Thursday, April 12, 2012

Battle of Fort Fisher

Fort Fisher

Fort Fisher Now

Until its capture by the Union army in 1865, Fort Fisher was the largest earthwork fortification in the world. The “Gibraltar of the South” protected the port of Wilmington and ensured that the Confederacy had at least one “lifeline” until the last few months of the Civil War. Confederate blockade runners had little difficulty eluding the U.S. blockade, and Colonel William Lamb, the fort’s commander from 1862 to 1864, organized their efforts. The runners delivered goods in Wilmington, and The Wilmington and Weldon Railroad transported these goods to supply Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.

Fort Fisher was a formidable post. Several times Lamb and his men withstood Union attacks. In December 1864, for instance, the Union had loaded a warship with 185 tons of gunpowder and floated it approximately 200 feet from the “L” shaped fort. The fort withstood the explosion and the ensuing barrage that has been described as “the most awful bombardment that was ever know for the time.”

Confederate fortune ran out in January 1865. On January 12, Union ships bombarded the fort. Some have estimated the Union firepower to be approximately 100 shells per minute. The incessant Union fire continued until mid-day on January 15, when Union troops stormed the fort from all sides. Hand-to-hand combat ensued. A few hours later, Union troops captured the fort. With the fort’s capture, the Confederacy lost only remaining supply line to its infantry protecting the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia.

News paper picture of the battle

Plan of attack

Sources:

John G. Barrett, The Civil War in North Carolina (Chapel Hill, 1963); John S. Carbone, The Civil War in Coastal North Carolina (Raleigh, 2001); William S. Powell ed., Encyclopedia of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, 2006); William S. Powell, North Carolina Through Four Centuries (Chapel Hill, 1989).

Monday, April 9, 2012

On May 20, North Carolina seceded:

An ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of North Carolina and the other States united with her, under the compact of government entitled “The Constitution oft he United States.”

We, the people of the State of North Carolina in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, That the ordinance adopted by the State of North Carolina in the convention of 1789, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified and adopted, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly ratifying and adopting amendments to the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded, and abrogated.

We do further declare and ordain, That the union now subsisting between the State of North Carolina and the other States, under the title of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved, and that the State of North Carolina is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.

Done in convention at the city of Raleigh, this 20^th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1861, and in the eighty-fifth year of the independence of said State.

Source:

William Connery
The History Guy
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CIVIL WAR NORTHERN VIRGINIA 1861
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Getting away with murder! Part One
The battlefield claimed many a brave officer, but there were a few others who met not-quite-so-honorable ends

The death toll among general officers during the Civil War was staggering. Because military necessity often placed a general officer at the head of the army, generals were killed leading hopeless charges (Lewis A. Armistead), engaging in skirmishes (J.E.B. Stuart), reconnoitering occupied territory ("Stonewall" Jackson) and mounting impossible frontal attacks (Patrick R. Cleburne). The cost was incalculable. Here, after all, were officers who—political favoritism aside—presumably rose to their rank because of their experience, judgment and valor, the men who were best qualified to achieve their respective armies' objectives. And yet they fell in alarming numbers. At Franklin alone, the number of Confederate generals killed or wounded ran in the double digits.

Such a death was almost expected. However tragic a general's demise might be, however demoralizing to his troops, it was a risk every soldier anticipated his leaders taking, sharing with the lowliest private the ultimate possibility of a noble, if gory, demise.

And then there were the generals whose violent departures had little if anything to do with the field of battle.

Jefferson Columbus Davis
Library of Congress: LC-USZ62-129704

The killer was a Union general who bore the unenviable name of Jefferson C. Davis—a fact that doubtless caused him no end of embarrassment. Davis was born in 1828 near the town of Charleston, Ind., and had been soldiering since his teens, when he volunteered for service as a private in the Mexican War. As a lieutenant five years later, he fought in the last Seminole campaign. And when Fort Sumter was fired on in 1861, Davis was inside the walls, commanding a four-gun battery. Throughout the war, he demonstrated unusual bravery and tenacity in battle, and distinguished himself in the Blackwater Expedition and at Pea Ridge. He was made brigadier general of volunteers in May 1862.

