New Jersey's Civil War: "Brave Volunteers of New Jersey"

After the surrender of Fort Sumter, which ushered in the Civil War, the martial spirit swept the North and New Jersey was no different than the other northern states. Young men from New Jersey rushed to recruitment offices where they joined the ranks of the state's volunteer regiments. This song, "Brave Volunteers of New Jersey," reflected the attitudes and euphoria that were exhibited in the first months of the war.

• 
  
  "The brave volunteers of New Jersey, / All patriots, noble and true;/ Aroused at the call of our country,/ We'll stand by the red, white, and blue,/ To tyrants we'll never give in;/ Rebellion should have its just due,/ For liberty union and liberty live, in/ The hearts of true Jersey Blue."



• 
  
  "Bold treason, uprising, is striving/ To pluck the bright stars from the blue;/ And freedom's last hope is surviving/ Maintained by the swords of the true--/ Shall liberty languish and perish,/ Because we are not brave, or true?/ Oh no! in our bosoms we cherish/ The fame of the rue Jersey Blue."



• 
  
  "Our fathers of old, long before use/ Won, and left a proud name for their sons,/ Their spirits are hovering o'er us,/ Their blood in their children still runs--/ Oh long may we share in, and merit/ The glory to patriots due;/ We'll maintain the proud name we inherit/ Long, long live the true Jersey Blue."



• 
  
  "No party nor clan shall divide us,/ The Union we'll place above all--/ The laws of our land must still guide use/ United we'll stand, or we'll fall--/ And long may the blessings of heaven/ Descend on the brave and the true;/ Three cheers for the union be given,/ And three for the true Jersey Blue."

Another View of Sword's Courage

In an earlier post I reviewed Wiley Sword's Courage Under Fire, in which I was critical of the book. So, I thought I would post excerpts form a review that gives another view of the book. John E. Fairweather, reviewing the book for Civil War Book Review, wrote:

"What is courage? What does it mean to be brave? Is courage something concrete that one can identify, or is it that simple? Is it driven by goals and to what extent does courage affect people’s everyday lives? Ask anyone what courage means, and they could probably give a definition, but ask for an example, and the differences of opinion are sure to generate debate."

"In his new book, Courage Under Fire, Wiley Sword takes on these questions. With excerpts from letters and documented events, Sword shows the courage and the suffering of people caught in the maelstrom of the Civil War in a very real sense. A Pulitzer Prize nominee and winner of the Fletcher Pratt award for his book Embrace an Angry Wind (1994), Sword has put names and faces to the word “courage,” showing that the definition of the word can be as varied as the people who define it."

"If hindsight is 20/20 then foresight should be considered legally blind. Much like a court case, it is important for all involved to see the entire body of evidence before passing judgment. When ordered to attack a heavily defended Confederate position, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Curtiss of the 127th Illinois Infantry refused. Curtiss, a battle hardened veteran, believed that the attack, scheduled to take place across open terrain near Atlanta, Georgia, on August 3, 1864, was foolhardy and refused to allow his men to become cannon fodder for the enemy. Curtiss was subsequently removed from his command, and the attack went on without him. Major Thomas Taylor, of the 47th Ohio Volunteer Infantry did take part in the attack, which resulted in a Union victory although the unit took heavy causalities during the fighting. As one might suspect, he was outraged at the conduct of his superior officer, and hoped that Curtiss would be arrested and charged with desertion under fire. Based on this situation, does it take more courage to challenge authority, or to accept the dangers and try against all odds to succeed?"

Full review.

Roll Call to Destiny

I'm looking forward to reading Brent Nosworthy's Roll Call to Destiny. Here's a review from H-CviWar:

"Brent Nosworthy wrote Roll Call to Destiny after the success of his volume The Bloody Crucible of Courage: Fighting Methods and Combat Experience of the Civil War (2005). It was while writing that massive tome that the author realized the potential for looking in depth at small unit actions during the American Civil War. For this work, "small units" are defined as "a group that fights as a monolithic entity and thus undergoes similar experiences, rather than a formally defined level of military organization or size of the fighting force" (p. 3). This broad definition of a small unit allows Nosworthy to look at everything from a single section of artillery to a division of troops as a single experience-sharing entity."

