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Volume 27, No. 9 – September 2014Volume 27, No. 9 The President’s Message The first meeting of the Civil War Round Table of the Palm Beaches was held on September 15, 1987.The first edition of the newsletter, Haversacks and Saddlebags, was published August, 1988. The following is an excerpt from the September, 1989, anniversary issue of Haversacks and Saddlebags:
Our Round Table could not have grown into the successful organization that it is today without the help of its members. I would like to thank everyone who has attended the meetings, given a presentation, brought refreshments, set up our website and edited Haversacks and Saddlebags. Your continued support will help make the Club even stronger. A very special thanks to the officers and committee chairs who have graciously served the Round Table through the years. Keep up the good work! Happy Anniversary, Round Table! Gerridine LaRovere September 10, 2014 Program Robert Krasner will clear up misconceptions about "The Confederate Medal of Honor:" Although the Confederate States of America created their own version of the United States Medal of Honor in October 1862, authorizing President Davis to bestow medals to officers and badges to privates and non-commissioned officers for courage and good conduct. Krasner will describe the democratic manner in which the medals and badges were to be awarded. Due to the shortage of metal, no Confederate Medals of Honor were minted during the Civil War. Instead, in October 1863, the "Roll of Honor" was created to list those officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates deserving of medals and badges, intending to award them at a later date, which never came. In 1900 the United Daughters of the Confederacy introduced their semi-official "Southern Cross of Honor," commonly mistaken as the Confederate "Medal of Honor," to be awarded by the UDC to ex-Confederate soldiers who were members of the United Confederate Veterans in recognition of their devotion to the Southern cause. August 13, 2014 Program Janell Bloodworth presented three mini-programs: "The Civil War’s Dirty Laundry," "Lottie Moon – Ambrose Burnside’s Wild and Willful Girlfriend," and "The Most Beloved Song of the Civil War." The Civil War’s Dirty Laundry
Wherever the company went, the laundresses went too, sharing potential hardships and danger. Some officers grumbled about having to transport the laundresses and their equipment, considering them an unnecessary hindrance. One officer wrote, "Transportation of all the laundresses’ paraphernalia, children, dogs, beds, cribs, tables, tubs, buckets, boards and Lord knows what not, amounts to a tremendous item of care and expense. Laundresses, along with hospital nurses, or officers’ servants were specifically exempted from Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s infamous 1862 Special Field Order No 11 banning "all cotton speculators, Jews, and all other vagabonds with no honest means of support, to leave the district . . ." When the Union Army was planning to invade Florida in 1864, it was to travel light, leaving all excess baggage, and its commander, Maj. Gen. Quincy Adams Gilmore, ordered that no females are to accompany or follow the troops "except regularly appointed laundresses, who will be allowed to accompany the baggage of their respective commands." Life on the road was no pleasure excursion. A laundress needed lots of equipment and supplies: she had to have at least two 25-gallon oak tanks weighing about 35 pounds each empty, plus "buckets, boilers, laundry sticks, scrubboards, soap crates, starch, bluing, ropes, fire grates and basic household items." For her work she usually charged each customer 50 cents a month, but some men did their own wash, some could not afford the cost and some "who wore a garment until it fell apart before giving the vermin a parole and throwing the article away." Considering the labor involved, it’s a wonder that women actively sought the job, but they did. The Federal Military Handbook decreed that a "council of administration" was to set the prices for washing, considering the current prices charged by local civilian laundries and how many officers used their services (who were often charged 2 1/2 times what the soldiers paid). Between her $5 to $7 a month and her husband’s $13 a month, a married couple could do reasonably well. A psychological benefit was that she could stay with her husband rather than endure a long and perhaps permanent separation. The irregularity of visits from the army paymaster, led to "charging" for laundry services, which required that written records be kept by the laundresses, some of whom were illiterate and some of whom took advantage of their "monopoly" to run up bills. Laundresses provided less tangible services to the men – she often brought along home remedies, often helped the surgeon with his duties, made a home for her husband, and provided other soldiers with hospitality and a welcome reminder of their own homes. On general concluded that having laundresses in camp "tended to make the men more cheerful and comfortable." For many boys in blue the washer woman was a reminder that there was a world beyond the war, where men lived in peace with friends and family. [Adapted from Vickie Wendel, Washer Women, Civil War Times Illustrated (August 1999). Lottie Moon – Ambrose Burnside’s Wild and Willful Girlfriend