After a brief leave due to illness and exhaustion, Davis reported in early September 1862 to General Horatio G. Wright, commanding the Army of the Ohio. Wright in turn directed Davis to report to his second in command, Maj. Gen. William Nelson, in Louisville, Ky. A worse pairing could not have been conceived.

At 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighing 125 pounds, Davis looked a bit hangdog and considerably older than his 34 years. Although generally quiet in his demeanor, he was often intractable and given to displays of temper. One biographer described Davis as "aggressive, feisty, and confrontational" with a "fiery and combative spirit." The bombastic Nelson stood 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed some 300 pounds—a veritable bearded, curly haired giant. Nelson was four years Davis' senior and had joined the Navy as a midshipman in 1840. He, too, had seen his share of action and in 1847 had commanded a battery at the Battle of Vera Cruz. A lieutenant when the Civil War began, he swiftly rose to the rank of major general in Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio. Apparently Nelson was something of a bully and in his Navy days had been given the nickname "Bull."

Further exacerbating the situation was the sectional enmity that existed between Indiana and Kentucky. Never one to mince words, Kentuckian Nelson was known to refer to Hoosiers as "poor trash"—an attitude unlikely to endear him to Jeff C. Davis, one of Indiana's favorite sons. Davis, an Army veteran of countless engagements, might also have resented having to report to a man who had spent his entire career in the Navy and had only recently been given command of troops. And when Davis reported to Nelson, he was ordered to organize and train the "home guard"—an assignment Davis almost certainly would have considered beneath him.

Some, or perhaps all, of these factors were at play when, two days after receiving his assignment, Davis reported to Nelson at the Galt House, a luxurious hotel that also served as Army offices and Nelson's quarters. Nelson asked Davis for the number of troops mustered and the number of weapons required. When Davis replied, "I don't know," Nelson became indignant. He then asked for details relating to recently formed regiments and companies, and again Davis answered that he didn't know. Davis later averred that after only two days on the job and still lacking some crucial reports, he couldn't possibly have answered otherwise.

Nelson exploded. Rising to his full height, he dressed Davis down: "But you should know. I am disappointed in you, General Davis. I selected you for this duty because you are an officer in the regular Army, but I find I made a mistake."

According to Maj. Gen. James B. Fry, Buell's chief of staff, an old friend of Davis and a witness to the encounter:
"Davis arose and remarked in a cool, deliberate manner:

"'General Nelson, I am a regular soldier, and I demand the treatment due to me as a general officer….I demand from you the courtesy due to my rank.'

"Nelson replied: 'I will treat you as you deserve. You have disappointed me; you have been unfaithful to the trust I have reposed in you, and I shall relieve you at once….You will proceed to Cincinnati and report to General Wright.'

"Davis said: 'You have no authority to order me.'
"Nelson turned toward the Adjutant General and said: 'Captain, if General Davis does not leave the city by nine o'clock tonight, give instructions to the Provost-Marshal to see that he shall be put across the Ohio!'"

Furious, Davis reported to Wright, who defused the situation by temporarily reassigning him. On September 25, Buell took over from Nelson, and Wright felt it safe to send Davis back to Louisville. Davis was elated with the assignment; he relished a chance to serve under Buell as he planned a major campaign against the Rebels in Kentucky. On September 29, Davis entered the Galt House to report and immediately found himself among several friends, including Indiana Governor Oliver P. Morton. Shortly thereafter, Nelson entered the hotel. Davis, still smarting from the insult, approached Nelson and demanded an apology. Morton stood near enough to hear the exchange, as did the ubiquitous Fry. According to Fry, Nelson answered, "No!" and "said in a loud voice for all to hear, 'Go away, you damned puppy, I don't want anything to do with you!'"