"By looking at a single unit, such as the Second Minnesota Volunteer Infantry at Missionary Ridge, Chattanooga, or the Seventh South Carolina Cavalry at the Battle of Darbytown Road, Petersburg, the author helps individualize the events of the war. By moving away from commanding generals and actions of whole armies, Nosworthy offers a much fuller picture of personal actions, both heroic and cowardly, of individuals. More important, we are able to see how the actions of just a few can affect a much larger whole. The work includes a number of small unit actions involving fighting, ranging from the Virginia Peninsula all the way out to Fort Hindman in Arkansas. In each case, the analysis is of just a small piece of the engagement, with an overview of the greater battle to help keep the analyzed portion in context."

"Beyond this, however, Nosworthy has done something quite original; he not only examines individual units within a larger action, but also analyzes tactical situations facing men on the ground and how they were able or not able to adapt to those situations. Going back to our previously mentioned units for example, the Second Minnesota Volunteer Infantry was deployed as skirmishers during the Union assault on Missionary Ridge. After gaining its initial objective of the Confederate works at the base of the ridge, the regiment found itself under an intense bombardment from Confederate artillery above. "Artillery in the heights above now focused its attention on the rifle pits and rained canister on the Union soldiers below" (p. 247). Thus, it was decided by the men on the spot to push forward and up the ridge face. The regiment's skirmish formation greatly reduced the effectiveness of Confederate artillery and musket fire. This, on top of the increasingly difficult angle of fire being forced on the Confederate defenders, allowed the Second Minnesota to lead a successful penetration of the Confederate Army of the Tennessee. This attack, along with the flanking movements elsewhere, led to the collapse of Confederate General Braxton Bragg's siege of Chattanooga."

Full review.

Diehard Rebels

Here's some excerpts from a review of Jason Phillips's Diehard Rebels that was published on H-CivWar. Phillips asks the question: Why did Confederate soldiers fight so hard for so long? I can't wait to read this book.

"Diehard Rebels has what every good book should have: a compelling problem. Why on earth did Confederate soldiers fight on until the spring of 1865, in the face of mounting evidence that their cause was doomed? It is all too easy to assume that they were either "insane, delusional, or bombastic," but Jason Phillips provides a much more persuasive and richly documented answer (p. 4). Soldiers "submitted to unending carnage and squalor," he says, "because they expected to win" (p. 2). As Phillips observes, we will never properly understand soldiers' motivations if we view them through the lens of hindsight, with the outcome of the war in mind. It is impossible, of course, for historians completely to disregard such a towering and inescapable fact as the Confederacy's defeat, but Phillips succeeds to an admirable degree in his effort to approach the second half of the Civil War through the eyes of the soldiers themselves, who saw things from a "worm's-eye" rather than a "bird's-eye view" (p. 90). Even at ground level there were signs that the Confederacy was in trouble. But committed Confederate soldiers--"diehard rebels"--simply refused to see them. Instead, as Phillips puts it, they "focused on the thinnest silver linings and chased rainbows until the war's end" (p. 34)."...

"Diehard Rebels forces a rethinking of existing interpretations of Confederate soldiers' motivations, making very careful use of an impressive range of soldiers' writings to probe the important but often overlooked question of why Confederates continued their fight. Phillips is to be commended for taking these soldiers seriously and for genuinely trying to understand--not to glorify, not to mock, but to understand--their view of the war and the world. The stakes involved are far from trivial; the intensity of these diehards' commitment extended the war and in so doing sealed the fate of hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides who might otherwise have survived. "

Full review.

