Any Civil War Nuts?

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

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Location
The Sticks, Northeast PA.
I love the Civil War. I suppose because it's so long ago that the word,"casualties", doesn't have the same effect as today's "casualties". It takes guts to be in any war. But the way they fought battles back then- calmly walking towards men, who are shooting rifles and canon at you. I'm not sure I could do that. I have to admit I'm a Civil War Nut. There are levels of C.W. Nuts. Some spend their entire lives researching some minute action, and know every general , most privates, and every regiment. I'm definitely not that kind. It's easy to get carried away about the war.
One of my favorite stories is at the opening of the Museum Of The Confederacy. The Museum was extremely proud that General So And So's coat was on display for the first time. All around the glass case, a bunch of guys were looking at the coat, and writing down numbers. I finally had to ask the docent what the hell were they doing . She rolled her eyes and said, "Re-enactors! They're counting the stitches in the coat." No, I'm not that into the Civil War.
 

I think the whole idea of grown men dressed as CW soldiers in a field shooting blank ammo at one another and some falling and faking dead as a result is juvenile and disrespectful. Those soldiers suffered horribly during that war. They amputated arms and legs with a saw and no anesthetic( it often took 4-5 men to hold them), THAT was the real deal, not a bunch of menkids playing..
 
Roughly 1,264,000 American soldiers have died in the nation's wars--620,000 in the Civil War and 644,000 in all other conflicts. It was only as recently as the Vietnam War that the amount of American deaths in foreign wars eclipsed the number who died in the Civil War.
 
I am a Civil War Buff. I started out reading about different battles, then different commanders. One of my favorite books is Ulysses S. Grant biography. My first career as a licensed Embalmer & Funeral Director was due to my reading when in high school about embalming procedures of deceased combatants. Mostly officers because their families had enough money to have them prepared and shipped home for burial. Rank and file had no such luck and were generally buried where they lie or in common graves. Modern day embalming really got it's start during the Civil War and was very superior to ancient Egyptian techniques.
 
I don't know if you'd call us "nuts" (ok, some would but that's another matter....), but we miss no chance to visit a battlefield, cemetery, or historical site, be it revolutionary or Civil War. In fact, we visited the site of the westernmost site of Civil War activity, which actually just consisted of some Confederate recruiters trying to round up some talent and getting into it with some Northern sympathizers. Can't even remember where it was but it was waaaaay out west.
 
AZ Jim said:
I think the whole idea of grown men dressed as CW soldiers in a field shooting blank ammo at one another and some falling and faking dead as a result is juvenile and disrespectful. Those soldiers suffered horribly during that war. They amputated arms and legs with a saw and no anesthetic( it often took 4-5 men to hold them), THAT was the real deal, not a bunch of menkids playing..
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Not much different than some operas and Shakespearean plays Jim, which many people seem to enjoy. and don't view it as juvenile or disrespectful.
 
Not a buff so to speak but doing research on my family's history, I found that my Great Grandfather survived 3 years of the CW.

He was part of "Wilder's Lightning Brigade" the first to use the Spencer Repeating Rifle and the first to become the first Mounted Infantry (not to be confused with the Mounted Calvary). He served with the 92nd Illinois Regiment involved in nearly 52 engagements and battles.
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I live just up the road from Gettysburg and have be on the battlefield and to the National Cemetery many, many times. I would not call myself a Civil War buff, or even a historian, but I have studied it and have taken all kinds of tours offered by the National Parks Service, private for hire tours as well, not to mention reading about the war and discovering a few artifacts that I later donated to the National Museum in Gettysburg. To me, my most precious find was a button off of a confederate soldier's uniform while walking through the Wheatfield.

As for the re-enactment, I think it is a good thing. I don't see it as glorifying the war or a bunch of men playing or whatever. People go there to watch the re-enactments of what the day was like in the Peach Field or at Seminary Ridge, Pickett's Charge and so on. The association that puts on these re-enactments recreates them as close to reality as possible, in hopes of educating the public of how the war actually was fought. I have been to the re-enactments and to the re-enactment camps just a few times and have found them to be educational. I think more Southern visitors come to Gettysburg that Northerners do these days. Many are looking for their ancestor's final resting place, which is very difficult to find and I think for most, they leave disappointed that they could not locate the gravesite they were looking for.
 
