Check below through the
semester for blog postings on items of interest arising from class
discussion, queries I can't answer in class, further discussions on
particular points, etc.
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What's a good source where I
can learn about the infamous prisoner of war camp at Andersonville?
Click here
for a good quick introduction to Andersonville, from the National Parks
Service -- also note the bibliographic references at the bottom of the
page, which provides you with further reading on the subject. Click
HERE for
another quick introduction to the subject, along with with other links to
follow.
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Given the reputation he
developed during the war as a "butcher," how did Grant do as a
presidential candidate in 1868 and 1872, especially in the South?
Click here
for the 1868 presidential electoral map -- note the number of states in
the South which Grant won! Use the same site to go to the 1872 electoral
map!
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Why didn't Sherman try to
liberate Andersonville (the brutal prisoner of war camp for captured Union
soldiers in southwest Georgia)?
CLICK HERE for a good scholarly analysis of this question.
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What, really, was the
effective range of small arms (most especially, the Springfield rifle) for
average soldiers in the Civil War? 50 yards? 100 yards? 300 yards?
For the average infantrymen, 150-200 yards was a reasonable range for the
standard rifle musket; for skilled marksman, 250-300 yards was possible,
with some accuracy. Some Union cavalry men received Spencer repeating
rifles, which were far more deadly; however, those weapons never became
standard during the war for foot soldiers. Regardless, the range of the
standard Civil War weapons, even for volunteer soldiers under fire, was
sufficient to give a decided advantage to the defensive, all the more so
when soldiers were in entrenchments or could fire from behind walls,
embankments, or other protections.
For the best, most up-to-date and well-informed scholarly analysis of not
only this question but also a state-of-the-art survey of historical
understandings of military strategy and tactics employed on Civil War
battlefields, see Joseph Glatthaar, "Battlefield Tactics," in Writing
the Civil War: The Quest to Understand (Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press, 1998), 60-80, as well as the relevant pages (use the
index) in James McPherson's standard work Battle Cry of Freedom.
Internet research on this topic has yielded a vast array of junk studies;
thus, I would avoid relying on internet sources on this topic, and suggest
instead relying on the abundant and well-documented scholarly studies such
as the two mentioned above.
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Why
were black troops paid less (until mid-1864) than white troops?
For the best source not only on this issue but on the service of more
than 180,000 African-American soldiers in the Union Army, see Joseph
Glatthaar, Forged in Battle. On the pay issue, he points out that
discriminatory pay was written into the original Militia Act of 1862, by
which blacks came into the army, and that the differential pay was an
embarrassing fact which remained stubbornly persistent despite the
efforts of Governor John Andrew of Massachusetts and others to get it
changed. Action by black soldiers, most especially refusing to receive
any pay at all until they were treated equally, eventually got the
practice changed.
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What
did Lincoln mean by "new birth of freedom" in the Gettysburg Address?
The classic analysis of the Gettysburg Address is Garry Wills,
Lincoln at Gettysburg. That is the best source for this question.
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