Civil War & Bloody Peace: Following Orders

An Excerpt:

PREFACE

This second edition was necessitated, first of all, by a review I received in Western Writers of America, where he called it necessary history but in need of an edit. I decided that people still did not understand why I was following Henry’s orders, so hope to clarify that further by removing unnecessary references to Henry throughout. I also noticed that some of my analysis missed the mark, cleaned up mistakes along the way and yes, found new material to add.

As I was working on this edit, I saw some areas where I could have added even more, but that would have made it a redundant reading to my other nonfiction, “From Lincoln to Trump,” which I recommend to flesh out more of the politics of the issues shown here.

The Democrats and Republicans have had a terrible time working together even before the Civil War but certainly after, as evidenced by the growing politically divisive and bitter campaigns. You’ll see more of that in my other book; here you are treated to attitudes behind orders that Henry received. We use his orders to follow history, not the other way around. 

If we look seriously at Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, take him off his pedestal by stripping away all the rhetoric and mythology, we’d still recognize the tremendous effort he made to keep the country united. Here you’ll see that this had less to do with Emancipation and more to do with the need for progress; industry, the railroads, and resources that the South threatened to withhold. Yes, the war was fought over ending slavery, but no, it was not fought over freeing slaves. Not at first.

As for being the first American president assassinated, I don’t see how Lincoln possibly could have survived the war that he was so much a part of. He probably knew, judging by the dreams he’d reported, that his death was the ultimate outcome of this first Republican presidency in a country so torn by bloodshed. He hadn’t been willing to stop war by recognizing that slavery would die on its own as the slaves freed themselves. Thus we have the argument, yet today, that the war was not fought over slavery. In a way, it was fought over business, progress and the right to cheap labor, but always wrapped in the need to end slavery.

What we can see was that if Lincoln had allowed the South’s secession, and they had formed their own country, war would still have been fought by both sides over the western territories, whether they should be slave or free. Civil War and the “old west” development with the takeover of Indian lands in the west were going to happen regardless of choices made before 1861.

Imagine the country had Lincoln not been killed. But this book doesn’t play alternate history. Quite the opposite. You’ll see by following Henry’s orders how our country came to be as it is now.

Part of the problem has been trying to rid the U.S. of racism. First the Republicans wanted them as a voting bloc, and then decided they could win just find without them, so in stepped Jim Crow. The Republicans simply stopped caring. And in this business climate racism continued because the whites wanted to keep them out of the competition for jobs.

There was a story William Powell told, shortly before Wounded Knee in 1890, of Indians looking to take part in the American system. One day when visiting a reservation in the 1800s Powell asked a young Indian, who had excellent English and had been educated at an Indian school, why he just loafed around.

“Do you prefer that life to having something to do?”

“I would be glad to get anything to do to earn some money.”

“Can you drive a six-mule team?”

“I can drive a six-mule or any other kind of team,” he answered. “But nobody will give an Indian anything to do out here.”

Powell finished this story by saying, “Looking at it from a moral standpoint—the question which suggests itself is, Has the government no responsibility in the matter? It is our duty to fit them to take their places in the great struggles of life.” 

Indians made deals for the land but felt they had retained the right to the resources on the land, only to find out the whites thought differently. Land treated away included its resources, and sharing didn’t happen in a capitalist system.

My hope is that this book offers a new understanding of how the United States came to be as it is today, and where we should be headed in the future. We don’t learn from the past if we don’t understand the past.

NOTE TO RESEARCHERS/READERS: For this second edition, I used my new method of indexing to sure that it works as it should. The problem with authors indexing their own books is that they tend to edit as they index, without even being aware that they’re throwing everything off. So for “From Lincoln to Trump” I used a separate PDF to look up the terms, and if I saw something that needed editing, it forced me to do so very carefully, and the compare the Word document to the PDF. In this respect, I hope you’ll find everything is where it’s supposed to be.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

As I made my way around the country following Henry’s trail to all the forts where his order sent him, I met a lot of great people at state and local archives and National Park sites who were helpful, and I hope I don’t miss any of those who took that extra step without asking for monetary recompense.

