Volume 38, No. 12 – December 2025
Website: www.CivilWarRoundTablePalmBeach.org

The President’s Message:

Happy Holidays! Robert Krasner will be our speaker on Wednesday, December 10, 2025 at 7:00 PM in the Lake Clarke Shores Town Hall.  His program is entitled What Robert E. Lee Experienced and Learned During the Mexican War That Was Applicable during the Civil War.  I look forward to seeing you at the meeting. Refreshments will be served.

Presentation November 12, 2025

Our late member, Janell Bloodworth, had prepared a future talk which sadly she did not live to present. It was based on the Special Commemorative Issue of The Civil War Monitor dated June 2015. She selected a dozen and a half of the articles from the pages of the magazine entitled The Civil War from A to Z. Gerridine found the preparation while organizing Janell’s papers. Here is what Gerridine presented.

The first topic was a recruiting poster calling “First Class Young Men” to “Rally! Rally!” The call to arms asked for 100 days with the state paying $20.00 per month and the federal government will pay $16.00 for a total of $36.00 per month. Non-commissioned officers will be promoted from the ranks. Gerridine pointed out that the biggest problem was the $300.00 option by which you could buy out your need to serve. Men who enlisted in the Union or Confederate armies did so for a variety of reasons: adventure, duty, honor, patriotism. Some of these motives spanned the Mason Dixon line, while other incentives—financial enticements, ending slavery, preservation of the Union, protecting loved ones from the Yankee invasion, or loyalty to an adopted country—were more dependent on a volunteer's region, class, or nativity. Before long, both the Union and the Confederacy resorted to compelling military service through conscription—a widely unpopular and divisive policy in the North and South and avoiding the stigma of being a draftee became a motivation itself for joining the army. Regardless of their path to service, by war's end, some 2.2 million men had served in the Union army, while another 750,000 to 900,000 had fought with Confederate forces.

A question was proposed as to what was the most valuable piece of equipment a soldier carried. The answer was his canteen. "If you ever go into battle, have your canteen full," a young Union soldier wrote to his father shortly after his first time in combat. "I was so dry at one time I could have drank out of a mud puddle." Soldiers on both sides had many reasons—including sweltering marches, furious battles, and stifling wool uniforms —to seek the momentary relief of a quick drink of water (or, occasionally, other beverages). A discussion occurred at this point about wool uniforms which both sides wore.

To bolster rapidly diminishing armies, the Confederate Congress passed its Conscription Act on April 16, 1862. Men had originally joined the Confederate service under enlistment terms ranging from six to 12 months. Under the new act, however, all men between the ages of 18 and 35 were required to serve in the Confederate military for three years, and men already in the service had another three years added to their enlistments. Public sentiment was immediate and visceral, especially because the act allowed eligible men to hire substitutes—a loophole that favored the wealthiest rungs of southern society. Pro-Confederate civilians contended that the draft was a violation of states' rights, while southern unionists were forced to choose between fleeing their homes or fighting against their own beliefs.

We next turned our attention to identification of the dead. "The dead were ... unrecognizable except by medals or letters found upon them," noted Union soldier George Allen of the bodies strewn on the ground after the July 1864 Battle of the Crater. Soldiers on both sides often carried or wore such "medals" —what today would be considered "dog tags" —so that their bodies might be identified if the worst befell them. These identification tags came in a variety of styles, sizes, and materials; some were store-bought, others homemade.

Gerridine noted that when she and Janell were putting this presentation together, they were surprised at the number of immigrants that took part in the fight.

In the two decades preceding the Civil War more than 4 million immigrants arrived in the United States from Europe and Asia. In the 1840s, Irish men, women, and children fleeing from economic hardship, famine, and political inequality made up the majority of new arrivals; in the 1850s, Germans became the largest group of foreign émigrés. While Chinese immigrants generally settled in the West, most European immigrants found work in the factories and industrial centers of northern cities like New York, Chicago, and Boston; smaller numbers ventured below the Mason-Dixon line so as to avoid competing with slave labor. In the south the immigrants were concerned with competing with slave labor. However, they did not want slavery to end in the South as they feared that freed slaves would come north and take their jobs.