Davis was holding a piece of paper, which—as the shocked assemblage watched—he wadded up and flicked into Nelson's face; a startled Nelson responded by slapping Davis with the back of his hand. He made an indignant comment to Morton, and stalked away toward the staircase leading to his room. Infuriated, Davis borrowed a pistol from a friend, and walking to within three feet of Nelson, shot the unarmed general in the chest. Nelson, mortally wounded, managed to climb the stairs before he collapsed. "Send for a clergyman," he gasped, "I wish to be baptized. I have been basely murdered."

Fry immediately arrested Davis, who pleaded that, while he had sought an apology, it was never his intention to shoot Nelson. The shooting created a furor among the officers at the hotel, some of whom called for Davis' immediate hanging. Buell, who had doted on Nelson, was outraged and considered the act "a high crime and gross violation of military discipline." He wanted to take swift action, but timing worked in Davis' favor.

With his huge offensive in the works, Buell simply could not spare the officers or the time needed to convene a court-martial, and requested that Davis be tried in Washington. Morton lobbied on Davis' behalf, however, and nothing further was made of the affair. After a week of incarceration, Davis was released, and within two weeks of murdering "Bull" Nelson, he was given division command in General William S. Rosecrans' Army of the Cumberland. He fought gallantly throughout the remaining years of the war, but he would always be remembered as the only Union general to have murdered a brother officer.

picture source: http://germansons.com/Metzner_Collection/Davis_J.html#

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Saturday, April 7, 2012

The Wilmington Campaign

Cape Fear River

While most aspects of the American Civil War have been examined in minute detail by an infinite body of historians, journalists, novelists, and writers in general, it actually is possible for a probing historian to break new ground while examining an important campaign of that great American tragedy. Chris E. Fonvielle, Jr., has accomplished this with his handsome volume on the Wilmington Campaign.

Fonvielle has not simply duplicated other recent studies that focused on the more celebrated battles of the campaign. He has methodically reported and analyzed the campaign in its entirety by providing a full portrait of the war on North Carolina's southeastern coast. His study includes an examination of the background and importance of Wilmington and the Cape Fear River to the Confederate war effort, the construction and strength of the formidable Cape Fear fortifications, the two attacks on Fort Fisher, and the subsequent march on Wilmington.

As the war progressed, the river port of Wilmington took on increasing strategic importance to the Confederacy. Located thirty miles up the Cape Fear River, it had the unique geographic advantage of occupying a river that was perfectly suited to blockade-running. Frying Pan Shoals separated the river's two inlets, and the Union blockading fleet found it virtually impossible to blanket the sixty miles of coast between the inlets and prevent the continuous ocean traffic that went in and out of the city. By 1864, Wilmington had constituted the only major Confederate port remaining open to the outside world, and its railroad facilities transported the arms and provisions necessary to maintain Robert E. Lee's army. During the war, blockade-runners made more than 400 trips into Cape Fear, bringing in some $65 million in supplies. In addition to clothing and other civilian merchandise, vast quantities of arms, munitions, uniforms, and other military supplies destined for Lee's army made their way northward through the port of Wilmington.

In an effort to protect Cape Fear, a series of massive earthen forts was designed to guard the inlets and the river approaches to Wilmington. Fort Fisher extended along the coast from New Inlet north for 1,300 yards before projecting west for 480 yards toward the Cape Fear River to form a giant "7." It was the region's most formidable installation and became generally known as the "Gibraltar of the South." Confederate authorities deemed the massive earthen fort impregnable, and one Union general proclaimed it to be the strongest fort he ever encountered.

