Why they fought: Exploring the motivations of young men wearing the blue and gray

Francis Barlow (left)  (Library of Congress)

Young men of the North and South were quite frustrated with their elders by the time the first Confederate shots rained down on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

College students in New England blamed politicians for not keeping the peace, thereby setting in motion disunion, according to Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai's essay in “Children and Youth During the Civil War Era” (NYU Press).

Their counterparts in Virginia, meanwhile, were angry with “old fog(e)ys” who were not eager about secession. Labeled as "lazy, immoral, and hotheaded" the youth wanted to see Virginia restored to its glory and “progress” furthered, even in a slave society, wrote Peter S. Carmichael in “The Last Generation: Young Virginians in Peace, War, and Reunion” (UNC Press).

“There is a sense that Southerners are losing power and are being forced into a minority,” says Wongsrichanalai, assistant professor of history at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas.

While few were abolitionists, Northern men firmly believed in preserving the union.

The collision course of ideals arrived at Sumter and birthed four long bloody years of conflict. Hundreds of thousands of young men who believed their side was right were mowed down.

Wongsrichanalai

Wongsrichanalai and another Angelo State educator, Dr. William A. Taylor, will explore what made men fight in a Tuesday (Jan. 29) program entitled “Soldier Motivation and Life,” the latest in the university’s Civil War lecture series.

Topics include the reasons men volunteered, the beliefs of college-educated soldiers, small-unit cohesion and the factors that kept men fighting, even when facing certain death or injury.

Wongsrichanalai wrote his doctoral dissertation on what motivated college-educated New Englanders to fight.

Young men of that generation, he says, were taught at universities to be leaders and gentlemen. “How can I be useful? How can I be a leader in society? If I don’t do it, who will?” says Wongsrichanalai. Among the 48 individuals he studied were Francis Barlow, Joshua Chamberlain, Oliver Howard and Robert Gould Shaw.

These men from New England internalized their honor, preferring the term “character.”

“Southern honor is about public reputation and how people in the community view you,” the professor tells the Picket. “Northern honor is doing what is right despite what the public thinks about you.”

While men across the new Confederacy joined, regardless of class or privilege and because it was expected of them, educated young men in the Northeast sometimes had to contend with parents who believed someone else should do the fighting, perhaps immigrants.

“There is more of a choice for Union soldiers. Once you are in the Confederate army there is no way out,” says Wongsrichanalai, referring to Federal enlistment bounties and expiration of service.

The U.S. government eventually turned to the draft as the war wore on.

In his essay, entitled ”What Is a Person Worth at Such a Time”, Wongsrichanalai includes correspondence from Amherst College student Christopher Pennell to his father, asking permission to go.

A long war would require “men who shall fight treason from principle, & not from desire for spoils, of educated soldiers who understand what they are fighting for,” wrote Pennell. “Tom Dick & Harry will not be so ready to enlist then.”

Pennell, a young officer, was killed at the Battle of the Crater in 1864.

Southerners volunteered to defend slavery and support its expansion westward, to protect their institutions and to repel invaders, says Wongsrichanalai, a graduate of the University of Virginia and Bowdoin College in Maine.

Northerners were concerned about possible failure of the “national experiment” that followed the American Revolution.

“A lot of motivation is sustaining law and order, says Wongsrichanalai. “There was a presidential election that was contested but the Northern candidate won the election. Suddenly, these Southerners wanted to secede because they lost the election.”

All of those wearing gray and blue sought to prove their manliness and courage under fire.

Young Confederates

People in the mid-19^th century, before the Civil War, did not think highly of professional soldiers, according to Wongsrichanalai. Graduates of West Point typically left the small U.S. Army to become civilian engineers.

“The view of the military (today) is certainly very different,” says the professor. “Since Vietnam, we have a much more positive view of honoring men, their service and sacrifice.”

San Angelo is home to veterans and service members at Goodfellow Air Force Base; Wongsrichanalai hopes they will be among those attending and taking part in a Q&A at the end of the program.

“This is a great opportunity to draw on experiences of people who have served in the military,” he says. “Why they enlisted, what their experiences were with combat, and how they were engaged in cultural events.”

The professors want to give students “a sense of the emotional impact of the war.” 

• Additional information on the lecture

 

Returning cannon tubes to place of honor

If Scott Bragunier has his way, cannon tubes that sat for more than a century in a Williamsport, Md., cemetery named for Union Gen. Abner Doubleday, will be returned to the same spot by spring. The three tubes, the objects of vandalism and weather-related wear,  have been refurbished. • Article

'To hell with Sherman': Lecture links Georgia Tech campus and a row of Civil War fortifications

Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson works by day in a building above where Confederate trenches once ran on the northern outskirts of Atlanta.

Georgia Tech photo

At night, he sleeps in the President’s House, not two miles due north, scene of the Federal siege line.

