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‘Oh! my soul—what a sight presented itself!’: A Witness to the July 1863 New York Draft Riots

Jonathan W. White — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 12:31:00 +0000

In her day, Elizabeth Oakes Smith was a national figure. Born in Maine in 1806, she and her family moved to New York City in the late 1830s, where she joined literary circles and emerged as a prominent feminist essayist, lecturer, and poet. By the 1850s, she was living with her family on Long Island. The forces of the Civil War, however, led to her downfall. In 1861, her favorite son, Appleton Oaksmith, was arrested for outfitting old whaling ships for the slave trade. After spending several weeks imprisoned at Fort Lafayette in New York and Fort Warren in Boston, Oaksmith was transferred over to civil authorities and convicted in the federal court in Boston in the summer of 1862. Before he could be sentenced, though, he escaped from jail and exiled himself in Havana, Cuba, where he became a Confederate blockade-runner.

Elizabeth Oakes Smith spent the war years seeking a presidential pardon for her son. She wrote to Abraham Lincoln and met with Secretary of State William H. Seward, but nothing ever came of her efforts. As the war continued, she became increasingly embittered toward the Union and believed that Appleton was the victim of a malevolent administration in Washington, D.C. Although she had shown sympathy for African Americans and abolitionism before the war, her Democratic politics became increasingly evident in her diary by the midpoint of the war. She grew to especially hate Seward.

Elizabeth Oakes Smith spent much of the prewar years championing women’s rights, and was sympathetic to abolitionism. But when her son was arrested for slave trading and she could not obtain his release, she grew increasingly bitter toward the Lincoln administration.

In the summer of 1863, Oakes Smith experienced one of the greatest terrors of her life—the New York City Draft Riots. For several days in mid-July, working-class men, women, and children—mostly Irish Democrats—lashed out against Lincoln’s conscription and emancipation policies. At least 105 people died during the five days of rioting, many of whom were African Americans who were viciously targeted by the mob. During this ordeal, Oakes Smith saw a dense crowd standing around a lamppost, upon which hung the body of Colonel Henry O’Brien, the Irish commander of the 11th New York Volunteers, who had ordered his troops to fire above the crowd the previous day in order to disperse them.

Sadly, O’Brien’s men had killed a mother and her 2-year-old child in the process. Now the rioters would exact their revenge. She also encountered Jeremiah G. Hamilton, a 56-year-old African American millionaire on Wall Street. Her diary, which is held with her papers at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia, is one of the most remarkable accounts of this period. The following excerpts trace her reaction to the Gettysburg Campaign and then the horrific events that transpired in New York City shortly afterward.

June 17
The whole country is in a ferment because of the movement of General Lee north—Harrisburg is threatened—the Govenor [sic] of New York has been called upon for troops by the Govenor of Pennsylvania. The people have responded generously to the State call, but desired guarantees of the Govenor that they shall go only on short service—to defend the north—not fight the South—they will not trust the authorities at Washington.

June 18th
The excitement still continues. The people call for Gen. McLellon [McClellan] to head the army of the Potomac. We are now reaping the bitter fruits of the imbecility, and treachery of this Administration. I sometimes wonder how the historian will deal with this period. The Abolitionists have anticipated time by publishing their own version of events, called a History of the Rebellion by [John S.C.] Abbott, which suppresses facts and misrepresents them.

I am startled and distressed at events, and find how little I have understood the world—how far off the ideal seems now—that once was so near: but to one thing I still cling, the intrinsic worthiness of our humanity—the wholesomeness, and upwardness of its attributes—and then comes the question whence comes all this distortion?….

June 19
….Noon. The papers have come—and the panic is subsiding—it seems that Lee is on the retreat. I do not think all this demonstration is for nothing—I believe he designs to attack Washington, and dictate a peace from the Capital….

June 24th
A day of heavy work—found myself worn in body and spirit—cross and miserable.

The country is in a state of ferment, and yet it is suppressed—no faith in our rulers—I see the Govenor of New Jersey has directed the Malitia which was collected for the defense of Pennsylvania, to be disbanded, judging that there will be no occasion for their service. They refused to serve under the Administration….

Lee’s army within 18 miles of Pittsburg. 10 o’clock P.M. Going to bed—dissatisfied with myself—oppressed with a terrible sense of weariness and despondency. I am indeed cast from my moorings, drifting—drifting—whither?

June 25
The Confederates in large force in Pennsylvania—the papers contain some terrible records of savage cruelty and atrocious crime perpetrated by the Black soldiers. The negro in our cities and villages also has started upon a career of crime unparrallelled in our history. We are threatened with a war of races, in which the poor Negro must and will be the great sufferer….

June 27
[Discussion of Lee’s invasion and Confederate privateers omitted.]

I believe this treacherous Administration designs to allow the Confederates to take Washington—having no capacity to manage our national affairs—finding themselves hopelessly involved, they design to let matters take very much their own way, and then under plea of necessity, acknowledge the Southern Confederacy:—then will come the contest for northern supremacy, when the wily Seward hopes to ride into the Presidency of the North….

June 30th
….The Confederates are within four miles of Harrisburg. Gen. Meade has been called to the command of the army of the Potomac—Gen. Hooker relieved probably because of his interference. This is bad, people say, in the face of the enemy—but the Administration will not care to give battle—they wish for a general disruption in public affairs. They have inaugurated the reign of falsehood.

July 1st
….The Confederates are within ten miles of Washington—they do not seem inclined to battle—with a grim wit they say they have come North to hold Peace meetings. So disgusted have the people become with the present Administration that they seem rather disposed to receive, than repel the invaders. Many say openly that the prospect of restoring the Constitution would be better under Jefferson Davis, than under Abraham Lincoln. Immense Peace Meetings prevail through the country, and resistance to the enrollment is the common sentiment….

July 3d
Great anxiety about the expected battle—I am by no means sure that our arms are successful against Vicksburg. The repulse of our troops at Port Hudson was a shocking, and bloody disaster….

July 6th
A terrible battle has been fought at Gettysburg. The Union army is said to be triumphant, with a loss of twenty thousand men—Good God! what horrible carnage—I am sick at the record—my whole soul revolts at this sanguinary conflict. Such a victory is as ruinous as defeat. There must be a compromise—for neither party will yield, and each seems an equal to the other in point of courage and persistency….

July 20th
The past week has been one replete with anxiety and not without incident. On Monday 13th inst. I took the early train for the City, where the most appalling scenes awaited me. Our fool-hardy, despotic rulers in spite of the warning of observant men, and the indication of the masses, that revolt would come, have persisted in enforcing the Conscription Act. On Saturday the action of Draft created no disturbance, although much jeering and derision followed. The City was greatly excited through Sunday—On Monday I went to the City, and what I now describe, I saw myself. I had occasion to visit the offices of several lawyers upon business—as I passed along the streets large bodies of people thronged the corners—a great crowd was about the Tribune Office, and the white faces of the workmen within, with their little paper caps upon their heads now and then appeared at the windows—but retreated at a sort of growl from the crowd which beset them.

I was obliged to call upon places in this vicinity, and was not unwilling to learn by my own observation the exact spirit of the crowd. I saw a respectable working-woman threading her way through the living mass, as I was doing myself, and found it convenient to use her and her basket as an entering wedge. Sometimes it would cross my mind, that if paving stones should take wing my position would be a dangerous one—but I had little anxiety for myself—indeed! let me confess it: own to the truth.

I was intoxicated—drunk with excitement. I said of myself—“Oh thou drunk, but not with wine.” I had seen the people submit to so many arbitrary measures—seen them go like sheep to the slaughter in this stupidly managed war—seen them die without a word for measures repugnant to them—seen the encroachments upon our liberties made daily by this corrupt Administration, and yet the people were silent—bitter—cursing deep, not loud, and I began to lose all hope—I wished I could do…something to rouse them—but nothing seemed able to do this—the people tamely cowered under oppression—the radical Editors lied and deceived them as did the rulers at Washington, and I despaired for American freedom. I knew the draft was repugnant to the genius of the country—I knew that the…burden of the war fell upon our working men, and the clause of exempting those who were able to pay the $300 threw all the burden upon the poor men, still it seemed as if the people would submit—

More on the Draft

But now there was a recoil—five thousand men were up in arms—there was a perfect howl of rage and indignation from the masses. I said to my pioneer of the basket—“what is the matter? what are the people about?”

She gave me a fierce look—“They wont be carried off to the war—that’s what is the matter.”

“Well, would you have your husband carried off in this way?”

“If they do, they ve got to fight me first,” was the prompt reply. She went on with a hard sneering laugh—“Eh! you ladies can pay the $300 and keep your men to home.”

I said no more—passing into Broadway the shops were nearly all closed—the stages had been stopped or converted into conveyances for the insurgents—I walked up to the University building where I found Dr. Elliott, and Edward, on my way I passed several police men, haggard, dusty—exhausted—I said to myself—the mischief works—these insolent ruffians, who have lately fairly trod upon the people—knocking them down, firing upon them in mere wantonness, will now find a check—I grew ruthless in my indignation—for their insolence and cruelty had become a public cry.

About three o clock P.M. Capt Ellott invited us to a dinner at Delmonico in 5th Avenue: scarcely were we seated when the waiters rushed in barring the doors and closing the windows, and there came that great sound as of the sea—the tumult of the people. The rioters had burned down the colored orphan asylum and several other buildings—they paused and for a brief space it was doubtful whether they would not force the building. Soon there was a cry—“there goes a nigger,” and the cruel, remorseless multitude, three thousand strong were in pursuit of the unhappy fugitive. He was without doubt torn in pieces. As we made our way up to 36th street, all was dire confusion—mad uproar—police men, Military, citizens and rioters, in one vast conclave. I was shocked and ashamed to hear these well to do and luxurious people—the denizens of that vicinity urge the fire of the military—there was no expression of pity—no sympathy for the poor laborer, who in his mad vengeance sought a sort of justice—a wild revenge one most true.

Rioters, many depicted as stereotypical Irish, jeer at a lynched African American on Clarkson Street, by the Hudson River docks. Violence against Blacks was a hallmark of the Draft Riots, and many African American families left Manhattan in the wake of the upheaval.

Early on tuesday morning I was obliged to go to Wall Street. Before noon the outbreak had assumed such proportions that all business was suspended—stages and cars could not run, and the frequent discharges of the military told that hot work was in progress. I tried to make my way up town—I could not get across the City to take the train for home—nearly exhausted I was struggling onward when a carriage stopped in front of me, and J.G. Hamilton Esqr asked me to ride home with him—I did so and remained long enough to rest, and obtained information that struck me to the heart, and which I inwardly resolved to impart to the people.

While resting in the Hamilton parlors, which opened upon 29th st. down which masses of people were constantly passing with the debris of the insurgents, I observed a demonstration which was quite touching. I ought to say that Mr Hamilton is I think an eastern Indian—his complexion is darker than that of a mulatto, but his features are Caucassian [sic]—and he is a highly cultivated man—his children also are dark, but with fine black eyes, and long hair in ringlets—not at all [illegible word]. Two of these stepped out upon the balcony as they probably have always been in a habit of doing to watch the passers by in the street. Mr H. sprang from his chair—took them in and closed the window—He understood the hazard growing out of their dark complexions. I shall never forget the expression of anguish upon his face.

Soon after I took my leave, and my Host advised me to get at once into Lexington Avenue as a safer retreat from the crowd. I followed his advice—but made a circuit which brought me into the midst of the insurgents. Oh! my soul—what a sight presented itself! Masses of infuriated women, tossing their arms wildly—weeping women and children, and pale desperate men—pools of blood—broken furniture burning ruins. In a low calm voice I began to talk with the people—I told them what I had just heard that five thousand men would reach the City in the five o’clock train, and they had orders to march at once to this Avenue [2nd] and rake the whole length of it with grape shot—no warning given—the first round would be this iron hail. I went from group to group and told this and urged them to go to their houses. A poor, lank boy of thirteen kept close to me—at length I said to him, “My poor boy—go home—keep out of these dreadful scenes.”

The child burst into a perfect paroxysm of tears and sobbed out—“I have’nt got any home”—a woman explained that his Mother had been for some time dead—the father had been killed in the army—and the child lived upon the kindness of others. Observing a pale desperate looking man leaning against a wall I assayed a word with him—“Madam, (he said in good accent) it may be easy to tell us what to do—but I will not obey this draft. I may as well be shot here as anywhere. Look here—(pointing to blood upon the walk)—the soldiers fired upon us—not a word—no warning—and I took a child up—shot through the head—covered with blood—I looked at him—it was my own child—I will have revenge.”

Colonel Henry F. O’Brien commanded the 11th New York Volunteers, which skirmished with the rioters. Discovered by a mob in a drugstore, he was dragged out, beaten, hanged, and tortured to death. Oakes Smith’s remonstrances on his behalf were rebuffed.