While some "native" (that is, white Protestant) Americans disapproved of Irish and German cultural tenets, and especially of Catholicism, the influx of new manpower paid dividends for the Union when sectional tensions finally erupted into armed conflict: Of the country's 25 largest cities in 1860, only three (New Orleans, Charleston, and Richmond) were in what would become Confederate territory. By war's end, more than 350,000 German and Irish immigrants had served in the Union army. Indeed, one of every four men who donned Union blue from 1861 to 1865 was born outside of the United States.

Janell thought a lot about the common soldier as she had kinfolk who fought for the South. Two of her great-great-great grandfathers had high political positions; governor of Georgia and mayor of Atlanta. Of course she listed Johnny Reb before Billy Yank. At this point a bunch of statistics were read off, but I found this paragraph from the book more interesting.

In the preface to his seminal history of the common Confederate soldier, The Life of Johnny Reb, historian Bell Wiley notes that the familiar nickname for Rebel soldiers "seems to have originated from the practice of Yankees who called out, 'Hello, Johnny' or 'Howdy, Reb' to opponents across the picket line." Confederates liked the term and "saw no reason to spurn a catchy name because it was used first by their opponents," so they adopted both the separate and combined versions.

In like manner, the description of Billy Yank was mostly stats, however one did stand out in my mind. The average height of the Union soldier was 5” 7.6”, the tallest was Lieutenant David Van Buskirk standing at 6” 10.5”. Although it was not in the talk, I could not resist adding this paragraph: One of the “secrets” of Monroe County Civil War history is that the largest man to serve in the Union army during the entire war was Monroe County’s own David Van Buskirk, or, as he is familiarly known, Big Dave. He was said to be 6’ 10 ½” in his stocking feet and to weigh about 375 pounds. Van Buskirk was a captain in the 27th Indiana Infantry which was a unit that was formed in the early days of the war in an interesting way. Every community was competing for young men to join their unit, so many recruiting “gimmicks” were used to try to get the upper hand on your neighboring regiment. In the case of the 27th, recruiting speeches were given off the backs of trains in the counties along the Monon Railroad line between Indianapolis and Louisville. Recruiters of Co. F, nicknamed “The Monroe Grenadiers,” encouraged all “really tall” men to join up so that the soldiers’ size and height alone might intimidate the rebels to drop their guns and surrender. It was said that over half the men were taller than six feet at a time when the average height of a man was probably five feet eight or nine inches. This earned them the regimental nickname, “Giants in the Cornfield”.

In contrast the shortest confirmed Union soldier over 21 years old stood only 3’ 4”.

Among the myriad questions addressed by the compilers of The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebel lion—the comprehensive, multi-volume study of Union sick and wounded prepared under the supervision of the army's surgeon general and published between 1870 and 1888 was this: Where on the body were men most likely to be wounded when shot, and to what outcome? The following graphic represent an overview of their findings. One important caveat: These statistics pertain to wounded soldiers who were evacuated to hospitals, not those killed outright or left on the field for dead, a fact that likely means that injuries to the trunk—usually the most fatal and difficult to treat—are underrepresented. I have included the graphic that was described by Gerridine.

Now we come to a more personal topic, the letters soldiers wrote home. Of the myriad ways in which Civil War soldiers spent their downtime, one seemed nearly universal: writing letters. " [A]ll wrote letters more or less," recalled one Union veteran, "but there were a few men who seemed to spend the most of their spare time in this occupation." Soldiers might purchase stationery (plain sheets or pages decorated with patriotic images and slogans) from sutlers or have it sent from home. Those unable to write would often enlist the aid of a literate comrade; Union soldiers who couldn't afford a stamp could send a "Soldier's Letter" (writing these words on the envelope) and have the recipient pay the postage.

Gerridine went on to explain how Lincoln wanted mail delivered to the soldier’s home. It was common practice to post the names of the men killed in local post offices, so it was argued that there was no need for home delivery as people regularly went to the post offices. But Lincoln said “no.”
Reading the letters they received was an equally popular pastime for soldiers in camp. They relied on such correspondence to learn about news from home and regularly scolded friends and family who failed to write with sufficient frequency. As a young Union soldier wrote his father in 1863 about his sister, "She don't write me so often any more. What's the matter with her? If the folks at home could know what happy fools it made of us to get letters, they would write more of them and longer ones."