Courage Under Fire, Review

I wish I could say that Wiley J. Sword's latest book, Courage Under Fire: Profiles in Bravery From the Battlefields of the Civil War, is a welcome addition to the vast field of books on the Civil War, but I just cannot do so. Sword's objective is to provide numerous examples of the different types of courage displayed by both soldiers and civilians during the war, but, however, he falls short of this goal.

One of the themes that seems to be at the center of this book is that there were no real differences between Northern and Southern soldiers. They all shared, according to Sword, a common sense of duty and displayed similar courage. OK, but what does this add to our understanding of the war? Nothing at all. This book is a drums and bugle, highly romanticized view of the war.

Sword also has quite a romantic view of Robert E. Lee. Lee is portrayed as this man of great courage. How was he courageous? Well, he implemented a rather foolish battle plan on day 3 at Gettysburg and then accepted the blame for its failure. I guess its courageous to nearly destroy your army and seal the fate of your country as along as you say "my bad" once you've done so.
I have other problems with the book. For the first 150 or so pages, he centered each chapter around a certain theme and illustrated each theme through long block quotes from soldiers' letters. The excerpts from letters and diaries are extremely interesting, but Sword's analysis of these letters was fairly light. Though these excerpts were absorbing, Sword may have relied on them too much. There is an urge among historians to let documents do all the talking, but a good historian must step in help us make sense of the documents. Also, Sword abruptly stops relying on these excerpts about half way through the book. It is as though he realized that he was bogging down the text with these long block quotes. The second half of the book reads much better because the flow of the text is not constantly being interrupted.

For a better study of civil war courage I recommend Gerald Linderman's Embattled Courage.

Once Enemies, Now Friends

I came across this article written by Hal Moore, former Lt. General in the US Army and author of the memoir We Were Soldiers Once...And Young. Moore tells how the mutual experiences of war can make men who were once enemies embrace each other as friends after the guns have fallen silent. Moore wrote:

"When the blood of any war soaks your clothes and covers your hands, and soldiers die in your arms, every breath forever more becomes an appeal for a greater peace, unity and reconciliation. "

"It was Vietnam. I was their commander and accountable for them. We charged the enemy with bayonets fixed to our rifles in face-to-face combat. I still hear the ugly sounds of war. I still see the boots of my dead sticking out from under their ponchos, laces tied one last time by their precious fingers. … I still carry the wounded to the helicopters as they bled, screamed and begged to live one more day … and I still hold those who die in my arms, with their questioning eyes dreading death, as they called for their mothers … their eyes go blank and my war-crusted fingers close their eyelids. The blood of my dead soldiers will not wash from my hands. The stains remain."

"On Nov. 16, 1965, we won the LZ-Xray battle in the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam. But 79 of my dear troopers died for those of us who lived. During the battle, we took prisoners of war. We gave them water and aspirins to help relieve their pain. Their anxious faces soon gave way to expressions of relief that they were treated with dignity."

"My unending thirst for peace and unity drove me to return to the "Valley of Death" in 1993. Some of my men accompanied me to meet with the man, along with a few of his soldiers, who had once endeavored to kill us all. Lt. Gen. Nguyen Huu An and I came face-to-face. Instead of charging one another with bayonets, we mutually offered open arms. I invited all to form a circle with arms extended around each other's shoulders and bowed our heads. With prayer and tears, we shared our painful memories. Although we did not understand each other's language, we quickly saw that the soul requires no interpreter."

"Gen. An and I then walked toward each other and shook hands. He kissed me on both cheeks! A communion of friendship was established that far outweighed past bloody memories. Later, Gen. An and I walked part of the battlefield. Together we surveyed the once blood-soaked terrain. Foxholes dug long ago were adorned with blooming wildflowers. No thunder of war filled the air. Instead, birds sang with a most beautiful "noise." Ever so gently, Gen. An placed his arm in mine. We had made a very long journey from war to peace. This was sealed through the reverent affection of one arm in the other."

Full Article.