Colonel Henry F. O’Brien

At length a great burly fellow eyed me with a savage frown—and muttered between his teeth—“I know what you are—you are one of them aristocrats from the fifth Avenue—you’re a Spy”—looking round upon his followers—“she’s a Spy—sent here from the Black Republicans!” I saw I was in some danger—but I did not flinch—I do not think I turned pale—I repelled the charge in a calm, firm voice, and went on—he following and muttering—but I did not fear—a superhuman strength seemed mine. I knew better than to leave them—so I kept on talking in [a] low calm manner, advising them as seemed best. I had now reached 33d street, the disorder rather increasing. A short distance from me was a dense mass surrounding a lamp post, upon which the infuriated multitude had suspended the body of Col O Brine, an Irish officer, who had commanded his troops to fire into the crowd. It was a sickening sight—for four hours they tortured the unhappy man—prolonging his sufferings with a fiendish fury. I expressed compassion for him—but they justified their conduct on the ground that he was a traitor to his countrymen—

The deep shadows began to overspre[a]d the neighborhood—and waving my hand I turned up fourth street, quite a group following me and thanking me for what I had done.

The people everywhere repelled the imputation that their object was plunder. It was only opposition to the Draft, they said, and disgust at that clause in the act by which the rich man could exempt himself by paying $300 while the poor man was compelled to go.

It is not generally known what gave the first impetus to the Riot against the draft. I was told several times by the people with whom I talked, the Rioters—and they all told the same story.

It seems that somewhere in the vicinity was a widow woman—Irish, who had six sons. Of course the six were enrolled for the Draft, and by a singular fatality—the whole six were drafted—the young men were aghast—a crowd followed them to the Mother’s door; when the announcement was made to the Mother—she uttered a wild cry—“a yell,” the people called it, and rushed shrieking into the street, tearing her hair and tossing her arms above her head. The effect was electrical—and the fierce passions of the people broke out at once, sweeping all before them.

Like a moth to a flame, Oakes Smith ventured into Manhattan during the riots. Some of the locations she noted are numbered here: 1. New York Tribune offices; 2. Delmonico’s; 3. The Colored Orphan Asylum; 4. 36th Street, which she recalled was full of “police men, Military, citizens, and rioters”; 5. After briefly visiting with Jeremiah G. Hamilton on Wall Street, she headed to his home at 68 E. 29th Street; 6. Near this corner, a mob first attacked Colonel Henry O’Brien of the 11th New York Volunteers.

I returned home on wednesday morning. In the cars I found Mr Hamilton—looking haggard and internally excited, but outwardly calm, and determined. I said at once go home with me. He remained nearly a week….Oh how anxiously we waited returns from the great City.

The Radicals have done their utmost to exasperate all classes—in order to have martial law proclaimed in the City. God save us from such calamity—the streets of New York would run blood—and the prisons be filled with men and women suffered to be obnoxious to the powers that be.

this article first appeared in civil war times magazine

Jonathan W. White is professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University. In August 2023 he published a biography of Appleton Oaksmith titled Shipwrecked: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade-Running, and the Slave Trade with Rowman and Littlefield.

How the Hungarian Hussars Started a Fashion Craze

Zita Ballinger Fletcher — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 17:23:29 +0000

Hussars were light cavalry units with roots in Central and Eastern Europe. Famed for thundering into battle on horseback and fighting with sabers, they were fierce and not easily turned back. One nation with a special pride in its hussar troops is Hungary, credited with developing the classic hussar style of uniform; a 1518 woodcut by Albrecht Dürer depicts a rider holding a “Hungarian” battle trophy, consisting of a cylindrical plumed cap and cord-fastened tunic typical of hussar uniforms. Furthermore, the German word for a hussar coat is “Attila,” a common Hungarian name.

A typical hussar uniform consists of tight trousers suitable for riding, boots, a form-fitting tunic with frogging (braided cords fastened by frog buttons), a cylindrical cap (sometimes a fur busby cap or shako), and a short outer coat called a mente, or pelisse.

The hussar coat in its raw, original warlike form was truly ingenious. Early versions were made of animal hides or furs, or had thick fur lining. The thick fur of the coat was multipurpose. Not only could it keep a cavalryman warm, but could deflect saber blows, allowing a rider some protection but not weighing him or his horse down, and permitting fast arm movements for saber slashing.

The hussar coat was flexible. It could be worn as a coat, hung over both shoulders like a cloak or fastened over one shoulder, usually the left. Hungarian hussar uniforms were colorful, with bright red being a traditional color.

Hussars were popular. In addition to having ethnic Polish and Hungarian hussars serving in their army, the Habsburgs formed German-speaking hussar regiments. The Prussian, British, French and Russian empires formed their own hussar units.

The dashing horsemen won admiration not only for battle prowess but for their fashion. The “hussar look” soon became vogue with European aristocrats regardless of military ability. Over time hussar coats tended to be worn over the shoulder for show; some versions abandoned sleeves and became mere capelets.

Imperial Austro-Hungarian jacket of Empress Zita’s Regiment 16 has a more traditional look with thick sheep wool lining.

With the “Germanization” of hussars by the Austrians and Prussians came more muted tones, less fur, and simpler frogging–yet this was not always the case. Some styles became fancier. This 1846 Prussian hussar jacket features opulent gold braiding and gold lace.

This 1909 Braunschweig tunic is more understated than many.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

A Look at the Dreyfus Affair: Why Was This Soldier Betrayed?

Jon Guttman — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 18:14:26 +0000

As a housekeeper for the German Embassy in Paris, Marie Bastian had two tasks. She was expected to gather the day’s paper trash twice a week…unless she recognized something worth pocketing to pass to her other employer, Maj. Hubert-Joseph Henry of the Section de Statistiques (“statistics section,” the innocuous-sounding title for French counterintelligence). Making her rounds on Sept. 26, 1894, she noticed a handwritten note in French lying torn up in the wastebasket of German military attaché Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen. She wasted no time in taking it to Henry, who passed it to his superior, Lt. Col. Jean Sandherr.

Pieced together, it proved to have only minor military secrets. Far more serious was the evidence of its origin. Someone in the French General Staff was passing secrets to the Germans.

A Spy In Their Midst

It had been 23 years since the Franco-Prussian War, in which the Second Empire of Napoleon III collapsed and the collection of kingdoms and duchies that brought it down united into a single entity called Germany. Peace had reigned since then between the French Third Republic and the German Second Reich, but each power eyed the other suspiciously.

Behind a seeming high point in European civilization, spy games went on as secret agents from all the powers sought out any foreign secrets that might give them an edge, should another war ever break out. Although the French army had recovered from its humiliating defeat, it remained insecure to the brink of paranoia. This new revelation seemed to suggest that the paranoia was warranted.

What became known as “The Dreyfus Affair” exposed discriminatory attitudes in French society. German military attache Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen received intelligence reports from a double agent; Picquart defied his superiors by seeking the truth; Sandherr was determined to rest the blame on Dreyfus.

Sandherr had been aware that someone was leaking information to Schwartzkoppen, but the note was the first solid evidence to fall into his hands. Matching the handwriting against documents among the General Staff, he found at least two specimens that seemed to match. Since the intelligence being passed was a list of new artillery components, including technical details for a hydraulic brake in a new 120mm howitzer and modifications to artillery formations, Sandherr narrowed the search down to an artillery captain on the staff: Alfred Dreyfus.

Soldier and Patriot

A thorough examination of Dreyfus suggested dubious spy material. Born on Oct. 9, 1859 in Mulhouse, Alsace, he was the youngest of nine children whose father had risen from a street peddler to a textile manufacturer. When the Germans seized Alsace and Lorraine in 1871, the Dreyfus family moved to Basel, Switzerland, then to Paris. There Alfred chose to pursue a career in the army, enrolling in the Ecole Polytechnique to study military sciences.

In 1880 he was commissioned a sub-lieutenant and from then until 1882 studied artillery at Fontainebleau before being assigned to the 31st Artillery Regiment at Le Mans and then the 1st Mounted Artillery Battery of the First Cavalry Division in Paris. In 1885 he was promoted to full lieutenant and in 1889 served as adjutant to the director of the Etablissement de Bourges with the rank of captain.

Emile Zola’s editorial “I Accuse” protested his innocence.

Dreyfus married Lucie Eugènie Hadamard on April 18, 1891. Three days later he was admitted into the Ecole Superieure de Guerre (war college), from which he graduated ninth in his class in 1893. He was assigned to the headquarters of the Army General Staff—and ran into the first serious career obstacle stemming from his being the only Jewish officer on the staff.

One of his evaluators, Gen. Pierre de Bonnefond, gave him high marks for his technical acumen but lowered his overall score with a zero rating for “likeability” (what in modern U.S. Army jargon amounted to an “attitude problem”), adding that “Jews were not desired” on his staff. Although admitted to the staff, Dreyfus and some supporters protested Bonnefond’s blatant bias—an act that would be used against him when he came under investigation.

Dreyfus Framed

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Despite two of three examiners expressing doubts as to the similarity between Dreyfus’ writing samples and the handwriting on the note, Sandherr made it the cornerstone of his evidence against the captain. On Oct. 15, Dreyfus was ordered to appear at work in civilian clothes and was questioned by a self-styled handwriting expert, Maj. Armand du Paty de Clam, who, feigning an injured hand, asked Dreyfus to write a letter for him. Dreyfus did, giving no indication that he recognized the message he was transcribing as the same one to Schwartzkoppen. Upon his completing it, Du Paty fleetingly examined both documents and informed Dreyfus he was under arrest.

After four days of a secret court martial, Dreyfus was convicted of treason on Dec. 22 and sentenced to life imprisonment. At a public ceremony on Jan. 5, 1895, he was publicly stripped of every accoutrement on his uniform and had his sword broken before being sent to serve his life imprisonment at the penal colony on Devil’s Island in French Guiana. His last statement before being taken away was: “I swear that I am innocent. I remain worthy of serving in the army. Vive la France! Vive l’Armée!”

As Dreyfus was led away, he faced a barrage of insults, not only from brother officers but crowds stirred up by army provocateurs to undermine any sympathy for the traitor. The emphasis was on his religion, the most common cry being “Death to the Jews!” One Hungarian correspondent covering the event for the Austrian Neue Freie Presse took special notice.

Although he then believed Dreyfus guilty, he commented on the nature of the aftermath in his diary in June 1895: “In Paris, as I have said, I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism…above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to ‘combat’ anti-Semitism.” Despairing of his co-religionists ever finding acceptance anywhere in Europe, Theodor Herzl turned his thoughts toward the idea of their finding a homeland of their own.

In Search of Justice

While Dreyfus endured heat, insects, malaria, dysentery and all the horrors that gave Devil’s Island its dreaded reputation, his older brother Mathieu spent all the time, energy and money at his disposal to have Alfred’s case reexamined, seemingly in vain. One appeal after another was rejected. The French army staff, obsessed with maintaining an image of infallibility, was not about to reconsider its rush to justice against the homegrown “foreigner” in its midst.

When Sandherr, promoted to colonel, left the Section de Statistiques to command the 20th Infantry Regiment at Montauban on July 1, 1895, his successor, Lt. Col. Marie-Georges Picquart, was instructed by Assistant Chief of the General Staff Charles-Arthur Gonse to find more incriminating evidence to ensure that Dreyfus stayed right where he was.

Picquart, however, proved to be of different moral fiber. Investigating more on his own than his superiors authorized, the more he found the less the case against Dreyfus rang true to him—especially in March 1896, when he found a telegram from Schwartzkoppen, intercepted before it left the embassy, addressed to the actual author of the note.

Dreyfus is depicted at his trial proceedings. Many of the officials charged with dispensing justice turned out to be biased against him.

That and other handwritten documents revealed a more precise handwriting match than Dreyfus’s. The handwriting was traced to Maj. Charles Marie Ferdinand Walsin-Esterhazy, another staff officer who had served in intelligence from 1877 to 1880. In a scenario common in the world of espionage, Esterhazy had fallen deeply in debt and sought a way out by selling secrets to the Germans. Confronted by Picquart on April 6, he made a full confession. Picquart submitted his revised report, with a recommendation that the Dreyfus case be reexamined.

A Military Cover-Up

The response was hardly what he expected. His demand ran into brick walls at every turn from senior officers like Chief of Staff Gen. Raoul le Mouton de Boisdeffre and Minister of War Gen. Auguste Mercier, who remained determined that army intelligence not be sullied with having to admit that a mistake led to a miscarriage of justice. In regard to letting the real traitor slip away, Gonse went so far as to say, “If you are silent, no one will know.” “What you say is abominable,” replied an outraged Picquart. “I refuse to carry this secret to my tomb.”

Picquart’s strong sense of justice led to his undergoing a series of transfers “in the interest of the service,” first to a unit in the French Alps and ultimately to command the 4th Tirailleurs Regiment in Sousse, Tunisia. In a further attempt to discredit his findings, Boisdeffre and Gonse ordered Picquart’s deputy in the Section de Statistiques, Maj. Henry, to fortify Dreyfus’ file with more incriminating evidence. This Henry did on Nov. 1 by producing what he declared to be further correspondence between Dreyfus and the Germans. However, when Boisdeffre and Gonse brought the most incriminating letter to then-Minister of War Jean-Baptiste Billot, they realized that it was a forgery clumsily created by Henry himself.