In an effort to close this last gateway to the outside world, Federal authorities late in 1864 ordered the capture of Cape Fear. A Union assault on December 24, 1864, featured an unusual effort to destroy the fort by exploding a ship loaded with 215 tons of gunpowder in the shallow adjacent waters. The powder ship made no impression on the Confederate defenders, and the subsequent naval bombardment and land invasion failed to accomplish its goal. The Federals' poor showing was partly due to the personal animosity between the Union naval and army commanders, Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter and Major General Benjamin F. Butler. After the failed expedition returned to Virginia, Ulysses S. Grant became convinced that occupying Wilmington was critical to the Union strategy to end the war.

With Grant's orders before them, Porter, with fifty-eight warships, and Major General Alfred H. Terry, in command of 9,000 soldiers, returned to Cape Fear on January 13, 1865. The resulting battle for Fort Fisher has been described as the greatest naval-land battle in the history of the world up to that point. More than 1,464 tons of metal was fired at the fort, and Union losses approached 1,450 killed, wounded, and missing. The pathetically small Confederate defensive force of 1,900 men under the command of Colonel William Lamb and Major General William Henry Chase Whiting fought valiantly against overwhelming odds before being completely overwhelmed in hand-to-hand combat on January 15. Southern losses totaled about 500 men killed and wounded. The remaining 1,400 were captured. The tragedy in the loss of Fort Fisher lay in the inexplicable behavior of Confederate General Braxton Bragg, commander of the Wilmington District, and his subordinate Major General Robert F. Hoke. They commanded a division of veteran troops at Sugar Loaf, not more than five miles from the fort, yet Bragg chose to sacrifice Fort Fisher rather than send reinforcements to support its defenders.

After the fort fell, Bragg ordered his troops to withdraw from the remaining fortifications guarding the mouth of Cape Fear to installations closer to Wilmington. It took more than a month for the Union army to push the Confederates back into the streets of Wilmington. Two brigades of U.S. Colored Troops that had participated in both the attacks on Fort Fisher, acquitted themselves well in the Wilmington invasion. On February 22, Bragg ordered a complete withdrawal from Wilmington, and the Union army captured the city. With the occupation of North Carolina's largest city and the closing of Cape Fear to foreign commerce, the fate of the Confederacy was sealed. Lee had warned Bragg that without the port of Wilmington, he could not sustain his army in the field. Less than seven weeks after the fall of Wilmington, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia surrendered at Appomattox Court House.

The Wilmington Campaign is thoroughly researched, well written, and accessible. It features a vast array of excellent photographs and maps, many of which were previously unpublished, along with a serviceable index, notes, and a full bibliography. Fonvielle takes great care to develop his characters and provide insight into the officers and men involved in the engagements. He includes unique vignettes, such as an incident in which a colored soldier captured his former master and brought him into camp at gunpoint. He also relates a well-documented account of a Union soldier who stopped at his boyhood home to greet his mother during the approach to Wilmington only to find that his "Johnny Reb" brother had visited there hours earlier as his Confederate unit retreated toward Wilmington.

For Civil War scholars particularly interested in a complete identification of the units involved and their commanders, along with the ships, their guns, and their commanding officers, the orders of battle are included as a form of appendix. The text is replete with the details of battle, the type of weapons used by each participant, and the strategy (or the lack thereof) of the commanding officers.

With all this detail, the narrative reads well. This volume is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the Civil War, North Carolina history, or really any good, historically accurate story.

DonaldR.Lennon
East Carolina University

Book Review: The Wilmington Campaign: Last Rays of Departing Hope (James R. Arnold and Roberta Wiener) : AH

Originally published by American History magazine. Published Online: August 11, 2001

The Wilmington Campaign: Last Rays of Departing Hope, by Chris E. Fonvielle, Jr., Savas Publishing, Campbell, California, (800) 848-6585, 623 pages, $32.95.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Confederate States Navy (in North Carolina)

Students of the Civil War often overlook the contributions of the naval services in the conflict. The Confederate Navy and Marine Corps, however, played significant roles in North Carolina. They not only hampered the ability of the Union Navy to do its job, but took part in some of the state’s largest battles.