Her next assignment took her to Canada to pick up a dispatch from the Confederate Knights of the Golden Circle, outlining a possible union between the South and North West against New England and the Federal Government to President Davis. En route, in Washington, D. C., she earned Secretary of War Stanton’s help by pretending to be an English invalid on her way to Warm Springs, Virginia. Stanton even arranged to have her join President Lincoln’s party on its way to Gen. McClellan’s headquarters in Fredericksburg and gave her a pass through the Union lines. When Stanton learned of Lottie’s trick, he offered a $10,000 reward for her capture, dead or alive. Lincoln frequently joked that Stanton’s "sweet babe-like sleep was broken, all a-cause of one woman." One her way North from Richmond, she met a suspicious Union General, F. J. Milroy, who tested her story of being en route to Hot Springs, Arkansas, for relief of her rheumatism by having her examined by his surgeon. During this examination, Lottie popped her jaw with accompanying grinding and cracking noises, and fooled the surgeon. When Lottie reached Cincinnati, she heard that two Southern female spies had been captured and a third was being sought. She took her act to the General commanding the Army of the Ohio, Ambrose Burnside! Over the 15 years since she had last seen Burnside, Lottie had gained weight, but Burnside immediately recognized her, saying "You have forgotten me, but I have not forgotten the many happy hours I once spent with you in Oxford," and ordered her arrest and trial, a trial that could end with the death penalty. And the other two female Southern spies? None other than Lottie’s sister, Virginia, and mother, Cynthia! [who were in Memphis in 1862 making bandages for the troops when they heard that supplies and messages were needed to be smuggled into Ohio and took on the job. Under suspicion, they were stopped on the train north, but Ginny managed to swallow the secret papers. She could not, however, get rid of the "forty bottles of morphine, seven pounds of opium, and a quantity of camphor" that she had stitched into her clothing and quilts. These were medicinal supplies needed by the Confederate troops. After three months’ spent in comfort, the three women were quietly released. Though "free," all three women were constantly watched and their usefulness to the Confederate cause was ended.
The Most Beloved Song of the Civil War December, 1862, after the bloody Battle of Fredericksburg, about
100,000 Federal soldiers and 70,000 Confederate soldiers were camped on
opposite sides of the Rappahannock River. Both sides were still licking
their wounds and planning to revive hostilities. At twilight, the
regimental bands on each side began to play. At times, they competed in
"battles of the bands," trying to drown each other o "Mid Pleasures and palaces though we may roam, At the music ended, in the words of Private Frank Mixson, of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, "Everyone went crazy." Both sides began cheering, jumping up and down and throwing their hats in the air. Had there not been a river between them, reflected Mixson, the two armies would have met face to face, shaken hands, and ended the war on the spot! Fredericksburg wasn’t the only time "Home, Sweet Home" made Billy Yank and Johnny Reb forget they were enemies. Abraham and Mary Lincoln, mourning the loss of their beloved son, Willie, were comforted when the Italian songstress, Adelina Patti, sang it for them in the White House. On December 31, 1862, on the eve of the Battle of Stones River, a similar scene took place. On May 10, 1864, at Spotsylvania, after the usual contest, when the Confederate band launched into the familiar strains of "Home, Sweet Home," both sides cheered loudly, creating a din never heard before in the hills around Spotsylvania. In the summer of 1864, near Winchester, the pickets agreed not to shoot so the exhausted soldiers could sleep in peace. First the Confederates and then the Federals sang the usual songs. After a while, the sentries on both sides lined up to sing "Home, Sweet Home" and went happily to sleep. Some Federal officers forbade paying the song, fearing it would make men so homesick they would desert or become too demoralized to fight. The song really had the opposite effect: in reminding them of their loved ones, the song reinforced the basic, personal stake each soldier had in fighting for his side. In that sense, the song had a deeper meaning than a more overtly patriotic song, that appealed to general rather than personal feelings. The urge to protect one’s home and family is more primitive and therefore more immediate
From the Waukesha Freeman (Wisconsin) in 1911: "The Confederate cannon sent volleys over the heads of their advancing troops into the Union lines. Cushing and his neighbors replied with never ceasing spirit, in spite of a constant rain of shot and shell, with horses and men falling all around." "Cushing was shot several times but kept on firing. He served his last round of canister, was struck in the mouth by a bullet and fell dead." Despite a marker erected to Cushing on Cemetery Ridge and a monument near his birthplace, the Medal of Honor eluded him. Descendants and Civil War buffs took up the cause in recent decades. Congress granted a special exemption last December for Cushing to receive the award posthumously since recommendations normally have to be made within two years of the act of heroism and the medal awarded within three years. Cushing has endured a longer wait than any of the 3,468 recipients to receive the Medal of Honor. His Medal of Honor will be awarded on Sept. 15. Last changed: 09/04/14 |