Dreyfus’ innocence was becoming too clear to deny. Yet Billot joined Boisdeffre and Gonse in agreeing that the verdict must stand—and to persecute Picquart, “who did not understand anything.” Henry conjured up an embezzlement charge against his former superior and sent him an accusatory letter. This only brought Picquart back to Paris, armed with a lawyer.

Dreyfus was imprisoned in a tiny cell on Devil’s Island, where he despaired of ever being released. His family never gave up on his cause.

Far from being buried, by mid-1896 the Dreyfus case had grown into a cause célèbre attracting partisans on both sides. Most French journals upheld the guilty verdict and opposed a retrial, reinforcing their arguments with accusations that Jews could only be expected to betray any country they inhabited.

Besides the army, the partisans who came to be called “anti-Dreyfusards” were mainly conservatives, nationalists and traditionalists. The tradition they conserved was hundreds of years of antisemitism that had supposedly ended with the Revolution and the Rights of Man, but which the General Staff tacitly encouraged in its ongoing campaign to keep the brand of traitor on Dreyfus. Among the foremost civilian mouthpieces was Edouard Drumont, whose publication La Libre Parole became an open forum for anyone with bile against Jews in general.

The Spy Escapes

In spite of all this, a growing cross-section of the French intelligentsia began taking up Dreyfus’ case. The first of these “Dreyfusards” was anarchist journalist Bernard Lazare, who after examining the existing evidence published an appeal from Brussels, Belgium. The conflict between of the Revolution’s ideals and the revival of old prejudices in “defense” of a Catholic France came to virtually split the entire country in two, breaking up lifelong friendships even in the world of impressionist art. Claude Monet, Mary Cassatt, Paul Signac and Camille Pisarro, for example, were Dreyfusards, while Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were anti-Dreyfusards.

With evidence of Esterhazy’s guilt and Dreyfus’ innocence leaking into public scrutiny, the General Staff took a new step to address the matter head-on. On Jan. 10, 1898, it tried Esterhazy before a closed military court, Mathieu and Lucie Dreyfus’ appeals for a civil trial having been denied. The three army-supplied “experts” testified that Esterhazy’s handwriting did not match that on the bordereau. The next day, after three minutes of deliberation, the court acquitted Esterhazy and all officers present cheered. Dreyfusards protested in the streets, to be beaten down by mobs of rioting anti-Dreyfusards and antisemites.

Dreyfus suffered on, but the trial’s real victim was Picquart, who was discredited, subsequently arrested for “violation of professional security” and imprisoned in Fort Mont Valérien.

Having been publicly exonerated, Esterhazy was discretely discharged from the army and exiled to Britain via Brussels. Settling in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, he lived out his life comfortably until 1923.

Esterhazy was proven to have been the real spy. Henry deliberately fabricated evidence against Dreyfus and was found dead in prison. Famed writer Emile Zola led efforts to exonerate Dreyfus with vehement essays but met with an untimely death.

The Dreyfusards swiftly changed tactics, doubling down on Lazare’s use of the press with a vehement 4,500-word open letter to President Félix Faure by novelist and social critic Emile Zola in the Jan. 13, 1898 issue of the newspaper L’Aurore. It was aimed directly at the high command’s perfidy with a title suggested by fellow journalist Georges Clemenceau:“J’Accuse!”

Clemenceau himself was equally accusatory when he declared, “What irony is this, that men should have stormed the Bastille, guillotined the king and promoted a major revolution, only to discover in the end that it had become impossible to get a man tried in accordance with the law.” Others who took up Dreyfus’ cause included Léon Blum, Anatole France, Marcel Proust, Sarah Bernhardt and even Mark Twain.

A Forgery discovered

J’Accuse exposed all that was known of the army’s morally corrupt handling of both Dreyfus and Esterhazy and included the General Staff members involved by name. L’Aurore’s circulation was normally 30,000 but it sold 200,000 copies on Jan. 13. The anti-Dreyfusards’ reaction was so violently negative that Zola needed a police escort to walk to and from his home. On Jan. 15 Le Temps called for a new public review of Dreyfus’ case. Minister of War Billot struck back by filing a public complaint against Zola and Alexandre Perrenx, manager of l’Aurore, for defamation of a public authority, which was approved by the Chamber of Deputies by a vote of 312 to 22.

Held at the Assises du Seine between Feb. 7 to 23, the trial ended with Zola condemned to the maximum sentence, a year in prison and a 3,000-franc fine. Again, the verdict was accompanied by street riots against Zola and against Jews. After another trial on July 18, Zola took friends’ advice and exiled himself to England for the following year. In the process, so much of the Dreyfus Affair was exposed to public scrutiny that Zola’s two courtroom defeats ultimately amounted to a tide-turning victory.

France got a new minister of war, Godefroy Cavaignac, who was eager to prove Dreyfus’ guilt but was completely in the dark about the high command’s obstruction of justice. He ordered the case files examined and was astonished to find out how much evidence had been withheld from Dreyfus’ defense.

On Aug. 13, 1898 one of his staff, Louis Cuignet, holding a key document before a lamp, noticed that the head and foot were not the same paper as the body copy. The forgery was soon traced to Major—now promoted to lieutenant colonel—Henry.

Alfred Dreyfus, in uniform on right, undergoes a retrial at Rennes in 1899 in which he was still found guilty but had his sentence reduced; he then received a “pardon.” His supporters fought for justice and he was declared innocent in 1906.

A court of inquiry was called for Esterhazy, who admitted his treason and revealed the high command’s collusion in framing Dreyfus. On Aug. 30 the council questioned Henry in the presence of Generals Boisdeffre and Gonse. After an hour of interrogation from Cavaignac himself, Henry broke down and confessed to having falsified the evidence. He was promptly arrested and imprisoned in the Fort Mont Valérien. The next day he was found with his throat cut. Nobody found a straight razor on his person when he entered his cell. How it got there—and whether his death was suicide or murder—remains a mystery.

With the news reports of Henry’s act of deceit, the anti-Dreyfusards declared him a martyr. Lucie Dreyfus pressed for a retrial. Cavaignac still refused, but the president of the council, Henri Brisson, forced him to resign. Boisdeffre also resigned and Gonse was discredited. While the partisans continued to struggle, sometimes violently, new revelations were gradually shifting the political landscape. A growing number of French Republicans recognized the injustice that hid behind the military’s veneer of “patriotism.”

Pardoned?

On June 3, 1899, the Supreme Court overturned Dreyfus’ verdict and sentence. Dreyfus himself had little or no access to news of the maelstrom brewing in the wake of his arrest. It was days later that he learned that he was being summoned back to France.

On June 9 Dreyfus departed Devil’s Island—only to be arrested again on July 1 and imprisoned at Rennes, where he was to undergo his retrial. This began on Aug. 7, presided over by Gen. Mercier, who was still determined to maintain the guilty verdict, and attended by as much popular rancor as before. On Aug. 14 one of Dreyfus’ lawyers, Fernand Labori, was shot in the back by an assailant who was never identified. As the original case against him crumbled, the president of the council, Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau, sought a compromise.

Although five of the seven court members upheld the original verdict, on Sept. 9 Waldeck-Rousseau declared Dreyfus guilty of treason “with extenuating circumstances” and reduced his life sentence to 10 years. The next day Dreyfus appealed for another retrial. Eager to put the “affair” behind France, Waldeck-Rousseau offered a pardon. Exhausted from his time on Devil’s Island, Dreyfus accepted those terms on Sept. 19 and was released on Sept. 21. Still, being pardoned implies guilt. Dreyfus’ supporters remained unsatisfied with anything short of exoneration. Beyond France, protest marches broke out in 20 foreign capitals.

Not Guilty

Among other literary responses, Zola added to his previous essays, L’Affaire and J’Accuse! with a third, Verité (truth). On Sept. 29, 1902, however, Zola died, asphyxiated by chimney fumes from which his wife, Alexandrine, narrowly escaped. In 1953, the newspaper Liberation published the dying confession by a Paris roofer that he had blocked the chimney. Dreyfusards like socialist leader Jean Jaurès kept up the pressure for the next several years.

Dreyfus, facing left, later served in World War I and fought on the Western Front.

On April 7, 1903 Dreyfus’ case was investigated once more—and eventually its conclusion was finally reversed. On July 13, 1906 he was declared innocent. He accepted reinstatement in the army with the rank of major, backdated to July 10, 1903, and was also made a chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. He commanded the artillery depot at Fort Neuf de Vincennes until June 1907, when he retired into the Reserve. Also exonerated was Georges Picquart, who rejoined the ranks, was promoted to brigadier general and served as Minister of War from 1906 to 1909. He died in a riding accident on Jan. 19, 1914.

On June 4, 1908 Dreyfus found himself literally the target of residual antisemitic hatred. As he attended the transfer of Emile Zola’s ashes to the Pantheon, journalist Louis Grégory fired two revolver shots, slightly wounding him in the arm. Although apprehended, Grégory was acquitted in court.

The question of Dreyfus’ loyalty to his country got a final test when World War I broke out. Returning from the reserves at age 55, he commanded an artillery depot and a supply column in Paris but as the French army suffered heavy attrition in the field, in 1917 he transferred to take up an artillery command on the Western Front, fighting at Chemin des Dames and Verdun. His son, Pierre, also served as an artillery officer, being awarded the Croix de Guerre. Two nephews also became artillery officers but were both killed in action. The only other major player in the Dreyfus Affair to see combat during the war was Armand du Paty de Clam.

In 1919 Dreyfus’ honors were upgraded to Officier de la Légion d’Honneur. He died on July 12, 1935, aged 75, and was buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery. For all the French military’s efforts to make it go away, the Dreyfus Affair long outlived its namesake, leaving behind a number of political, legal and social aftereffects. In France it held up a mirror that showed two psyches—which would recur five years after Dreyfus’ death with new evocative names, such as Charles de Gaulle and Pierre Laval. Sadly, it still hasn’t gone away.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

Louisa May Alcott Wanted to Be a Nurse…Until She Realized It Required Bathing Soldiers

Louisa May Alcott — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 17:53:12 +0000

New England novelist Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) is perhaps best known as the author of young adult fiction, including Little Women (1868), and Little Men (1871). However, Alcott put her writing talents to use in describing her Civil War experiences as a volunteer nurse in an autobiographical account called Hospital Sketches (1863).

The result was not what one might expect from a nurse’s narrative. Alcott’s account is unique because of its irreverence and her extremely dry sense of humor. Giving herself the literary nom de plume of “Tribulation Periwinkle,” she describes the ironies of being an Abolitionist wanting to get in on the “excitement” of the war but finding herself in over her head. Alcott contracted typhoid fever during her Civil War service, for which she was treated with mercury; scholars have speculated that the health problems she suffered later on throughout her life were related to her exposure to mercury.

Here Alcott describes her interactions with wounded soldiers from the December 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg in Virginia, Robert E. Lee’s one-sided Confederate victory over Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s Army of the Potomac in which the 12,000 Union casualties were over twice those of Lee’s rebels.It gives us a perspective of what was on Union soldiers’ minds after the battle; rather than being preoccupied with the overall military situation or their cause, they were focused on matters at hand and their lives at home.

Alcott manages to give a general sense of each soldier’s personality in describing her brief interactions with them. It is interesting to think that each of these soldiers, otherwise lost to history, achieved some form of immortality in the following narrative.

Eager To Help

…Having a taste for “ghastliness,” I had rather longed for the wounded to arrive, for rheumatism wasn’t heroic, neither was liver complaint, or measles; even fever had lost its charms since “bathing burning brows” had been used up in romances, real and ideal; but when I peeped into the dusky street lined with what I at first had innocently called market carts, now unloading their sad freight at our door, I recalled sundry reminiscences I had heard from nurses of longer standing, my ardor experienced a sudden chill, and I indulged in a most unpatriotic wish that I was safe at home again…

Having been run over by three excited surgeons, bumped against by migratory coal-hods, water-pails, and small boys, nearly scalded by an avalanche of newly-filled teapots, and hopelessly entangled in a knot of colored sisters coming to wash, I progressed by slow stages upstairs and down, till the main hall was reached, and I paused to take breath and a survey. There they were! “our brave boys,” as the papers justly call them, for cowards could hardly have been so riddled with shot and shell, so torn and shattered, nor have borne suffering for which we have no name, with an uncomplaining fortitude, which made one glad to cherish each as a brother. In they came, some on stretchers, some in men’s arms, some feebly staggering along propped on rude crutches, and one lay stark and still with covered face, as a comrade gave his name to be recorded before they carried him away to the dead house…

ORders To Bathe Men

The sight of several stretchers, each with its legless, armless, or desperately wounded occupant, entering my ward, admonished me that I was there to work, not to wonder or weep; so I corked up my feelings, and returned to the path of duty, which was rather “a hard road to travel” just then…Round the great stove was gathered the dreariest group I ever saw—ragged, gaunt and pale, mud to the knees, with bloody bandages untouched since put on days before; many bundled up in blankets, coats being lost or useless; and all wearing that disheartened look which proclaimed defeat, more plainly than any telegram of the Burnside blunder. I pitied them so much, I dared not speak to them, though, remembering all they had been through since the rout at Fredericksburg, I yearned to serve the dreariest of them all.