Oh, WOW. Shelby Foote, and the Ken Burns series. Great. I still have The Civil War, A Narrative on tape. Yup, kept the tape cassettes and the tape machine just to play it. I guess I should clear up the question of "nut" vs. "buff". I use them interchangeably, with out any derogatory meanings. I don't wish to offend any one.
And as far as re-enactors go... yes, they are having fun, but the re-enacting is done very seriously. And it ain't cheap. To buy the exact uniform and weapons of a Union PFC starts @ $3,000. To be a Confederate, it's double that. I was surprised at the time and effort they put into it. It's like having a second job. I was at the 135th Re-enactment @ Gettysburg. I read about how little they could see with the air filled with spent gun powder. But when thousands of rifles go off, and all you see is white, you can't even see the ground. What you read becomes very real.
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fuzzybuddy.....read a lot about the war between the states back a few years ago and have watched the burns tapes too many times......enjoy going to see re-enactors and displays ....of late have been reading up on WWII for some articles I am working on......by the by are you really from Krypton, I though I was the last son of the doomed planet
 
I find the battle of Gettysburg endlessly fascinating -- especially Joshua Chamberlain and 20th Maine on Little Round Top, as well as Pickett's charge.

I actually walked the Pickett's charge route and wondered all the while how those men could just keep on walking into those guns at the top of the hill; it was a long walk and they would have had plenty of time to think about it, especially those towards the rear who had to walk through the mangled bodies of those who had gone before. Actually gave me shivers, even though I walked it in very early July and it was hot as all get out, as it would have been on the day of the actual battle.

I'll never understand why Lee actually thought that maneuver could succeed.
 
Hi, ronaldj;
Well, if we're both from Krypton, then obviously, one of us is Plan B......BTW, WWII re-enactor groups are sprouting up all over. Getting some sabers and a few horses might do for CW re-enactment. Getting a Sherman tank replica seems a lot harder. What area of WWII are you working on?
 
Ya know, Butterfly, I don't know of anyone, who has actually walked over those Gettysburg fields and thought that charge would be successful. For those of us, who have never been in combat, you wonder if we have their courage.
 
I have Shelby Foote's biography. A very complex man. On one hand he would have loved to have time traveled back to being a genteel Southern landowner, on the other he was staunchly against slavery and segregation. Ken Burns spoke about shooting the Civil War series. When they began Shelby had a rather footnote role like the other historians. They say he was rather guarded and abrupt when asked typical interview questions. But Ken learned how to get him to open up. Rather than a question they would phrase it " Tell me about the most significant battle of that year" and the camera would roll, Shelby would pick up the topic and run with it.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
Ya know, Butterfly, I don't know of anyone, who has actually walked over those Gettysburg fields and thought that charge would be successful. For those of us, who have never been in combat, you wonder if we have their courage.
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Courage is one thing when you know you have a chance -- but walking straight into not only rifle fire, but grapeshot and cannister when you've gotta know you're going to end up hamburger?

I dunno -- I might have considered just falling down and playing dead. Pickett's brigade was virtually wiped out, and he apparently harbored a grudge against Lee the rest of his life. Can't say I blame him.
 
I agree with you, Butterfly. In all wars, many knew their deaths didn't matter. But in the Civil War, that seemed to happen much more frequently.

And, yup, I would have loved to spend a year with Shelby. I heard his telephone number was always in the telephone book-back when we had such things.
 
My interest is more in WW2 because I heard a lot about it from my dad and we saw all those war movies that came out after the war. My daughter is a civil war buff and I think she is more interested in the cemeteries than the battle fields. She's visited some of the sites and cemeteries but there are more she and her husband plan to visit when they get time. There is one man from the civil war she is trying to track down information on. His name was Abner and I can't remember the spelling of his last name. Something like Drinhard. He wasn't anyone important enough to be in any of the books she has but her husband was able to locate him on the internet and the name of the cemetery he's in. She gave my husband a box with some little balls, I think they are musket balls from the civil war in it but he's not interested in them. He just keeps them because she gave them to him.
 

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