Archives included Des Moines, Topeka, Lincoln, Cheyenne, Laramie, Santa Fe, Leavenworth, Chicago, Atlanta, Frankfort, Little Rock, New Orleans, Madison and Washington DC. Libraries included Denver, Indianapolis, Columbus, Milwaukee, Topeka, Mount Sterling, Detroit, Davenport, Rapids City, Davenport, and Green Bay.

Special thanks are extended to Dr. Oscar Chamberlain, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, for the guidance extended me in my master’s thesis, and the members of my committee—Jane Pederson, John Mann, and Cynthia Gray-Mash (and to Jim Oberman, who got me started but then dropped out because of my emphasis on historical attitude).

For my on-the-road research I thank the help of John Waggener, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie; Scott Smith, Fort Sumner National Monument, New Mexico; Tom Buechner, Fort Robinson National Monument, Nebraska; Andy Watson and Jim Rogers, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, where they claim Henry’s portrait as the only provost guard photo they’ve seen; Javier Garcia, Fort Brown Historic Site, Texas; Jim Prichard, Supervisor, and Janet Minder, Archives Research Room, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky; Dan Brownell, Park Superintendent, Fort Fred Steele, Seminoe State Park; Mike Shaver, National Park Service, Fort Columbus, New York; Richard Frank, Fort Leavenworth Frontier Army Museum, Liz Mayfield, Fort Leavenworth Historian; Samuel Sisneros, State Archives, New Mexico; Stephen E. Towne, Indiana Historical Society; Ola Flucas, Little Rock Public Library; Nancy Curtis, editor/publisher, High Plains Press; Michele Flugrad, from Connecticut, provided me a copy of Sarah Morgan, for another viewpoint of the Civil War.

Tim Renick, Department of the Army, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, photocopied John Sullivan’s 1997 master’s thesis for me without charge, which sent me off in a number of new directions early in my research-gathering days. Marie Varrelman Melchiori gave me some invaluable research tips. Cecil Sanderson, Curator, Fort Bridger State Historical Site, looked for the names of Company E soldiers that were stationed there. Special thanks to Ondine Le Blanc with the Worthington C. Ford Editor of Publications at the Massachusetts Historical Society for their gracious permission to use a map from “Meade’s Headquarters: Letters of Theodore Lyman.” It was so gracious and yet I couldn’t get the photo to work so I had to look elsewhere.

For other help with providing permission use of photos with no charge, I thank Arlene Ekland-Earnst, Fort Fetterman curator for her insights on free use photos; Paul Burke, First Nations website; Todd Baird, Museum Specialist, Fort Laramie National Historic Site; Heather Bettinardi and Stephan McAteer, Director, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History; John Hennessey, Chief Historian and Chief of Interpretation for Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania NMP, National Park Service; Elizabeth Anderson, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for donating her research to this book; David Rumsey, Cartography Associates, and his website for those wonderful maps he provides; Kathy Buker, Chief of Special Collections at US Army Combined Arms Research Library at Fort Leavenworth; Deb McWilliams, Nebraska State Historical Society, for her help in tracking down some challenging photos; Lisa Aguilar, University of Texas Libraries; John Hawthorne, University of Texas at Brownsville; author Larry K. Brown, for his help with resources; and the 2012 staff at New Mexico State Archives, Santa Fe. Also, to the help of Fort Robinson State Park Museum courtesy Tom Bueckner and Dixie Thompson, Rosebud Reservation Museum.

A special thanks to Tom Phillips for his artistry of the Allison Commission and to those who helped me acquire the rights to use it; Michael Schaefer and Gloria Valoris.

To my readers: Connie Hansen, fellow member of the Manitowoc Civil War Round Table, for her help in editing and further considering ways to describe the book. To Green Bay Reading Writers Guild members Sarah Mead and Jim Welhouse for enjoying it and offering further suggestions; and Diane Schlitz of Abrams and Mary Jane Swiatek, an online friend, who helped me further clarify the clarity of my writing.