Presently, Miss Blank tore me from my refuge behind piles of one-sleeved shirts, odd socks, bandages and lint; put basin, sponge, towels, and a block of brown soap into my hands, with these appalling directions: “Come, my dear, begin to wash as fast as you can. Tell them to take off socks, coats and shirts, scrub them well, put on clean shirts, and the attendants will finish them off, and lay them in bed.”

Union soldiers convalesce in a military hospital during the Civil War. Alcott wrote that “contrasts of the tragic and comic” were everywhere around her. Her stories in “Hospital Sketches” became popular and received great acclaim.

If she had requested me to shave them all, or dance a hornpipe on the stove funnel, I should have been less staggered; but to scrub some dozen lords of creation at a moment’s notice, was really—really—However, there was no time for nonsense, and, having resolved when I came to do everything I was bid, I drowned my scruples in my wash-bowl, clutched my soap manfully, and, assuming a businesslike air, made a dab at the first dirty specimen I saw, bent on performing my task vi et armis [by force] if necessary.

The “Scrubees”

I chanced to light on a withered old Irishman, wounded in the head, which caused that portion of his frame to be tastefully laid out like a garden, the bandages being the walks, his hair the shrubbery. He was so overpowered by the honor of having a lady wash him, as he expressed it, that he did nothing but roll up his eyes, and bless me…so we laughed together, and when I knelt down to take off his shoes, he “flopped” also and wouldn’t hear of my touching “them dirty craters. May your bed above be aisy [may you be blessed in heaven] darlin,’ for the day’s work ye ar doon!—Whoosh! there ye are, and bedad, it’s hard tellin’ which is the dirtiest, the fut [foot] or the shoe.” It was; and if he hadn’t been to the fore, I should have gone on pulling, under the impression that the “fut” was a boot, for trousers, socks, shoes and legs were a mass of mud…

Some of them took the performance like sleepy children, leaning their tired heads against me as I worked, others looked grimly scandalized, and several of the roughest colored [blushed] like bashful girls…Another, with a gunshot wound through the cheek, asked for a looking-glass [mirror], and when I brought one, regarded his swollen face with a dolorous expression, as he muttered, “I vow to gosh, that’s too bad! I warn’t a bad looking chap before, and now I’m done for; won’t there be a thunderin’ scar? And what on earth will Josephine Skinner say?”

He looked up at me with his one eye so appealingly, that I controlled my risibles and assured him that if Josephine was a girl of sense, she would admire the honorable scar, as a lasting proof that he had faced the enemy, for all women thought a wound the best decoration a brave soldier could wear. I hope Miss Skinner verified the good opinion I so rashly expressed of her, but I shall never know.

The next scrubbee was a nice-looking lad, with a curly brown mane, and a budding trace of gingerbread over the lip, which he called his beard, and defended stoutly, when the barber jocosely suggested its immolation…

“I say, Mrs.!” called a voice behind me; and, turning, I saw a rough Michigander, with an arm blown off at the shoulder, and two or three bullets still in him—as he afterwards mentioned, as carelessly as if gentlemen were in the habit of carrying such trifles about with them.

“Don’t You Wash Him!”

I went to him, and, while administering a dose of soap and water, he whispered, irefully: “That red-headed devil, over yonder, is a reb [Confederate], damn him! … Don’t you wash him, nor feed him, but jest let him holler till he’s tired. It’s a blasted shame to fetch them fellers in here, alongside of us; and so I’ll tell the chap that bosses this concern; cuss me if I don’t.”

I regret to say that I did not deliver a moral sermon upon the duty of forgiving our enemies, and the sin of profanity, then and there; but, being a red-hot Abolitionist, stared fixedly at the tall rebel, who was a copperhead, in every sense of the word, and privately resolved to put soap in his eyes, rub his nose the wrong way, and excoriate his cuticle generally, if I had the washing of him.

My amiable intentions, however, were frustrated; for, when I approached, with as Christian an expression as my principles would allow, and asked the question, “Shall I try to make you more comfortable, sir?” all I got for my pains was a gruff, “No; I’ll do it myself.”

“Here’s your Southern chivalry, with a witness,” thought I, dumping the basin down before him, thereby quenching a strong desire to give him a summary baptism, in return for his ungraciousness; for my angry passions rose, at this rebuff, in a way that would have scandalized good Dr. Watts. He was a disappointment in all respects, (the rebel, not the blessed Doctor), for he was neither fiendish, romantic, pathetic, or anything interesting; but a long, fat man, with a head like a burning bush, and a perfectly expressionless face: so I could hate him without the slightest drawback, and ignored his existence from that day forth. One redeeming trait he certainly did possess, as the floor speedily testified; for his ablutions were so vigorously performed, that his bed soon stood like an isolated island, in a sea of soap-suds, and he resembled a dripping merman, suffering from the loss of a fin. If cleanliness is a near neighbor to godliness, then was the big rebel the godliest man in my ward that day.

Having done up our human wash, and laid it out to dry, the second syllable of our version of the word warfare was enacted with much success. Great trays of bread, meat, soup and coffee appeared…Very welcome seemed the generous meal, after a week of suffering, exposure, and short commons; soon the brown faces began to smile, as food, warmth, and rest, did their pleasant work; and the grateful “Thankee’s” were followed by more graphic accounts of the battle and retreat, than any paid reporter could have given us. Curious contrasts of the tragic and comic met one everywhere; and some touching as well as ludicrous episodes, might have been recorded that day.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

A Requiem for Daniel Ellsberg

Larry Porges — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 15:17:35 +0000

Daniel Ellsberg, whose leaked “Pentagon Papers” revealed to the world in 1971 the U.S. government’s closely guarded overview of the Vietnam War, died of pancreatic cancer on June 16 at his home in Kensington, Calif., at age 92.

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Ellsberg, a Harvard-educated former Marine, was an analyst for the RAND Corporation before becoming an adviser to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1964. He spent two years in Vietnam for the DoD assessing the war and spent significant time accompany counterinsurgency sorties in the field.

It was there that his formerly pro-war stance began to change, as the brutality and likely futility of the fighting slowly turned him against American policy. In 1967, he joined three dozen others in compiling what would later be called the Pentagon Papers—a 7,000-page study commissioned by McNamara—detailing the history of the conflict in Southeast Asia and revealing that four successive presidents from Eisenhower to Johnson had expanded the war illegally, misleading Congress and the American public while doing so.

Ellsberg’s work on the document led him to believe the war was unwinnable. In 1971, he leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, and later the Washington Post, who published them wholesale after court battles debating the limits of the First Amendment.

Ironically, it became the next president in the series, Richard M. Nixon, to take the fall. Nixon ordered a series of aggressive countermoves, including illegal wiretaps and a break-in of Ellsberg’s former psychiatrist’s office to dig up dirt, that ultimately led to the Watergate scandal and the subsequent resignation of the president.

Ellsberg was charged with espionage, conspiracy, and other crimes that could have seen him spend decades in prison, but his case was thrown out in 1974 when the level of the government’s misconduct came to light. Nixon’s domestic affairs adviser, John Ehrlichman, even offered the trial judge the directorship of the F.B.I. as the court case was proceeding. Ehrlichman later went to prison.

Ellsberg continued his antiwar activism and in later years became a vocal advocate for nuclear disarmament. In 2018 he was awarded Sweden’s Olof Palme Prize, which noted how his “moral courage” to leak the report led to an “untold number of saved lives.” He is survived by his second wife, children, and extended family.

Read Henry Kissinger’s Secret Message On the Fall of Saigon

HistoryNet Staff — Wed, 17 May 2023 12:23:00 +0000

This cable from April 19, 1975, was sent by U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to Graham Martin, U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam about the impending evacuation of Saigon. It also contains advice about interactions with President Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam. This very candid document is one of many that have been made available to the public by the National Archives.

FM THE WHITE HOUSE

TO AMEMBASSY SAIGON

SENSITIVE EXCLUSIVELY EYES ONLY

DELIVER AT OPENING OF BUSINESS VIA MARTIN CHANNELS WH50728

April 19, 1975

TO: Graham Martin

FROM: Secretary Kissinger

1. Thanks for your 0715.

2. My ass isn’t covered. I can assure you I will be hanging several yards higher than you when this is all over.

3. Now that we are agreed that the number of Americans will be reduced by Tuesday to a size which can be evacuated by a single helicopter lift, the exact numbers are completely up to you. That having been decided, I will stop bugging you on numbers, except to say that you should ensure that the embassy remains able to function effectively.

4. You should go ahead with your discussion with Thieu. In your soundings relative to his possible resignation, however, the matter of timing is also of great significance. In any event any resignation should not take place precipitately but should be timed for maximum leverage in the political situation. You should know, although you should not intimate this to Thieu, that we this morning have made an approach to the Soviet Union. We should not be sanguine about any results but, if there are any, they could easily involve Thieu as one of the bargaining points.

5. You should also know that the French have approached us with the idea of reconvening the Paris Conference. We told them we were opposed and felt it would be counterproductive.

Warm regards.

Liquor Numbed the Pain, Took the Edge Off Homesickness… and Caused Havoc During the Civil War

Megan L. Bever — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 12:06:00 +0000

Rain fell along Virginia’s Rapidan River in December 1863 as the 5th New York Cavalry set about building its winter quarters at Germanna Ford. The thickly wooded hill of Devil’s Leap offered a good location—so good, in fact, that Confederate soldiers encamped along the other side of the river were also racing to clear the hill’s timber for their own winter quarters.

Rain fell. Cold, wet, and miserable, the Federals built their temporary home among the hills. The taskmaster camp adjutant pushed the men to finish while enlisted men pooled their carpentry skills, motivated to put up shelters as quickly as possible to get themselves out of the weather. But on December 30, the building process hit a snag, of sorts. The adjutant took a break from construction to enjoy “a jollification time with an old crony.”

After what must have been a pleasant evening of drinking, the adjutant decided “to make use of one of the deep-dug sinks”—presumably newly constructed by hard-working soldiers. Unfortunately, the adjutant lost his balance and tumbled into the latrine trench head-first—“spoiling his entire suit of clothes.” The adjutant suffered no long-term ill effects of his tumble, although work on the camp construction ground to a halt the next day (presumably because he was hungover and, perhaps, doing laundry). Most of the cavalrymen found his misfortune to be hilarious.

Although the story remains comical more than a century and a half later, it also contains many of the typical elements of soldier drinking during the Civil War: the soldiers in this story were cold and wet from exposure; they were performing what they called fatigue duty by building winter structures; they were in winter camp; the officer was, seemingly, the first to get drunk; and though the mishap caused by the drinking was fairly minor (in this case) it prevented the completion of tasks.

So while it may seem like a random occurrence that a poor drunken adjutant would inadvertently fall into the latrines on Devil’s Leap, military regulations in place during the war created the culture that led to his drinking and subsequent tumble. Liquor was an integral part of military medicine and military life in both the Union and Confederate armies. And officers and soldiers used various forms of liquor for self-care in order to treat themselves for various ailments, both physical and mental. The result of their drinking was a chaotic environment full of mishaps and uncompleted tasks.

In the 21st century, Americans typically associate alcohol with its numbing characteristics—its painkilling, cough relieving, and seeming alleviation of emotional distress. When the Civil War began, the medical community did not describe alcohol (which they typically called “liquor” or “ardent spirits”) as a depressant at all. In fact, medical manuals regarded liquor as a stimulant.

Confederate surgeon John Julian Chisholm described two ways that liquor stimulated the body: it could reinvigorate a body that had lost a lot of blood and it could “restore nervous energy” when men were suffering from shock. U.S. Surgeon-General William A. Hammond noted that when people became intoxicated, “the nervous and circulatory systems become excited, the mental faculties are more active, the heart beats fuller and more rapidly, the face becomes flushed, and the senses are rendered more acute in their perceptions.” Because of these properties, he believed that too much liquor could be “a violent poison,” but he also urged Union hospitals to keep liquor on hand at all times. So during the war, surgeons were instructed to prescribe liquor when soldiers were sick or wounded to stimulate the body to help it recover. Every use of liquor was designed to give the body a jolt.

A Civil War-era alcohol flask, shaped like an oval so it could easily slip into a pocket. The bottom section slid off to be used as a cup. But if time was short and shells were flying, you could simply take a wee nip right out of the flask.

Both the Union and Confederate armies published guidelines on when to use liquor, which were based on the guidelines of the antebellum United States Army. The most obvious uses involved prescribing liquor in hospitals to treat acutely ill soldiers. The medical departments also used whiskey rations to try to prevent malaria by mixing it with quinine. In the 1860s, physicians still did not know that malaria was a mosquito-borne illness, but the British empire—and the U.S. Army—had figured out that malaria tended to occur in swampy, low-lying areas. They also perceived that quinine (which comes from the bark of a cinchona tree) prevented and treated malaria. But quinine tasted unbearably bitter, so whiskey made drinking quinine possible. Any time that the armies were encamped near water, medical departments doled out whiskey and quinine rations (if those supplies were available).