Genesis of the Confederate Navy
At Montgomery, Alabama, the Confederate Congress created a Navy Department in February 1861. Stephen R. Mallory of Florida was selected by President Jefferson Davis to lead the department and was confirmed by Congress on May 5. Mallory appeared capable of leading the new navy due to his service on the U.S. Senate Naval Affairs Committee prior to secession. The newly created navy absorbed the state navies of South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Virginia, and North Carolina. These state navies, however, only consisted of about a dozen small ships, mounting few guns. By war’s end the Confederate Navy managed to put 130 ships into service--a far cry from the 670-vessel US Navy. The disparate numbers should not be considered a failure on Mallory’s part, however, for he performed as well as could be expected considering the circumstances; a lack of government interest and funding throughout the war hampered Mallory’s efforts.

The Confederate Navy’s mission was three-fold. First, it was to provide coastal defense and protection for inland waterways. Second, its ironclad construction program was designed to break the Union blockade of the southern coast. Third, it was seen as a function of the navy to raid enemy commerce. Today, students of the Civil War remember the Confederate Navy primarily because of the exploits of the CSS Alabama and CSS Shenandoah. Two North Carolinians commanded Confederate cruisers: James I. Waddell (CSS Shenandoah) and John N. Maffitt (CSS Florida). While the Confederate Navy was moderately successful at commerce raiding, it never provided an adequate coastal defense or broke the Union blockade.

The Confederate Navy and Marine Corps played a significant role in North Carolina because much of the war in the state involved coastal operations. Early in the war, North Carolina contributed what was nicknamed the “Mosquito Fleet,” a small force of lightly armed vessels, to the Confederate cause. During the 1862 Burnside Expedition in coastal North Carolina, these ships participated in the Battle of Roanoke Island, and all but the CSS Beaufort were subsequently destroyed during the Battle of Elizabeth City. These battles ended what little threat the fleet posed to the Union forces.

North Carolina Ironclads
The Confederate government attempted building ironclads in the state, and was successful in completing four ships: the CSS North Carolina and the CSS Raleigh on the Cape Fear River, the CSS Albemarle on the Roanoke River, and the CSS Neuse on the Neuse River. There were also naval yards and stations located across the state, including a large operation at Charlotte for manufacturing marine machinery and other facilities in Wilmington, Halifax, Kinston, and for a brief time in Tarboro.

Aside from the Burnside Expedition, the Confederate Navy and Marine Corps conducted numerous operations throughout coastal North Carolina. In early February 1864, Commander John Taylor Wood led a detachment of thirty-three officers and 220 enlisted sailors and Marines downriver from Kinston to New Bern, where they boarded, captured, and destroyed the USS Underwriter in one of the most daring missions of the Civil War.

The Kinston-built ironclad, CSS Neuse, was completed shortly after Wood’s expedition to New Bern. Confederates hoped that the ironclad might help recapture the old colonial capital. On its voyage downriver, the Neuse ran aground in a shallow portion of the river and was not freed until a month later. By then, all operations in eastern North Carolina had ceased because army units had been recalled to Virginia to assist in the defense of Richmond. The Neuse waited ten months to be called into service--this time to cover the evacuation of Kinston following the Battle of Wyse Fork in March 1865. The ironclad was taken downriver.   Its cannons bombarded the Union Army while Confederate troops abandoned the town. Once the evacuation was complete, the Neuse was scuttled to prevent capture.