The distance between, in the summer of 1864, was a no man’s land – home to rifle pits and picket posts – that now is the heart of the Georgia Tech campus.

“There were people killed” between the main lines, said Charlie Crawford, a 1971 Tech mathematics alum and president of the Georgia Battlefields Association, a preservation group. Usually, one or two were killed at a time by potshots or stray rounds

“A record might read, ‘on the 21^st we lost Private Jones to picket duty,’” said Crawford.

George Barnard photo of Ponder House (Library of Congress)

Modern view, looking east (Charlie Crawford)

For six weeks, Rebels held their line within sight of the Federals’ 20^th Corps while elsewhere generals Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood attempted to parry flanking movements initiated by their Union counterpart, William Tecumseh Sherman.

Crawford, who went on to an Air Force career and retired as a colonel, will detail what happened on Georgia Tech’s land at a Jan. 24 lecture on campus. He also will cover the importance of the Atlanta Campaign to the re-election campaign of President Abraham Lincoln.

His talk is being held in conjunction with “Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War,” a traveling exhibit on display at the campus through Feb. 6.

Georgia Tech photo

The Georgia Institute of Technology was founded in 1885, and it opened its doors to students in 1888. The research university, built to support the industrialization of the South during Reconstruction, has since garnered an international reputation.

Crawford’s reference points will include modern-day views of Confederate fortification scenes taken by Federal official photographer George Barnard shortly after the fall of Atlanta. Those photographs are part of the Library of Congress’ collection.

“It wasn’t anything but a smattering of houses,” Crawford said of it the land. It wasn’t even a suburb.” North Avenue, the main east-west thoroughfare on the south end of campus, did not exist.

While there are almost no traces left of what was hurriedly erected by soldiers, the Georgia Battlefields Association wants to impart history and encourage listeners to be preservation-minded. “We all come from somewhere,” said Crawford. “If you can tell the story in relatable terms…”

Case in point: Fans of the Yellow Jackets football team might be interested in knowing that the east-west Confederate line ran through what is now the south end of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field, right next to the Downtown Connector.

The original defensive line, built July-October 1863, was closer to the city and downtown, with its apex near the current Fox Theatre. Atlanta was vulnerable.

Ponder House (Library of Congress)

“They (defenders) began to realize artillery fire was getting longer and had higher range,” said Crawford.

Slaves and other workers, in July 1864, furiously threw up more defenses, to the north and west of the old line, as Sherman’s troops closed in. “When the Confederates built the line they cut down almost all of the woods” that covered the current campus, according to Crawford. Lt. Gen. Alexander Stewart took command of the forces.

The Confederates used letters, X, Y and Z, to name their forts in the area. Fort Z was near the current administration building, known for the familiar Tech Tower. Fort Y rests below the campus student center or a nearby parking deck.

The Southern line also ran near what is now the landmark restaurant The Varsity, just east of campus.

The Federal lines generally ran across what is now the north end of the campus and private property. They held troops from the Northeast, including New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Barnard’s most-famous photo is of the shell-pocked Ponder House, which he referred to as the Potter House. It was owned by a wealthy land and slave owner and reportedly was used by Confederate infantry.

The residence, east of Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts (Fort X), was an inviting target for Union artillerymen.

Archaeological map includes Confederate, Union lines (click to enlarge)

“The Ponder House got hit by shells a lot,” said Crawford. “Part of it was because it was a big white building. It was the most significant landmark for miles around.” The heavily damaged home was razed after the battle.

Although Confederates had attacked three times during the campaign, the Federal siege lines on the Tech property weren’t built with such an assault in mind.

“The assumption was they weren’t going to have to defend their trenches. They made them better each night,” Crawford said.

Sherman determined he would not attack the city’s prodigious fortifications head-on, realizing it would be a waste of manpower. He had already bloodied Hood at Peachtree Creek, the Battle of Atlanta and at Ezra Church.

Rather, Sherman concentrated on extending lines, cavalry raids and seizing railroads in his eventually successful effort to cut off Atlanta. Hood was forced to leave after Jonesboro, south of Atlanta, fell.

The weary Rebels left their defensive posts on the Tech campus when the army evacuated Atlanta on Sept. 1 and Sept. 2, 1864.

Eventually, the city grew north, enveloping the Tech campus. The world headquarters of Coca-Cola is a stone’s throw from where Confederate trenches, chevaux de fries and forts once stood.

Students and visitors alike must employ a vivid imagination when conjuring images of the campus during its Civil War days.

“Parking lots, decks and buildings tend to smooth stuff out,” said Crawford.  

The preservationist remembers his student days at Georgia Tech.

“It’s fascinating to think of walking to class every day and sitting (in class) on top of a trench.” 

• More details on lecture, including time and location

• “Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War"

• Georgia Battlefields Association