Beyond the medical department, military regulations stated that whiskey (or other types of liquor) could be used in cases of exposure, which meant that soldiers could receive a spirit ration whenever they were stuck in extreme elements, such as rain, snow, or mud. Liquor rations at the end of a shift on picket duty were therefore especially common, as the goal was to prevent the soldiers from becoming ill after they had been cold or damp.

Finally, whiskey rations were used in cases of extreme fatigue. Officially this meant that soldiers could have whiskey rations any time they were building bridges, digging trenches, burying the dead, or performing other similar tasks. In practice, this regulation was often expanded to include any task that was arduous, such as marching long distances.

The guidelines, on paper, seemed fairly straightforward. The uses of liquor were clearly defined and the amount of the rations were regulated, usually at a gill or a half gill (so about a shot or two, in the modern sense). In practice, however, these guidelines were not actually very specific at all. In large part the confusion came from the fact that supplying rations was left to the discretion of the commanding officer. In some cases, commanding generals set their own rules for spirit rations. For example, after Fredericksburg, General Robert E. Lee forbade Christmas rations. But just across the river, in the camps of the Army of the Potomac, Union Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker celebrated the holidays by doling out whiskey rations widely. Often, though, the decision about whiskey rations passed down the chain of command, so the implementation of regulations varied a lot by who was in charge. If a colonel or a major was a teetotaler, the soldiers were probably not getting any rations. Other times, the company officers happily ladled out whiskey.

Throughout the conflict, many low-ranking officers (some of whom had been elected by enlisted men) made decisions about what constituted “exposure” and what constituted “fatigue.” When men had to march, for example, some commanding officers thought that a ration of whiskey could stimulate them for the journey. This did not always work. Whiskey rations promoted straggling.

Federal troops line up for a ration of whiskey or rum—a bit of liquid courage—before they continue the hazardous work of entrenching during the 1864 siege of Petersburg, Va.

Perhaps the most infamous instance of whiskey-related trouble occurred during Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s Mud March after the Battle of Fredericksburg. The soldiers were demoralized. Union officers decided to try to cheer them up with whiskey rations. Instead, the men became drunk and fought. Sometimes, commanding officers would try to give the ration at the end of the march, which seemingly made more sense. Except that orders could change. For example, in 1863, Confederates had similar troubles (albeit on a smaller scale) while on their way to Pennsylvania. After crossing the Potomac River in Maryland on a rainy, muddy day, Confederate soldiers were told they would have time to eat dinner. They received hearty rations of whiskey to combat the nasty weather, and “about one-third got pretty tight.” Orders came to march again, and the tipsy soldiers “dragged” themselves toward Pennsylvania. “Many slipped down and literally rolled over in the mud for it rained all the time.”

In the most extreme instances, officers concluded that battle constituted extreme fatigue. Obviously, this was not what the military considered fatigue duty. But the officers’ perspective seemed to be that if soldiers needed whiskey to dig a ditch, they definitely needed whiskey to charge a hill. The general understanding was that it calmed the men’s nerves and stimulated the body for the attack. But serving these rations could backfire. At the start of the siege of Petersburg in June 1864, a Union captain gave his men a whiskey ration right before an engagement. The men began “dropping into a little ditch just outside of the line of trees.”

The captain stood, “with tears streaming down his face,” screaming at his men, prodding them, and “begging them to get out and keep in line and not disgrace themselves or him.” Despite this fear that men might stop fighting if drinking during battle, plenty of officers served their men rations if they had been under heavy fire, especially if they were celebrating a victory. When Union Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter heard of the U.S. Army’s successes in Tennessee in early 1862, he gave all the colonels permission to issue celebratory whiskey rations to their men. Porter happily predicted that the U.S. Army would take Richmond within six weeks. These celebratory whiskey rations were, in a way, the biggest stretch of the official regulations. Yet officers passed out the drinks because it raised morale. This, indirectly, combated exhaustion.

this article first appeared in civil war times magazine

It is important to remember, though, that unless a soldier got an official government ration supplied at the request of his commanding officer, enlisted men were not supposed to drink. Only officers could drink. They could keep private stores of liquor, they could buy liquor from camp merchants, and they could get passes to go to town and drink.

Enlisted men in the Civil War could not legally procure their own spirits. They could not buy any spirits from the camp merchant (sutler) nor could they drink in town without risking punishment. But enlisted men drank—ALL THE TIME. They based their own uses of liquor off of the armies’ regulations and employed what other historians have identified as “self-care” to make up for inadequacies in the medical departments. Soldiers foraged liquor on the sly in order to keep themselves healthy.

Self-medication

Many soldiers had grown up in households where liquor was used medicinally, and this formed the basis of their drinking. Much like medical professionals, many young men believed that liquors treated illness. So, when soldiers became sick in the army (which was often) they typically tried to find liquor to treat themselves. This was most common with Confederate soldiers, because Federal soldiers tended to receive medicinal liquor rations more regularly. But Confederate soldiers wrote often of trying to procure whiskey, in large part because the Confederate military did not have a steady supply of liquor on hand due to shortages caused by the blockade and the scarcity of grain.

Confederate soldiers used liquor to treat a variety of ailments. Texan Elijah P. Petty imbibed “about 4 fingers of brandy” and took a bath in a spring to treat a fever brought on by a “severe cold,” a case of piles, and a “very sore and painful” ripped fingernail that was undoubtedly infected. The brandy and bath readied Petty for “the full discharge of my duty and more.” Mississippian Robert A. Moore blamed a rainy march for landing him on the sick list with the measles. He purchased some brandy and ginger and concocted a brandy-infused ginger tea, which “made the measles go a little easier.” Soldiers expanded their own use of spirits well beyond treating infected thumbs and head colds. Enlisted men seemingly interpreted “exposure,” “exhaustion,” and “fatigue” broadly.

Much more often than the official documents, soldiers wrote about mental fatigue, especially when they were in winter encampments. By and large, the fighting stopped in the winter and the soldiers ended up living—for months—in massive tent cities. When soldiers moved into winter quarters they tried to make their shelters as home-like as possible, and one of the ways they made themselves warm and comfortable was by drinking. Some men wrote about keeping jugs of whiskey by their beds—officers especially. This seemed like a straightforward use—combating exposure, staving off the cold. But men also wrote about keeping warm by playing whiskey poker and other games. This seemed to be a bit more than just combating exposure. Clearly, soldiers were trying to pass the time, to relieve boredom. They were certainly trying to re-create some kind of familial environment that they had left behind.

And this element of emotional self-care became clearer around holidays such as Christmas, a time when most soldiers were used to drinking with their families. During the war, the men went to fantastic lengths to find liquor around the holidays. A few friends in Walker’s Texas Division pooled their resources to purchase “some whisky at $40 per gallon to have a frolick” on Christmas Day. Soldiers in the 17th Mississippi paid between $30 and $50 per gallon to buy liquor for a “grand camp dance” to celebrate the holiday.

Soldiers often posed with alcohol as the centerpiece of their images. At left, a sergeant poses with a lieutenant. The cavalrymen at right paid extra to have their image tinted with gilt and color, a luxury they extend to the label of the bottle of liquor that takes center stage and the liquid in the glass of the man at center. Red wine?

Union Corporal Robert Rossi and his own friends “made punch”—on both Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. On the latter holiday, they “had a lot of fun and didn’t get to bed until around 3, all of us dutifully drunk.” These men’s attempts to make Christmas in camp similar to Christmas at home fell short. Sometimes, they waited for their families to send care packages, and when those packages did not arrive, they became “melancholy.” Charles Francis Adams Jr., complained to his family of his Christmas dinner of “tough beef” and “commissary whiskey” in 1862. Floridian Robert Watson drank a little, but “did not feel marry [sic] as my thoughts were of home.” Liquor became the attempted, if ineffective, curative for homesickness.

Taking His Medicine

Because soldiers could use liquor to treat their emotional and physical needs, both officers and enlisted men ended up drinking pretty much whenever it suited personal needs, provided they could find the liquor. The Union armies had a fairly steady supply of rations (but those did not always include whiskey). The Confederate armies had a chronic shortage of whiskey. It was used only by the medical department, and the surgeons prescribed it sparingly. But just because official government rations were scarce did not mean that soldiers did not manage to find liquor on their own. Men sneaked into town and bought it from civilians. Camp merchants sold liquor illegally. Men’s families sent them care packages with liquor in them. And, these men spent most of their time encamped in apple and peach growing regions. Young soldiers knew how to find rural stills bursting with brandies.

Controlling the Flow

The presence of liquor—even a small amount—wreaked havoc with camp discipline and led to all sorts of mishaps. Men complained about drunks making a lot of noise. Other men stumbled (not just into latrines) or became lost. More seriously, soldiers who were drunk tended to fight with each other and their commanding officers. This sometimes just ended with the drunken men being put under guard until they sobered up. Other times the violence was more severe. Joseph Herring of the 7th Illinois Cavalry was shot in the arm by a drunken soldier and only saved from death by his “suspender buckle” that knocked the ball off its course. Major Joseph D. Bullen of the 28th Maine was killed after being shot by a drunken fellow. One soldier in the Union Army’s Excelsior Brigade “deliberately shot a member of the same company for no cause whatsoever” while “under the influence of liquor.” While the mishaps were not usually severe enough to change the course of a major battle, military officials scrambled to punish drunken soldiers in an effort to try to maintain discipline.

Army physicians were likewise concerned about soldiers’ overuse of liquor. The 1860s were a transitional time in the way that Americans thought about illness, and specifically, physicians did not regard alcoholism as a disease in the way modern Americans do. When people in the 19th century saw a person who drank too much, they interpreted it as a moral failing. Many people believed that everyone who even tried a drop of liquor was at risk of becoming a chronic drunkard. But Americans during the war did notice the symptoms of too much drinking: the delirium tremens. This shaking and confusion occurred when someone who was regularly intoxicated experienced withdrawal. Yet when they saw a person suffering from delirium tremens, they tended to regard it as the consequence of immorality rather than as illness.

A nurse known as Anne Bell tends to wounded soldiers in a Northern hospital. She holds a cup and spoon. Behind her, bottles, perhaps holding liquor, rest on a bedside table. Confederate nurse Kate Cumming recalled that in her hospital, the “liquor of all kinds is given out on an order from the druggist for each ward separately.”

Moreover, because physicians regarded liquor as a stimulant, no war-era medical books discussed liquor’s numbing effects. Yet even though the medical departments were not officially using liquor to relieve pain, soldiers seemed to be drinking liquor precisely because of its physical and emotional numbing effects, whether they articulated it in those terms or not. Physicians absolutely realized, too, that soldiers—especially those that were sick or wounded—overused liquor to the point that it was a problem.

As a result, physicians tried to control the flow of liquor in the hospitals as much as possible. In the Confederate hospitals, especially, physicians required prescriptions for whiskey and brandy (this also helped to prevent shortages). Union hospitals also tried to curtail chronic intoxication. Virtually all Union hospital newspapers advertised temperance clubs—which urged men to pledge not to drink liquor. The Soldier’s Journal further instructed men: “Don’t sit down listless and inactive and thus enter a course that will make you a curse to yourself and to everybody else because Uncle Sam foots the bill and furnishes rations.” The Cripple described drinking as a vice, which “betrayed the hidden faults of man, and showed them in odious colors and faults to which he is not naturally subject. Wine throws a man out of himself and infuses qualities into the mind making him a stranger in his sober moments.” Drinking excessively was a common enough problem that hospital newspapers devoted significant column space to combating it. And yet, the newspaper writing suggested that while soldiers were drinking because they were bored, homesick, or in pain, society’s understanding of men’s drinking was that it was a moral failure (rather than a physiological condition).

Before the advent of prohibition, the temperance movement gained new advocates among the spouses of Civil War veterans who turned to alcohol to cope with their new realities. Carrie Nation was well-known for her radical opposition to liquor after a tumultuous marriage to David Gloyd, a Union Army doctor and alcoholic. Nation was arrested more than 30 times for raiding bars and using a hatchet to smash fixtures and bottles of booze while singing and praying for the men’s souls inside.

This view persisted as the war came to a close. Members of the American Temperance Union expressed concern that the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who had “learned a wandering life” would be returning to their families shortly. Reformers vowed not to let veterans head down the road to ruin. Their bodies were wounded, and for so long the men had existed only on “hard-tack and salt beef.” When they came in contact with colorful shops filled with goods and carts of “refreshments” on board trains, the returning soldiers would be too weak to resist temptation. These men had “passed through the terrible storm of shot and shell, and hurricanes of flame and smoke.” And while soldiers had “fought and conquered” the rebels, reformers worried that a veteran would “find it difficult to conquer himself.” They were not wrong.

In the late 19th century, veterans of the Civil War struggled to cope with chronic pain from their injuries and the mental trauma from the horrors they experienced. Not surprisingly, they struggled to re-adapt to a civilian world where the prevailing belief was that all men should work hard (usually through manual labor) to support their families. Many veterans continued to drink to self-medicate. And mainstream society, especially in the North, shut the veterans off from the world by establishing veterans’ homes. Yet looking at drinking during the war years reveals that soldiers were beginning to cope with the war—its exhaustions and traumas—while they experienced it. They drank during the war to take the edge off of whatever misery they were experiencing at the moment. And, over time, this led them to become men who behaved outside of the norms civilian society expected of them.