In mid-April 1864, the ironclad CSS Albemarle, captained by Commander James W. Cooke, helped Confederate forces recapture the town of Plymouth. The Albemarle rammed and sank the USS Southfield and successfully battled the USS Miami which lost its captain, Lieutenant Commander Charles Flusser in the fight.   In early May 1864, the Albemarle steamed for New Bern to help retake the city from Union occupation forces.   Not very long after departing Plymouth, the Albemarle and two smaller ships, the CSS Bombshell and CSS Cotton Plant engaged seven Union warships as they entered the waters of the Albemarle Sound. The ensuing battle was fierce, with the Union vessels firing over 600 shots. A riddled smokestack was the Albemarle’s most significant damage. The loss of the ship’s smokestack and the use of inferior coal caused a loss of draft, making the ship nearly inoperable. Without significant draft, the engines did not have enough steam to operate properly, so Cooke was forced to return to Plymouth. In the end, the most successful North Carolina ironclad, the Albemarle, was sunk on October 27, 1864, by a spar torpedo at her moorings by a Union Navy commando raid.

Approximately at the same time the CSS Albemarle battled the Union fleet in the Albemarle Sound, the CSS Raleigh undertook the only offensive action of the war by the Confederate Navy at Wilmington. At nightfall on May 6, 1864 the Raleigh escorted a number of blockade runners across the New Inlet bar near Fort Fisher and attacked Union ships on blockade. These targeted attacks continued throughout the night, and nearing daybreak on May 7, the ironclad came back into New Inlet and under the protection of the fort. On its return trip upriver to Wilmington, the Raleigh grounded on a sandbar. Before the gunboat could be freed, its keel broke and the Raleigh sank. The other Wilmington ironclad, the CSS North Carolina, never equipped with adequate engines, sank at its moorings in September 1864; marine worms had infested the hull.
Fort Fisher

The Confederate Navy and Marine Corps had significant involvement in the two battles at Fort Fisher and the Wilmington Campaign. The Submarine Battery Service was instrumental in placing electrically detonated torpedoes in the waters of the Cape Fear to deter Union blockaders from attempting to enter the river. The battery was also stationed at Fort Anderson to operate torpedoes in the river after the fall of Fort Fisher.

Battery Buchanan, detached from Fort Fisher, was built as a response to the ineffectiveness and loss of the CSS North Carolina and CSS Raleigh. It was commanded and manned entirely by naval personnel and armed with two seven-inch Brooke rifles and two eleven-inch Brooke smoothbore guns, all considered to be “naval” ordnance. The battery was commanded by Lieutenant Robert F. Chapman. A twenty-nine-man detachment from the raider CSS Chickamauga, under the command of Lieutenant Francis M. Roby, manned another battery of seven-inch Brooke rifles in another part of the fort. During the First Battle of Fort Fisher on December 24-25, 1864, both Brooke rifles, manned by Lt. Roby’s men, burst and injured nearly half the detachment and put the battery out of service.

Following the First Battle of Fort Fisher, fifty-one officers and men of the defunct Savannah Squadron (including nine African American sailors) arrived at Wilmington to reinforce the naval battery at Fort Fisher.   The Second Battle of Fort Fisher was fought from January 13-15, 1865. Late in the battle, knowing that the fort was lost, Lt. Chapman abandoned his position, and his men escaped across the river. Sailors then temporarily manned Batteries Meares and Campbell on the west bank of the river but soon resumed retreating toward Wilmington as the Union forces pushed toward the town. All vessels, records, drawings, and buildings at the shipyards were destroyed while the navy evacuated Wilmington ahead of the Union army.
Conclusions

Throughout the war, the Confederate Navy and Marine Corps did their best to help protect the coast and rivers of eastern North Carolina. Though not always successful, the naval forces were almost always a factor in any action. The inadequate naval yards of the state managed to produce four ironclad gunboats as well as marine machinery and desperately needed parts. Native North Carolinians served in many capacities, from common sailors and blockade-runner pilots to cruiser captains, and contributed greatly to the war effort. The problems in North Carolina, however, revealed a much larger problem: the Confederate Navy never had enough resources, manpower, or time to accomplish strategic goals.

