce in the South, too, and the Surgeon General made every effort to discover and develop substitutes. Quinine and morphia were especially important. Laboratories were established to search the South for herbs that could be used for drugs, and pam- phlets were issued by the Surgeon General describing methods for de- riving medicines from common plants. Efforts were made to spread poppy culture for its opium. A great deal of medicine was brought through the Union lines; the stories of smuggled drugs are legion. (p. 495)

These imports, from both Mexico and Europe, were of inestimable value to the Confederacy. To measure their importance would be impossible, although the records reveal many such statements as that of Colonel W. J. Hutchins, chief of the Texas Cotton Bureau, that "many of the guns and most of the powder which gained the victories at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill and won the campaigns in Louisiana and Arkansas" were imported.'75 More important are the numerous reports of Confederate officials, some already quoted, attesting the significance of the imported munitions, clothing, food, and machinery, the fact that they had supplemented home production, or that they had successfully filled and were filling certain requirements of the South. The importations were more than a mere stopgap, more than a tem- porary filling of the breach until home production could be geared to the new demands. Many of the supplies were basic needs of the Confederacy, which could not be satisfied at home. As the war dragged  into its later phases, needs that might once have been temporary became permanent, for the South, while straining every nerve to develop its own internal resources, was at the same time exhausting them.

It can certainly be said that many of the efforts of the Confederacy to purchase war supplies abroad were crowned with success, though just as certainly the results completely filled neither the needs nor the hopes of the Confederacy. In the face of well-nigh insuperable obstacles the Confederate agents in Europe and Mexico went a long way toward giving the South the materials which made possible its long struggle for independence. A student of the Confederacy has sug- gested that the "first great campaign of the war was not fought by armies. It was a commercial campaign fought by agents of the Federal and Confederate governments and having for its aim" the control of European sources of war supplies.'76 The agents of the South did not win the campaign, yet despite the advantages of the Union the Con- federacy was continually on the receiving end of a valuable stream of supplies. (pp 502-03)

Source: William Diamond "Imports of the Confederate Government from Europe and Mexico" The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Nov., 1940).

Southern Draft Resistance during World War I

While pro-war southerners evoked the spirits of the valiant Civil War dead in speeches and letters supporting the draft, southern antimilitarists drew upon memories of the Civil War to justify their aversion to war and especially to conscription. As an aged Confederate veteran wrote to Kitchin, "I know what it takes to face and charge a line of battle, or retreat, for I was in the Civil War. Entered in 61 came out in 65 a cripple for life... I don't want to see my sons and the sons of our country men to see such slaughter as I and those who fought the late war." Wilson administration supporters cited the Confederate draft to prove that conscription was not unsouthern, while antidraft congressmen used the Confederate draft to-show that conscription would not work.

Jeanette Keith "The Politics of Southern Draft Resistance, 1917-1918: Class, Race, and Conscription in the Rural South" The Journal of American History, Vol. 87, No. 4. (Mar., 2001), pp. 1335-1361.

Distinguish between Primary and Secondary Sources

A concise web page that briefly covers one of the most important topics in academic endeavors...

Distinguish between Primary and Secondary Sources

... this distinction illustrates the degree to which the author of a piece is removed from the actual event being described, informing the reader as to whether the author is reporting impressions first hand (or is first to record these immediately following an event), or conveying the experiences and opinions of others...

Read the entire page here:
http://library.ucsc.edu/help/howto/distinguish-between-primary-and-secondary-sources

Secular Right on "Empire of Liberty"

from the Secular Right blog, a few thoughts on his reading of Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815...

Around 1850 the South was an export driven economy based on trade, in particular with Great Britain. By this time New England the whole Northeast had shifted toward a more diversified economy, and native manufacturers militated for the tariffs which their forebears would have scoffed at. Additionally, around 1800 New England was the redoubt of orthodox Christianity. The South was the domain of more easy-going religion, and outright heterodoxy among its social & political elites. Finally, one of the most interesting things to note is that it was in the Southern states that Francophilia during the period of the French Revolution was strongest!

There's a lot to be discussed here. I have not heard of this book. Thanks to Secular Right for this short overview, it sounds like interesting reading. If I were not in the middle of some other reading at the moment, I would look at this book with great interest.