Megan L. Bever is the author of At War With King Alcohol: Debating Drinking and Masculinity in the Civil War (UNC Press, 2022), and an associate professor of history and chair of the Social Sciences Department at Missouri Southern State University. She received her PhD in History at the University of Alabama in 2014. She has published articles in the Journal of Southern History, Civil War History, and the Journal of Sport History and co-edited The Historian Behind the History: Conversations with Southern Historians (University of Alabama Press, 2014) and American Discord: The Republic and Its People in the Civil War Era (LSU Press, 2020).

When A Spaghetti Tree Hoax Caused A Nationwide Uproar

Zita Ballinger Fletcher — Sat, 01 Apr 2023 13:00:00 +0000

Once upon a time in 1957, a BBC news crew decided to broadcast an April Fool’s Day joke. Producers allowed a cameraman a shoestring budget of £100 and the freedom to create a spoof program. It was supposed to be innocent fun.

The result was utter chaos, raging newspaper headlines and the polarization of public opinion…all because many people among the audience had failed to realize that spaghetti did not grow on trees.

The Spaghetti Weevil

If anyone could be fairly blamed for starting all the trouble it would have been freelance cameraman Charles de Jaeger, an Austrian who had helped create Free French broadcasts during World War II and joined the BBC in 1943. De Jaeger wanted to create a spoof segment for April Fool’s Day based on the words of his schoolteacher, who had told the boys in her class that they were foolish enough to believe that spaghetti grew on trees.

He pitched the idea to the producers of BBC’s Panorama segment, a serious and respectable program focusing on current events, society and culture. They agreed. De Jaeger quickly swooped down on a Swiss hotel by Lake Lugano and made every penny of his small budget count towards bringing “homegrown” spaghetti to life in a visual agrarian utopia.

The crescendo of the prank was the participation of eminent journalist Richard Dimbleby, who lent his voice to the broadcast. Dimbleby had become a renowned newsman during World War II. He had braved the front lines, flown with bomber crews on air raids over Germany and described firsthand the horrors of Belsen concentration camp. He had thus effectively become a well-known voice of reason and sober, gritty honesty.

He was also apparently delighted to be able to use his talents for something silly for a change. Amid scenes of smiling women “harvesting” spaghetti from trees, the stolid, trustworthy voice of Dimbleby described the arts of noodle cultivation and the ravages of the ominous “spaghetti weevil.”

Dimbleby did make a point of drawing attention to the broadcast date of April 1 at the conclusion of the segment. But that did nothing to stem the storm that it unleashed.

The controversy

The result was epic. The BBC was inundated with an unprecedented amount of phone calls demanding explanations. Some people recognized that the report was a prank and were outraged. Others wanted the BBC to give them proof to win domestic disputes—the hoax had, in a manner of speaking, provoked “food fights” among families who had divided into camps of believers and nonbelievers.

Others were fascinated by the apparent horticultural revelation—including aspiring gardeners eager to find out how they could obtain and nurture their own spaghetti bushes.

The general state of bafflement that swept across British households in the wake of the BBC report owed to the fact that spaghetti was something of a rare bird in the United Kingdom during the 1950s. Many British people were not too familiar with the dish at that time; it wasn’t a staple of mainstream cuisine nor as widely available as it is now.

The BBC Director General at the time, Sir Ian Jacob, was bewildered by the broadcast and resorted to seeking out the origins of spaghetti in three different books to clear up his suspicions.

Not everybody took too kindly to the fact that the BBC had tricked its audience and the program sparked public debate about the integrity of the media. The broadcasters were heavily criticized by some for duping innocent people into entertaining false hopes of farming spaghetti.

David Wheeler, the program’s producer, remained unrepentant about his role in the spaghetti mayhem, telling the BBC in a 2004 interview that he had “no regrets about it at all.”

“I think it was a good idea for people to be aware they couldn’t believe everything they saw on the television,” he said, “and that they ought to adopt a slightly critical attitude to it.”

Antietam’s Gory Aftermath: How the Union Army’s Post-Battle Occupation Devastated Sharpsburg’s Civilians

Steven Cowie — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 12:21:00 +0000

By the time sunset closed the Battle of Antietam September 17, 1862, nearly 23,000 men were dead, wounded, captured, or missing, making the fight the bloodiest day in American military history. This grim statistic, nonetheless, tells only part of the story, for the small community of Sharpsburg, Md., was the epicenter of that deadly day. Families lived, worked, and worshipped there. It was their home—and the savage combat turned their lives upside down. Shot and shell terrified the inhabitants, destroyed houses and barns, obliterated crop fields, and transformed portions of farmsteads into vast graveyards. Yet this was only the beginning of Sharpsburg’s struggles. Although the fighting ended on September 17, the civilians’ hardships continued.

The Battle of Antietam differed from other engagements like Gettysburg and Monocacy, where the armies departed the battleground soon after fighting, leaving only their wounded and medical personnel behind. After Antietam, tens of thousands of men in the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, remained in the battlefield area for almost six weeks while suffering from supply shortages. The presence of so many soldiers for so long a time devastated the local community on multiple levels. Expressing concern shortly after the battle, Sharpsburg resident Augustin A. Biggs wrote, “We have nearly the whole of McClellan’s army quartered here…we are all in a destitute state, and if the government don’t relieve us, this neighborhood is ruined.”

75,000 Visitors

When General Robert E. Lee withdrew his Army of Northern Virginia from Sharpsburg on the evening of September 18, some residents may have wondered if McClellan’s army might immediately pursue Lee’s Confederates into Virginia. McClellan, however, had already met his Maryland Campaign objective, which was “to preserve the National Capital and Baltimore, to protect Pennsylvania from invasion, and to drive the enemy out of Maryland.” If he pondered rushing his army across the Potomac River to attack Lee, the clash at Shepherdstown (now West Virginia) on September 20 showed the Federal commander that the enemy was by no means demoralized. Ruling out an immediate advance, McClellan decided, “[T]he first thing to be done was to insure Maryland from a return of the enemy.” To prevent this possibility, he stretched his army along the Potomac River to defend the major crossing points from Williamsport to Harpers Ferry, basing most of his forces near Sharpsburg.

From a strategic standpoint, McClellan’s defensive web along the Potomac forced Lee to suspend his plans for reentering Maryland. Consequently, Lee withdrew his Confederate army farther south into Virginia. Satisfied with his defense of the river, McClellan planned to prepare his army “for a definite offensive movement, and to determine upon the line of operations for a further advance.” Such preparations would not happen anytime soon, though. Sharpsburg inhabitants hoping to see the Union army leave the area watched with concern as four army corps settled into nearby camps, lit campfires, and awaited further orders.

A Union burial party takes a break from its work to pose for Alexander Gardner’s camera on September 19, 1862. The warm days following the battle caused the dead to quickly decompose and attract swarms of flies.

Federal troops came and went from Sharpsburg after the battle, but the military population near the small town remained colossal. On October 1, 1862, the Official Records listed more than 75,000 men and officers present for duty in the Antietam battlefield vicinity. At this time, one study argued, more people resided “within a five-mile radius of Sharpsburg than in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Milwaukee, Rochester, or Cleveland.” The bigger problem, the study noted, was that these larger cities were “established urban centers.” By contrast, rural Sharpsburg and its neighboring villages “lacked the commercial ties and transportation networks” to feed and supply the thousands of military guests.

Worse, Confederates sabotaged Army of the Potomac supply lines earlier in the Maryland Campaign, destroying the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad bridge over the Monocacy River, tapping sections of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, and wrecking bridges at Harpers Ferry. Until Federal engineers repaired the damages, McClellan’s army would have to draw supplies from depots at Frederick and Hagerstown. Still, rail shipments from Washington were slow and circuitous, and miscommunications caused delays. In the interim, the Army of the Potomac desperately needed provisions—and unofficially turned the Sharpsburg community into an emergency supply depot.

More than 150 civilian claimants, supported by the sworn testimonies of several hundred witnesses, alleged that Federal forces ravaged properties from September 15–October 30 to offset supply shortages in the medical, commissary, and quartermaster departments. War claims, congressional cases, and other primary sources shed light on the extent of these unpaid appropriations.

Makeshift Medical Supplies

The Army of the Potomac’s medical department faced tremendous challenges during and after the battle. First, the severed railroad at Monocacy Junction, southwest of Sharpsburg, jammed incoming train traffic, stranding boxcars of hospital supplies sent from Baltimore. In addition, regional military traffic delayed the forwarding of medical wagons staged at Frederick, 20 miles distant. Dr. Jonathan Letterman, medical director of the Army of the Potomac, admitted: “For the first few days the supplies of some articles became scanty, and in some instances very much so.”

Charles J. Stille, a member of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, complained that the medical stores “did not reach the battle-field for many days.” On September 21—four days after the battle—Stille observed that the urgently needed items still had not arrived, and on-hand supplies at Antietam’s field hospitals “were not one tenth of what was absolutely needed.” The commission and other relief agencies partially remedied Dr. Letterman’s dilemma by delivering food, clothing, bandages, and medicines to the infirmaries. Nevertheless, according to Dr. Elisha Harris of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, these provisions did not arrive in sufficient quantity until “eight days from the occupancy of the field of Antietam by our force.”

Because thousands of patients needed immediate care, army surgeons and their staff could not afford to wait and thus appropriated makeshift supplies from the community. Troops confiscated entire wardrobes of clothing from homes, leaving nothing for the families. Farmhand Alex Davis recalled, “The soldiers had taken every stitch of mine and the old man’s clothing, and they’d torn up the old woman’s clothing and used it for bandages.” Hospital forces also seized quilts, blankets, and sheets from numerous households, along with window curtains and carpeting. Additionally, they gutted kitchens of cooking, eating, and drinking wares, and carried off buckets and basins and candles and lanterns.

Farmer Michael Miller listed “clothing, furniture Dishes &c.” among his hospital-related losses. Miller’s neighbor, Samuel Poffenberger, clarified in his claim for damages, “I know that the supplies were used in the hospitals…because Dr. Shadduck told me they used everything in the house as hospital supplies.”

Medical personnel were not solely responsible for taking private property. Straggling was a terrible problem at Antietam, and depredating soldiers from both armies ransacked countless homes. They stole jewelry, Bibles, clothing, photographs, and other personal possessions. Describing Confederate thefts, one Sharpsburg townsman complained, “They entered several poor people’s houses and robbed them of everything they had in this world….two thirds of the families in the place had nothing but the clothes on their backs.”

Dr. Anson Hurd of the 14th Indiana walks among his Confederate patients on the Otho Smith Farm, two miles northeast of Sharpsburg. At another hospital, a soldier in the 76th New York remembered that the number of “arms, legs, feet, and hands” he saw tossed into an amputation pit would weigh “several hundred pounds.”

Union troops also plundered homes, and the depredations became so widespread that McClellan issued General Order No. 159 on October 1, 1862, to address the “stragglers and pillagers” wreaking havoc on the region. Unfortunately, the order came too late, for many residents had already suffered heavy losses. When a journalist asked a Sharpsburg villager which army did most of the damage, she replied, “[T]hat I can’t say stranger. The Rebels took; but the Yankees took right smart.” Civilians felt a range of emotions upon finding their homes pillaged, but this particular woman was heartbroken. “When we came back,” she recalled, “all I could do was just to set right down and cry.”

Fits of Hunger

The Army of the Potomac also lacked subsistence in the battle’s aftermath. Since the onset of the Maryland Campaign in early September, many soldiers suffered without regular rations, given that commissary wagons remained miles behind the mobile army. Wagons, though, were not a long-term solution to feeding so large a force. Colonel Henry F. Clarke, the Army of the Potomac’s chief commissary of subsistence, thus depended on railroad shipments from Washington to feed McClellan’s army. To better serve commands in the Sharpsburg region, Clarke’s personnel on September 21 established a commissary depot in Hagerstown, 12 miles from the camps. Notwithstanding, Dr. Letterman recognized that such distance affected the supply network, for his medical department encountered challenges in feeding the wounded. “The difficulty of supplying the hospitals with food,” Letterman reported after the battle, “was a much greater one than that of providing articles belonging to the medical department, and was a matter of very great concern.” Letterman blamed much of the food shortage on “the distance of the depot of supplies.”

The remote depots and wagons, combined with inedible rations in some of the camps, forced many troops into fits of hunger. “How those men suffered!” recalled Abner Small of the 16th Maine. “Hunger, daily felt, was nothing compared with it.” A Massachusetts cavalryman recalled, “Rations for the men and horses were issued only once from September 4 until September 19.” During this time, the horseman explained, “Both men and horses had to be fed by a country nominally loyal to the Union.” Similarly, a member of the 9th New Hampshire confessed, “After the severe engagement at Antietam…the somewhat scanty rations made the surrounding country a tempting field for foraging.”

