![]() In vain were they ordered back, in vain were bridges hewn from beneath their feet on they trudged and writhed and surged, until they rolled into Savannah, a starved and naked horde of tens of thousands. But to me neither soldier nor fugitive speaks with so deep a meaning as that dark human cloud that clung like remorse on the rear of those swift columns, swelling at times to half their size, almost engulfing and choking them. Some see all significance in the grim front of the destroyer, and some in the bitter sufferers of the Lost Cause. Three characteristics things one might have seen in Sherman’s raid through Georgia, which threw the new situation in shadowy relief: the Conqueror, the Conquered, and the Negro. WEB DuBois wrote this memorable description of Sherman's army on its March to the Sea: Confederates regarded the placing of weapons in black hands as itself a war crime, and a terrible one, justifying the most terrible retribution. But captured black Union troops were often massacred - and sometimes sold as property. Jefferson Davis' message to Congress on January 12, 1863, proclaimed the Emancipation Proclamation 'the most execrable measure in the history of guilty man.' Davis promised to turn over captured Union officers to state governments for punishment as 'criminals engaged in inciting servile insurrection.' The punishment for this crime, of course, was death.ĭavis never carried out this threat. Both sides of the terrible conflict insisted that the war was a war for freedom. What struck me most, on this rediscovery, is how brilliantly apt is McPherson's title. The anniversary moved me to download the book in audio format and re-ingest it after the long lapse of time. ![]() James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom is now, incredibly, 25 years old. ![]() Slavery was always, always there: the war's fundamental cause, the war's shaping reality. This refusal ended the negotiations, for (as Grant wrote), the United States "is bound to secure to all persons received into her armies the rights due as soldiers."įrom time to time, we hear denials of the centrality of slavery to the Civil War. "egroes belonging to our citizens are not considered subjects of exchange and were not included in my proposition." Grant imposed only one condition: black soldiers must be exchanged on the same terms as whites. A presidential election was approaching, and anything that could be done for the benefit of the soldiers would redound to the benefit of the administration party. ![]() More than 100,000 men were held in camps on both sides, but more in the South than in the North. By the fall of 1864, word of the horrific conditions at Southern prisoner of war camps - especially Georgia's Andersonville - had spread through the North. He proposed to Grant that the two armies resume the prisoner exchanges that had ceased in the first half of 1863.ĭespite his reputation as a ruthless practitioner of attrition warfare, Grant was amenable to Lee's request. Lee needed every man he could get to defend the lines, and he didn't have enough. Now, Lee's force were besieged inside the Richmond-Petersburg fortifications. Yet that smaller Confederate total represented a higher proportion of Confederate strength, 46%. Union forces had suffered about 50,000 casualties the Confederates, about 32,000. In May and June of that year, Grant had chased Lee across Virginia in the murderous Overland Campaign. Indeed it is the major's recollection of "Battle Cry of Freedom" that serves as the finest review martial music can receive: praise from the enemy.In October 1864, Robert E. As he performed picket duty on the eve of the final engagement of the Seven Days' Battles east of Richmond, Va., the major heard Union troops, who had suffered heavy casualties, defiantly singing the song. The Chicago Tribune reported that "Battle Cry" was introduced by the Lumbard Brothers, who sang it at a war rally in Chicago on July 24, 1862.īut a Confederate major after the war recalled hearing the song a few weeks before the Chicago concert. There is debate when the song was first performed 140 years ago this summer. Supporters of Lincoln who traveled to Washington for his second inaugural in March 1965 were greeted at the capital's railroad station by a band playing Root's creation. Joseph Hooker's army before the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. Union soldiers heard more than their fill of martial music but didn't tire of "Battle Cry," particularly the line Root wrote about the young Yanks: "And though he may be poor, he shall never be a slave."Ībraham Lincoln, whose enjoyment of martial music went back to his Springfield days, heard "Battle Cry" performed often during the frequent summer concerts on the White House grounds and when he reviewed Gen.
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