White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement

Professor David L. Chappell currently holds the Irene & Julian Rothbaum Professorship of American History at the University of Oklahoma. He has produced two works on American racial and civil rights history. I don’t like to rehash things already posted elsewhere but with constraints on my time, hopefully I can at least summarize in one paragraph what you might find across several other sites:

Inside Agitators: White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement

One fascinating bit that did not make it into Inside Agitators was Chappell’s interview with C.P. Ellis, who was famous for renouncing his Klan membership in the 1970s. The interview apparently was similar to the one he did with Studs Terkel. Having known the feelings of power and solidarity that the Klan robe gave to a poor white man, Ellis told Chappell of how he began to understand and the African dashiki so popular in the 60s and 70s to the point where he wanted to wear one.

Chappell argues that moderate whites, though lacking a moral commitment to civil rights, played a key role in the movement's success at both the local and national levels. - Virginia Quarterly Review

Chappell explodes the convenient myth of the monolithic and homogeneous white South to reveal a society deeply divided over segregation. - Kari Frederickson, Southern Historian

A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow

A Stone of Hope offers a refreshing reexamination of the American civil rights movement. Rather than being a victory of liberal ideals, the civil rights struggle owes its success to the Biblical prophetic tradition. Liberal politics offered a protracted “wait” and there was no guarantee of substantial, timely change. On the other hand, the potent message of Biblical themes was a catalyst and at the same time brought together divergent groups. More summary here…

http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=1054

Chappell has two forthcoming titles- Waking from the Dream: The Battle over Martin Luther King's Legacy, (which does NOT cover the current King estate battle by the way) and one I especially look forward to, The Mind of the Segregationist.

Doh! I missed this...

I went to a kids b-day party instead. But at the party I did get to chat with another historian friend of mine, David L. Chapell, who wrote two books on... well, I'll save that for another post.

More Southern memory that requires harsh critique

Oral Histories From Mercer Foodways Class Students in a Southern foodways course at Mercer University collected oral histories from cooks in Macon, Georgia. Professor David A. Davis explains that "these interviews are an important archive for both culinary arts and Southern identity."

Here's where their methodology breaks down. When you look at culinary records from Northern sources, you find severe discrepancies between type and numerical combination of ingredients between any two foods of the same name, which make Southern recollection highly suspect. And even if you take Southern records at face value, the records show so much variation across the states that you really cannot claim there is any such thing as a "Southern food" much less a "Southern culinary tradition."

In addition, economic disparities precluded African American cooks from gaining access to the same quality ingredients as their white counterparts, so it is a myth that white and black cooks could have similar sentiments towards their cooking or those that who were eating it.

A little levity, gentlemen.

Truth be told, I am intrigued by this class and have read their online interviews. Fascinating stuff. It makes me miss my grandmother- may her memory be eternal. Oh, the culinary magic she conjured!

William Faulkner on Virginia families

"Even in our wilderness the old Virginia blood still runs and the old Virginia names- Byrd and Lee and Carter- still endure. There is no family in our wilderness but has that old aunt or grandmother to tell the children as soon as they can hear and understand: Your blood is Virginia blood too; your great-great-great grandfather was born in Rockbridge or Fairfax or Prince George- Valley or Piedmont or Tidewater, right down to the nearest milestone, so that Virginia is a living place to that child long before he ever heard (or cares) about New York or, for that matter, America."

- “Address to the Rave, Jefferson, and ODK Societies of the University of Virginia”, Charlottesville, Feb. 20, 1958, William Faulkner: Essays, Speeches & Public Letters, Modern Library, 2004.

I am Carter on my mom's side. The correct pronunciation being kaw'-tuh.

Financial Bailout for the Old South

On the verge of crisis 145 years ago, the Confederate States of America sought an economic rescue not unlike the one U.S. financial institutions recently got.

Confederate accounts were overdrawn, and credit from overseas investment firms was about to dry up because lenders weren’t confident the Southern states could repay their mounting debts.

So, in 1863, Alabama businessman Colin J. McRae was sent to Europe to orchestrate a bailout of the Confederacy. In 2002, a trove of documents from McRae’s time in England and France was found in the attic of a home in Alabama. The papers revealed the impact of European financing on the Civil War and provided historic details of the Confederate supply chain.

The documents are part of the Colin J. McRae Collection and can be viewed at the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room & Military Museum (http://crr.sc.gov).

Read the rest of this fascinating story here:
http://www.thestate.com/sunday-life/v-print/story/574183.html

"Confederate Relic Room: Long-lost papers shine a light on Confederacy’s financial crisis" By OTIS R. TAYLOR JR. Posted on Sun, Nov. 02, 2008.