Sources:
Leslie S. Bright, William H. Rowland, and James C. Bardon, CSS Neuse: A Question of Iron and Time (Raleigh, 1981); R. Thomas Campbell, Storm Over Carolina: The Confederate Navy’s Struggle for Eastern North Carolina (Nashville, 2005); Richard G. Elliott, Ironclad of the Roanoke: Gilbert Elliott’s Albemarle (Shippensburg, 2005); Chris E. Fonvielle, Jr., Last Rays of Departing Hope: The Wilmington Campaign (Campbell, CA, 1997); Rod Gragg, Confederate Goliath: The Battle of Fort Fisher (New York, 1991); Richard A. Sauers, The Burnside Expedition in North Carolina: A Succession of Honorable Victories (Dayton, 1996); William N. Still, Jr., The Confederate Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861-65 (Annapolis, 1998); and William N. Still, Jr., Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads (Columbia, 1971).
By Andrew Duppstadt, North Carolina Division of State Historic Sites

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Civil War in Northern Virginia 1861
By William S. Connery
(April 2012 Civil War News)

History Press, www.historypress.net, $19.99 softcover.

Photos, maps, bibliography, index, 159 pp., 2011,

This book is an offering in the publisher’s Civil War sesquicentennial series and focuses on the counties in Northern Virginia in 1861.

Highlighted are people and events related to those areas, such as Robert E. Lee’s decision to cast his fate with his native state after it seceded, the death of Union officer Elmer Ellsworth in Alexandria, and the effect of the war on George Washington’s former estate at Mount Vernon in Fairfax County. Also covered are brief sketches of the battles at Ball’s Bluff and Dranesville in Loudoun County.

Confederate Monument Oakdale Cemetery, Wilmington NC

William Connery discusses the influence of the Quakers, who used a free labor system for their enterprises in the midst of Virginia’s slave plantation system. He describes some of the “firsts” that occurred in the war, such as the first Confederate wounded soldier, first balloon reconnaissance, first troop engagement and first Confederate officer killed.

All of these occurred near Fairfax Court House, the birthplace of the Confederate battle flag as well as Jefferson Davis’ military strategy for the conduct of the war. The area witnessed the first Confederate military execution and the development of the first exclusively military railroad.

These are just some examples of the topics covered by Connery as he borrows heavily from first-person accounts at times to capture the feelings of Northern Virginians about what was happening to the civilian population at the war’s beginning. The first Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) is not covered because it is being reserved for a separate study in the series.

Today Fairfax and Loudoun counties, formerly farmland and the Confederacy’s first operating front line after Bull Run, are among the five richest counties in the United States. As urban sprawl from our nation’s capital continued over the years to transform such places as Falls Church, Vienna and McLean into what they are today, it is easy to forget what they were like in 1861. With this book, Connery has helped us to remember.

Reviewer: Frank J. Piatek

Frank Piatek graduated from Geneva College with a B.A. in history. He received his J.D. from Duquesne University in 1972. He is a member of several reenactment groups and past president of the Mahoning Valley Civil War Round Table.

William Connery

The History Guy
Author of
CIVIL WAR NORTHERN VIRGINIA 1861
https://www.historypress.net/catalogue/productdetails.php?productid=978.1.60949.352.3
http://www.amazon.com/Civil-Northern-Virginia-History-Sesquicentennial/dp/1609493524/ref=pd_sim_b_11
5777 Westchester Street
Alexandria, VA 22310
(c) 202-374-3080
(p) 703-719-6639
william.connery@verizon.net
www.worldandi.com/civilwar

The Civil War & Wilmington

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Battle of Fort Fisher

Monday, April 9, 2012

On May 20, North Carolina seceded:

Saturday, April 7, 2012

The Wilmington Campaign

Friday, April 6, 2012

Confederate States Navy (in North Carolina)

Thursday, April 5, 2012

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Thursday, April 12, 2012

Battle of Fort Fisher

Monday, April 9, 2012

On May 20, North Carolina seceded:

Saturday, April 7, 2012

The Wilmington Campaign

Friday, April 6, 2012

Confederate States Navy (in North Carolina)

Thursday, April 5, 2012

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