On the topic of economics, just the data was presented. From the chart in the magazine, we learned comparisons between North and South. Value of manufactured goods: $1.73 billion vs $156 million. Bank deposits $207 million vs $47 million. Cotton production 43 thousand vs 5.3 million. But this did not have the desired effect the Confederacy had hoped for as Europe found new sources for cotton in Egypt and India. Tons of coal production 13.7 million vs 650 thousand. Manufacturing establishments 110 thousand vs 18 thousand. Miles of railroad 22 thousand vs 9 thousand. Tons of shipping 4.6 million vs 290 thousand. Value of firearms produced $2.3 million vs $73 thousand.

While Union and Confederate soldiers are commonly imagined as having traveled to and from battle on foot or on horseback, the Civil War marked the first major military effort in American history in which transportation and shipping by railroad made a key contribution to the outcome. Throughout the course of the conflict, both sides utilized railroads to move men, animals, heavy weapons, and a host of other supplies.

In February 1862, shortly after Congress passed the Railroad and Telegraph Act, which authorized President Lincoln to impress any railroad and its equipment and employees into federal service, the War Department created the United States Military Railroads (USMRR), which oversaw the repair of damaged lines and the creation of new ones, as well as organized the rail supply of Union forces in conjunction with private companies. The organization boasted a variety of skilled and hardworking officers and men, perhaps most notably its chief of construction and maintenance, Herman Haupt, whose crews of white civilians and contraband slaves repaired and built track and bridges with lightning speed.

Efforts to consolidate military control of rail lines proved more difficult in the Confederacy: States regularly resisted President Jefferson Davis' attempts at centralization, and many rails servicing the same area were either not linked to one another or employed differently spaced track, making connections nearly impossible. Moreover, a lack of vital supplies, from iron to wood for railroad ties, made new construction and repairs a challenge, especially as the war progressed. Still, Confederate forces used railroads to their advantage on many occasions during the conflict, shifting troops quickly—and helping to turn the tide of battle—at such engagements as First Bull Run and Chickamauga.

In the end, the northern advantage in railroads was decisive. Whereas the Union added some 4,000 miles of track to the roughly 22,000 it boasted at the outbreak of the war, greatly assisting its overall war effort, the Confed

In November 1861 leaders of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) formed an organization called the United States Christian Commission "to promote the spiritual and temporal welfare of the soldiers in the army and the sailors and marines in the navy, in cooperation with the chaplains and others." Volunteers, known as delegates, included women; they assisted in hospitals, distributed donated food and clothing to soldiers, and set up reading rooms—stocked with Bibles, newspapers, and free writing materials and stamps—near army camps. By war's end, the USCC had enlisted an estimated 5,000 volunteers and raised and spent some $6 million for the soldiers' benefit.

While some observers believed that the delegates' proselytizing was at times aggressive or inappropriate (one volunteer nurse wrote a friend in 1864 "about the visit of a Christian commission delegate to their hospital and the gloomy sermons on death he preaches to the convalescents, till her hair stands on end"), others were appreciative of their tireless efforts. "The Christian Commission is beginning to make itself felt here, " wrote a grateful Union soldier in 1864. "Their agent visits us every day, distributes tracts, papers, writing paper, envelopes, etc., gives good advice, sings patriotic and other airs, prays with and for us, and does it all in such a kindly, benevolent way that he has won all hearts."

Installing the telephone poles was a very dangerous job. The secession of the southern states caused a major disruption in the massive commercial telegraph network that crisscrossed the antebellum United States, as nearly 10 percent of the system's over 50,000 miles of wire and 1,400 stations were located in Confederate territory. Eager to allow for quick and clear communication between home front and battlefront—and in particular between each side's capital and commanders in the field—Union and Confederate officials moved to restore and expand their telegraphic capabilities. In October 1861, the Lincoln administration authorized the creation of the U.S. Military Telegraph Service. Its civilian employees (many of them women) were responsible for both operating the telegraph system at the front and in Washington's War Office and for accompanying the armies and laying and repairing lines as they advanced. The Confederacy, which in 1862 appointed Dr. William S. Morris, director of the southern branch of the American Telegraph Company, as head of its military lines, similarly relied on civilians. The job for operators on both sides was demanding and—for those tasked with frontline roles—dangerous. Despite the hazards, by war's end Union workers had constructed more than 15,000 miles of new telegraph lines, and Confederate workers about 1,000—efforts that greatly aided in the operation of the northern and southern war efforts.