Confederates had already plundered food from many Sharpsburg properties. Now, Union forces seized what remained. According to sworn statements in several dozen civilian claims, Federals in September and October 1862 took subsistence from nearly every family in the area. Soldiers ravaged gardens, orchards, and potato patches and butchered thousands of chickens, hogs, sheep, and cattle. They emptied smokehouses of cured meats and cleared homes of flour, preserves, and other foods. Describing her parents’ losses, Mary Ellen Piper wrote shortly after the battle: “[I]f you would have gone from cellar to garret, not a mouthful could have been found to eat. Our cattle had been killed; the sheep, hogs, chickens, and everything were gone.”

After the battle, occupying Union soldiers gutted the interior of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on the west side of Sharpsburg for campfire fuel.

McClellan’s troops also plundered the home of farmer Joseph Poffenberger, carrying off all things edible. “[W]hen I returned to my house,” Poffenberger stated in his claim, “it was completely empty. I had nothing left. I lived on army crackers that I found on the battle field for five days.” The scarcity of subsistence impacted hundreds of other residents. One week after the battle, the Hagerstown Herald of Freedom and Torch Light summarized the direful circumstances:

“[T]he region of the country between Sharpsburg and Boonsboro has been eaten out of food of every description…what our people in that section of the county will do to obtain food for man and beasts during the approaching winter, God alone knows.”

Supply Crisis

Lieutenant Colonel Rufus Ingalls, chief quartermaster of the Army of the Potomac, encountered similar supply challenges that plagued the medical and commissary departments. For instance, the fighting at Antietam destroyed several hundred army horses, and hoof and mouth diseases sickened thousands of Federal equines during the battle’s aftermath. Ingalls noted that the epidemic “put nearly 4,000 animals out of service. Horses reported perfectly well one day would be dead or lame the next.” To offset the shortage, U.S. troops seized an untold number of horses from Sharpsburg’s citizens, offering no payment in exchange. Combined with Confederate thefts from September 15–18, the collective loss prompted one civilian to vent in a September 1862 letter, “Nearly all the horses are taken away.”

Q&A with the author

Appropriations aside, the Official Records listed nearly 18,000 equines assigned to Union army corps based near the Antietam battlefield on October 1, and these animals needed copious amounts of forage to survive. Although the war department shipped equine feed to McClellan’s depots, the insufficient quantities failed to meet the army’s demands. Consequently, Federals turned thousands of army horses and mules loose into Sharpsburg’s cornfields, hay mows, and wheat stacks, destroying what remained of the 1862 fall harvest.

Based on losses filed in war claims, Sharpsburg-area petitioners alleged that the Army of the Potomac’s animals devoured more than 4,200 tons of hay, corn, wheat, oats, and rye during the six-week encampment from September 15–October 30, 1862. For example, widow Eliza Davis attested that Union forces confiscated “her entire crop of growing corn” because “the troops being without forage for some days after the battle were compelled to subsist their horses off the farmers in the neighborhood.” Another resident, Eli Wade, testified that all the products on his farm “disappeared like frost before a burning sun.”

“No Fencing at All”

In September 1862, omnipresent fence lines covered Sharpsburg’s landscape, bordering farm lanes and turnpikes while enclosing farmsteads and nonresidential agricultural tracts. Because landowners subdivided their properties into multiple fenced fields for growing various crops, each farm typically contained thousands of rails. Worm, post and rail, and paling fencing stood on most properties in 1862, although some farmers divided their fields with post and board, cap, or stone barriers. While the types of fences varied, nearly all suffered damage in the fall of 1862.

During the Battle of Antietam, Northern and Southern soldiers knocked down worm panels for passage, stacked rails as breastworks, and burned the wood in campfires. Shot and shell also splintered some of the partitions. These damages, though, paled in comparison to the McClellan’s subsequent encampment, during which time thousands of soldiers used a mind-boggling amount of wood for warmth and cooking fuel. After burning the community’s seasoned cordwood, troops dismantled worm fences and post and rail panels, pulled hundreds of locust posts from the ground, and carried off scores of gates. The widespread devastation stripped away miles of fencing, leaving farmers little to contain new livestock or protect future crops from foraging animals.

To locals, the barren landscape was unrecognizable. “The battle made quite a change in the look of the country,” remembered Alex Davis. “The fences and other familiar landmarks was gone, and you couldn’t hardly tell one man’s farm from another.” On the 329-acre farm of the Samuel Grove heirs, witnesses estimated that Federals destroyed more than eight miles of fences. Robert Leakins, a farmhand employed by the Groves, testified, “After the Union troops left, it looked like a prairie—no fencing at all; the soldiers burnt it up.”

The Reel family lived on this farm just north of Sharpsburg. Union artillery fire set their barn ablaze when it was being used as a Confederate hospital and Federal troops camped here post-battle.

Replacing fences put great demands on the inhabitants. Landowners labored to fell trees, haul and split logs, reset posts, and rebuild panels. Those without timber growing on their tracts needed to purchase wood, and others paid out of pocket to hire laborers. Due to the expense, some farmers did not re-fence their lands until after the war. Others found the physical task of rebuilding too much to bear. “It killed my old father,” a Sharpsburg woman lamented. “He overworked getting the fences up again, and it wore on him so he died within a year.”

In a sample of claims and congressional cases reviewed at the National Archives, civilians accused McClellan’s troops of destroying 615,885 rails during and after the battle. This number primarily reflects worm and post fences. Factoring in cap, board, and paling rails, the total fencing destroyed in the Sharpsburg environs possibly measured 100 miles or more. Nonetheless, this staggering amount of wood did not satisfy the needs of McClellan’s army, as encamped soldiers and hospital staff required additional fuel. After confiscating fence rails, McClellan’s forces reportedly demolished several tenant houses and outbuildings to use the lumber as firewood. They also stripped floorboards from churches, weatherboards from barns, and planks from canal boats for the same purpose.

Afterward, the troops set their sights on local timber, which grew on privately owned lands. Out came the axes, and down went the trees—hundreds of them. As temperatures dropped throughout October, soldiers built dozens of log quarters on farms along the Potomac River. Compared to shelter tents, these crude huts provided better protection from the elements but required a significant amount of timber to build. Private Robert Goldthwaite Carter of the 22nd Massachusetts wrote from Sharpsburg on October 24, “[A]t headquarters they are building log huts and seem as contented and happy as possible … they are cutting down everything here in the shape of trees.” Another Massachusetts soldier described the construction of log cabins at Sharpsburg, recalling, “[T]he men made themselves as comfortable as they could, and ‘built a city.’”

Widow Margaret Shackelford, a resident of Sharpsburg, had already lost her husband. Then the Battle of Antietam brought her more suffering. From house to furniture to crops and animals. All her meager possessions, even her kitchen stove, were taken from her, as this list attests.

Based on the civilians’ allegations, Army of the Potomac forces camped near Sharpsburg felled more than 5,000 trees. Quartermaster agents, civilian appraisers, and professional surveyors later verified this destruction by walking through the ravaged woodlots to count the stumps and estimate the damages. As a case in point, William F. Hebb testified that, on his property alone, men from General George Meade’s and John Reynolds’s divisions chopped down more than 1,000 hardwoods. Another Sharpsburg claimant, William M. Blackford, described his woodland as “a very fine and heavy piece of timber which had been saved up for years by my father and myself, and was very valuable.” Of this prized forest, Blackford noted, “Not less than thirty-three acres were cut in the fall and winter of 1862 for fuel and winter quarters.”

Lasting Devastation

When the Army of the Potomac finally departed the region in late October 1862, large sections of Sharpsburg’s formerly picturesque landscape resembled a fenceless wasteland, blemished with acres of tree stumps, stripped crop fields, and shallow graves. Countless families struggled to make ends meet, prompting a local newspaper to complain, “We have been invaded—our fences burned—our wheat crops obliterated from the face of the earth—our stock driven off—our farms and houses pillaged…cannot the Government make some provision for us?” Congress eventually passed legislation to consider war claims, prompting scores of residents to pursue compensation for their Antietam-related losses. However, the slow and frustrating process dragged into the 1900s and, for most claimants, ultimately paid very little.

The sacrifice of serving McClellan’s army cast many Sharpsburg-area families into troubled circumstances. Among them was the wife of a tenant farmer, who testified that, after the Antietam battle, “[T]he Union troops came on the farm and took everything we had and ruined us—I know we lost all we had.” Phillip and Elizabeth Pry, thrown into debt by the Army’s appropriations, sold their land and relocated to Tennessee. Samuel I. Piper’s losses “were so numerous … including valuables, timber and hardwood rail fences,” that the financial burden “brought him to bankruptcy and the farm was lost.” He was left “nearly heart-broken.”

The Herald of Freedom and Torch Light summarized the widespread devastation in October 1862, estimating that “a million of dollars will not more than cover the total loss inflicted upon our county.” And because “the necessary and unnecessary destruction of property has been enormous,” the newspaper correctly predicted, “the county will not recover from the effects of this heart-rending disaster for years to come—probably not in our day and generation.”

this article first appeared in civil war times magazine

The First Coup: President Diem’s Own Paratroopers Attempted to Overthrow His Regime

John D. Howard — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 13:00:00 +0000

The Geneva Accords, signed on July 20, 1954, ended the Indochina War. The Accords established a demarcation line along the 17th parallel, dividing Vietnam into two political entities: the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the State of Vietnam (South Vietnam). Partition was intended as a temporary expedient pending elections in July 1956 to determine if both populations wanted unification.

Rebellion Starts Brewing

South Vietnam’s prime minister, Ngo Dinh Diem, a hardline Catholic, fervent nationalist, and committed anti-communist, was immediately faced with domestic turmoil caused by armed militias threatening the new government. However, the fledgling army had four battalions of well-trained, well-disciplined paratroopers who helped defeat the most dangerous private army, establishing Diem as the undisputed leader of South Vietnam.

Disregarding the mandate for joint elections, the prime minister organized a countrywide referendum where it appeared that the voters had overwhelmingly opted for their own nation, the Republic of Vietnam (RVN), with Diem as president. His rule proved autocratic and nepotistic. His brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, was his chief adviser. Other family members held positions of authority.

By 1960, there was great dissatisfaction among prominent civilians and military officers over Diem’s failure to grant more individual freedoms and be more proactive combating the growing communist insurgency. On Nov. 11, 1960, the same paratroopers who contributed to the restoration of order at independence turned on the president and attempted a coup d’etat. This marked the first open rebellion in the country’s six-year history.

Diem’s Praetorian Guard

Developing a viable military was one of many challenges facing South Vietnam. The national army, a legacy of French colonial misrule, was a heterogeneous assortment of separate battalions and companies. Few leaders were groomed for high command because the French had dragged their feet putting Vietnamese officers into leadership positions.

Airborne battalions were the exception. During the Indochina War, the overextended French Far East Expeditionary Corps used indigenous troops to augment their forces. In 1951, the 1st Vietnamese Colonial Parachute Battalion was formed, becoming the first of five airborne battalions manned entirely by Vietnamese soldiers. French officers occupied key jobs while promising Vietnamese were given responsibilities as combat platoon leaders and company commanders.

After independence, four airborne battalions—the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 6th—were organized into the Airborne Group and moved to Tan Son Nhut Air Base on the northern outskirts of Saigon. All the paratroopers were volunteers. Many had served in combat against the Viet Minh, Ho Chi Minh’s troops. The 5th Vietnamese Airborne Battalion, a former colonial parachute battalion, saw extensive action. Most notably, the unit parachuted into surrounded Dien Bien Phu and fought there until May 7, 1954, when the garrison fell.

Suppressing Gangsters

The Airborne Group’s combat experience was soon tested. The Binh Xuyen, a gangster organization controlling the police, gambling, and prostitution in Saigon, chafed under restrictions imposed by Diem. Its base was in Cholon, the Chinese quarter of the capital, and its heavily armed paramilitary forces numbered several thousand. On April 27, 1955, skirmishing broke out between Diem’s paratroopers and the Binh Xuyen.

The next day, hundreds of soldiers on both sides were killed in fighting that raged throughout Saigon. Cholon became a free-fire zone as mortars and artillery obliterated parts of the enclave, killing 500 civilians and leaving 20,000 homeless. This urban fighting became known as the Battle of Saigon. After a week of intense combat, the Airborne Group overran the Binh Xuyen’s main command post. Most militia troops were killed or captured while their leader, Le Van Vien, fled to Paris.

Diem was impressed with the Airborne Group. One paratrooper, Lt. Col. Nguyen Chanh Thi, especially distinguished himself. When the dust settled, Thi was promoted to colonel and given command of the Group. The prime minister, a bachelor, spoke affectionately of Col. Thi as his “son.” A CIA operative, George Carver, reported Thi was an excellent combat commander but a “blatant opportunist.” This assessment was remarkably prescient.

Warning signs to Washington

Diem’s victory over the Binh Xuyen did not go unnoticed in Washington. Heretofore, there were discussions as to whether Diem was the right man for the job.