Photo permissions have been secured. The maps in the Civil War half were recreated from maps used in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, which were furnished by a series of articles published in the Century Magazine. That Magazine ceased to exist in 1930, so all in that series are in the public domain. It is my belief that no one can purchase them and hold copyright to them, and I am using them with the reassurance of Milwaukee Civil War Round Table member and author Lance Herdegen, (whose books include Those Damned Black Hats! and Iron Brigade in the Civil War) and I am hugely indebted to him for his reassurances. Other photos are used where permission could not be found and are duly noted in that respect or were removed; it is hoped that they will contact me if I owe them a fee.

Maps have been recreated in the Bloody Peace half by hiring the assistance of a mapmaker.

A big thanks to the Manitowoc County Civil War Round Table, for giving me the assurance that my research is sound. I performed the Civil War portion of Henry’s history as an impersonation and they honored me with a rousing standing ovation and no criticism on the material. To Lawrence Sievert, for hiring me to write his movie script on Custer at the Little Bighorn. His access to expert material gave me rich material to draw from. A great thanks, finally, to my family: Husband Joe, daughter CarrieLynn and sons Adam and Bennett for putting up with my long years on the road in search of the flesh and bones of this book.  

An especially grateful shout-out to Adam Reinhard for his graphics art abilities; contact me if you’re looking for a good cover artist.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………….…………………XIV

Part One: Civil War

Chapter

1. Recruitment is Canceled, 1862……………………………………………..…………..23
2. The Need for Soldiers……………………………………………………..………..……30
3.  In Response to Mac’s Demands……………………………………….…….…..….…40
4. Political Victories…………………………………………………….…………..………54
5. This War Is Serious………………………………………………………………………65
6. Burnside’s Stone Wall………………………………………………………………..…76
7. Marching in Mud, 1863…………………………………………………………………93
8. Hooker’s Game……………………………………………………………….………….99
9. Lone House at Chancellorsville………………….………………………….…….…109
10. Chas Lee to Gettysburg………………………………………………….……..…….117
11. Heck of a Way to Run a War…………………………………………………………123
12. From Battle Heroes to Draft Dodgers…………………………………….………..136
13. The Cost of Freedom…………………………………………………….….………..152
14. The Bloody Month of May 1864……………………………………….….…………168
15. Trees of Blood & Bone………………………………………………..…………..….196
16. Life in Siege……………………………………………………………………………214
17. Three Generals and a Crater…………………………………………………….….222
18. Lee’s Last Hope……………………………………………………………….………239
19. If No Troops, Send Rumors……………………………………………….………….252
20. The Splintered Union, 1865…………………………………………………….……265

Part Two: Bloody Peace

Chapter

• Westward Army Ho, 1865-66……………………………………………….……….275
• Unsettled Settlers, 1866-67……………………………………………………289
• Forcing a War…………………………………………………………………..298
• Starvation Reservation, 1867-68……………………………………………..314
• A New President, 1868-69……………………….……………………………338
• Peace on the Plains, 1869-71 ………………………………………………..354
• The Black Vote for Grant, 1871-72………………………………………….366
• The Panic of 1873………………………………………………………………385
• Gutting the Last Great Reservation, 1874-75………………………………399
• Indians Won’t Break Treaty, 1875-76………………………………….……413
• What Went Wrong in 1876…………………………………………………….430
• The Custer Avengers, 1876-77………………………………………………..449
• Unstable Politics, 1877-78…………………………………………………….461
• Cooperation with Mexico, 1879-81…………………………………………..474
• The Professional Soldier, 1882-85……………………………………………491
• The Last Dance, 1885-90………………………………………………………499
• What Became of US, 1891-1916…………………………………….………..515

EPILOGUE………………………………………………………………………….522

Teachers Classroom Guide………………………………………………………..529

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………531

Index…………………………………………………………………………………560