Foremost among his critics was Gen. Joseph Lawton “Lightning Joe” Collins, former U.S. Army Chief of Staff. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had appointed Collins as his emissary to South Vietnam in October 1954. Collins was adamant that Diem was not the leader the country needed. His reports to the State Department and Eisenhower castigated the prime minister as “a man in over his head.”

Yet Diem had American advocates. Sen. Mike Mansfield and Rep. John F. Kennedy countered Collins’ criticism. A turning point came when Diem defeated the Binh Xuyen; Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, concluded that Diem held Vietnam together when it was on the brink of civil war. The full weight of the U.S. administration now supported him.

Diem moved rapidly to strengthen his control and take advantage of American goodwill. In October 1955, a quickly organized referendum was held that established the Republic of Vietnam.

A Corrupt Election and business as usual

His brother Ngo Dinh Nhu rigged the election, giving Diem a stunning victory with a 98.2 percent plurality—when ballots were counted, the new president received 200,000 more votes in Saigon than there were registered voters!

Such heavy-handed actions were troubling for Eisenhower. However, he wanted to portray Diem in a good light due to the anti-communist Cold War aims of the U.S. Official pronouncements extolled Diem’s accomplishments. “President Diem stands for the highest qualities of heroism and statesmanship,” declared Eisenhower during Diem’s 1957 visit to the United States. Life, the most influential magazine of the era, followed that lead and called Diem the “Tough Miracle Man of Vietnam.”

The acclaim Diem received in Washington carried little weight back in South Vietnam. A communist insurgency grew. Assassinations, kidnappings, and attacks on army outposts became commonplace. Many officers sensed that Diem and Nhu had a “business-as-usual” attitude toward this menace. Attempts to push the powerful brothers to be more proactive fell on deaf ears.

Silencing All Critics

Communist activity was not the only problem facing Diem. Discord over restrictions on basic freedoms was on the rise. Nhu filled jails with political dissidents. His secret police shut down newspapers daring to criticize the government. Club-wielding thugs dealt with demonstrators brave enough to take to the streets.

Efforts by the U.S. ambassador, Elbridge Durbrow, to persuade Diem to be more liberal got nowhere. His authoritarian behavior and clampdowns rankled both influential citizens and military leaders. Governmental intransigence was the catalyst for plotting against the Ngo family.

However, money still flowed in from Washington. Much of it was used to expand the army and some earmarked for economic development was redirected to the military. The Airborne Group, a Diem favorite, received more than its share. Two more infantry battalions, the 7th and the 8th, and a 105mm artillery battalion were activated.

On Dec. 1, 1959, the last vestige of French influence disappeared when the “Airborne Group” designation was dropped and the unit was named the Airborne Brigade, now with six infantry battalions.

In April 1960, 18 anti-communists, former cabinet ministers, dissenting Catholics, and leaders of several political parties published a letter listing grievances over the loss of civil liberties and recommending modest reforms. U.S. reporters called the document the Caravelle Manifesto because its contents were announced at a press conference at the Caravelle Hotel in downtown Saigon. The letter to the president was respectful and did not call for him to leave office. Diem simply ignored it. Vietnamese journalists, thoroughly intimidated, did the same.

The Paratroopers Rebel

Col. Nguyen Chanh Thi, commander of the Airborne Brigade, and his former deputy, Lt. Col. Vuong Van Dong, were persuaded military action was needed to coerce Diem to implement changes. Neither wanted the president removed. Yet they were adamant that Nhu and his wife, Madame Nhu—Diem’s sharp-tongued sister-in-law often referred to as “The Dragon Lady”—needed to leave the government.

Their discontent came to a head on Nov. 11, 1960, three days after the U.S. presidential election when Sen. John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated Vice President Richard M. Nixon. CIA analysts thought that the timing of the coup attempt was directly linked to the election and that the rebels wanted to give JFK a more liberal administration to deal with.

Shortly after 3 a.m., automatic weapons fire and mortar explosions shattered Saigon’s nighttime quiet. Earlier the previous evening, Thi and Dong led three paratroop battalions, the 5th, 6th, and 7th, and two companies of marines into the city. Detachments took control of the Joint General Staff headquarters, the central police station, and the main telephone exchange while the bulk of the troops headed for their main objective, the presidential residence at Independence Palace.

Diem narrowly escaped being killed when the paratroopers opened up suppressive fire with small arms and machine guns. Diem, Nhu, and Madame Nhu retreated to the safe room in the cellar equipped with communications gear, including radios and recently installed telephone lines not routed through the central exchange’s switchboard.

Storming the Palace

Around the palace, Diem’s outnumbered guards, about 30 men, stood their ground and inflicted casualties on the attackers. As the paratroopers launched their initial assault, the 5th Airborne Battalion commander was killed. A dozen airborne soldiers died and scores more were wounded.

The ferocity of the guards’ resistance surprised Thi and caused him to hesitate, although he possessed more than enough strength to destroy them. His hesitancy was a critical mistake. The initiative was lost and a time-consuming dialogue with the president began.

The pause allowed Maj. Gen. Nguyen Khanh, the acting head of the army, to slip into Independence Palace and serve as intermediary. Thi passed his demands through Khanh while Dong contacted Ambassador Durbrow, requesting American help. Although a frequent critic of the regime, Durbrow turned Dong down. In a call with Diem, the ambassador urged negotiations to avoid bloodshed. Diem was furious and viewed the response as tacit approval of Thi’s actions.

Rebuffed by the U.S. ambassador, Diem said he would listen to the insurgents. At the same time, he reached out to loyal commanders and requested their assistance. Being a talker, he could parlay extensively with his opponents and appear to accommodate them while his supporters organized efforts to aid him with force.

Diem Buys Time

Two nearby loyalists immediately responded to Diem’s request. Col. Tran Van Khiem, commander of the 7th ARVN Division in the Mekong Delta, was a friend of the president’s family. He assembled his tank battalion and two infantry regiments for a move to Saigon. Col. Nguyen Van Thieu mobilized the 5th ARVN Division, stationed northeast of Saigon in Bien Hoa, and gave orders to march on the capital. Thieu would later rise to prominence as the president of South Vietnam from 1967-1975.

Diem haggled with Thi throughout the afternoon and evening of the 11th. He agreed to some points, including dismissing his current cabinet and forming a more moderate government. He refused to sack his brother. The insurrectionists were delighted when Diem stated he would end press censorship, allow more free speech, and reduce economic restrictions. To buy additional time, the president promised to tape a speech highlighting the concessions. When it was completed at dawn, the insurgents rushed it to Radio Saigon.

Yet, as the president’s speech aired on the morning of the 12th, two infantry divisions, supported by tanks, converged on Independence Palace. They moved freely because Thi failed to block the routes leading into Saigon—a fatal error. The appearance of the 5th and 7th ARVN divisions caused senior officers, who stayed on the sidelines with a “wait-and-see” attitude, to declare their loyalty to Diem.

Fighting ensued as the newly arrived units attacked the paratroopers. Four hundred were killed in the melee. Many of the dead were innocent bystanders who came on the streets to see what was going on. By late afternoon, the remaining paratroopers surrendered and were herded back to their barracks.

As the situation crumbled, Thi, Dong, and their allies boarded a military aircraft and sought sanctuary in Cambodia. The abortive coup attempt was over and the Ngo family remained firmly in power.

Road to further destruction

Outsmarting the efforts of the paratroopers gave an extreme boost to Diem’s confidence. During the crisis he received advice from his brother and Madame Nhu that reinforced his perception of their indispensability and the preeminence of his family. Having triumphed over his adversaries, he promptly reneged on promises of reform and punished those who had sided with the paratroopers. The roundup included the signers of the Caravelle Manifesto.

Another lesson Diem promoted was that loyalty trumped all. Allegiance to the president, not the nation, became the primary attribute for army promotion and key assignments. He and his brother personally reviewed and approved every major military posting. Unfortunately, this policy prevailed after Diem was gone.

Diem carefully selected the new Airborne Brigade commander. He wisely chose Col. Cao Van Vien, considered Vietnam’s most gifted leader who remained loyal to the president throughout his tenure in office. Vien was almost shot because he would not participate in the Nov. 1-2, 1963, coup d’etat that overthrew Diem and led to his and his brother Nhu’s assassinations. Vien ultimately became a four-star general and Chairman of the Joint General Staff from 1965-1975.

The airborne battalions involved in the coup attempt were assigned new leaders and banished from their comfortable billets at Tan Son Nhut Air Base (to more spartan sites outside the capital). The 5th and 7th Airborne Battalions were moved to Bien Hoa. The 6th Airborne Battalion, the unit at the forefront of the insurrection, was sent to the seaside town of Vung Tau, 65 miles from Saigon. Diem and his brother believed the distance would keep that battalion out of the capital’s political intrigues. U.S. advisers who later served with the 6th said “banishment” to a quiet, picturesque locale overlooking the South China Sea was hardly a punishment.

The Buddhist Crisis

Lost in the turbulence of the waning days of 1960 was the December 20 activation of the National Liberation Front (NLF). After six years trying to unify the two Vietnams by political means, the Communist Party in North Vietnam decided violence was required to depose Diem and expel the Americans. After the paratrooper incident, the Politburo knew it was time to act.

The NLF muted its communist ideology and ties to the north in order to recruit disillusioned southern nationalists. The new organization, collectively referred to as the Viet Cong by Americans, proved to be a serious problem for Diem, surpassing any rebellious activity stirred up by disgruntled paratroopers.

The rift between the United States and South Vietnam became palpable after Nov. 11, 1960. Diem remained angry with Ambassador Dur-brow for his “lack of support” and “meddling in local affairs.” Nhu even accused Durbrow and the CIA of collaborating with the rebels. The wound of distrust did not heal even after a new American ambassador arrived in Saigon.

Diem and Nhu fought any pressure for reforms from citizens as well as from the United States. Recriminations were the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface, the mishandled coup was a symptom of instability and unrest, overlooked in Washington as attention focused on the U.S. presidential transition.

Years later, the CIA’s George Carver reflected, “It [the paratrooper coup] was a fire bell warning which few noticed. Its not being heeded made probable, if not inevitable, much tragedy that was soon to follow.”

Losing Kennedy’s Support

The tragedy cited by Carver unfolded sooner than Diem or Kennedy anticipated. Notwithstanding dramatic increases in American economic and military aid, Diem was unable to make headway in combating the communists or generating more support for his government. The brothers’ obsession with ferreting out dissidents, real and imagined, became a growing malignancy that caused them to take more draconian measures.

Restrictions on religious freedoms led to the 1963 Buddhist crisis. Riots that began in May spread throughout South Vietnam, culminating in self-immolations by Buddhist monks. Photos of a burning bonze circulated worldwide and caused the Kennedy administration to finally lose patience with Diem.

It was the last straw for Americans. Vietnamese generals began plotting in earnest once they learned the United States would support a regime change.

Mistakes made by the paratroopers three years earlier were not repeated. On Nov. 1, 1963, troops commanded by Gen. Duong Van Minh stormed the president’s residence, now in the Gia Long Palace. Although the Airborne Brigade commander, Vien, refused to join the rebels, his subordinate leaders and their paratroop battalions actively participated in the coup. The commander of the 6th Airborne Battalion commandeered trucks in Vung Tau and moved the unit to Saigon where he led the attack on the barracks of the presidential guard.

To Minh’s frustration, Diem and his brother escaped before the assault on the palace. After hiding in nearby Cholon, the Ngos surrendered the next day, assuming they would be sent into exile. Denied a ceremonial transfer of power, an infuriated Minh directed their execution. At the time of the assassinations of her husband and brother-in-law, Madame Nhu was traveling in the United States with her daughter. She and her children were exiled to Europe. In the end, Diem’s ouster and assassination solved nothing, since Minh and the military junta proved to be as inept at governing as their deceased predecessors.

this article first appeared in vietnam magazine

Fighting Over Lobsters, Pigs, and Kettles: Here Are the Top 10 Bloodless Wars in Human History

Jon Guttman and Alex Griffith — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 17:07:29 +0000

The Mongol Subjugation of Novgorod (1238)

In 1238, a 40,000-man Mongol horde led by Genghiz Khan’s grandson, Batu Khan, embarked on a campaign of conquest against the Rus. By the end of 1238 they had taken 14 major cities and razed them for failing to heed Batu’s ultimatums. Only two major cities in the northern Rus territories were spared: Pskov and Novgorod, which pledged fealty to the Great Khan and agreed to annually pay a tax based on 10 percent of their produce. Novgorod, a vital fur-trading center, was surrounded by potential enemies, including not only the Mongols, but the Swedes and an order of German warrior-monks known as the Teutonic Knights.

Both western powers coveted the lands to the east, declaring their purpose to spread Catholicism while destroying the Eastern Orthodox Church. Appointed kniaz (prince) of Novgorod in 1236 at age 15, Alexsandr Yaroslavich was compelled to choose his friends and enemies carefully. He knew resisting the Mongols was suicide, but they tended to spare those who surrendered and left them to their own domestic affairs…whereas the Swedes would seize land and the Germans would kill nearly everybody.

Prince Alexsandr Nevsky negotiated with Batu Khan rather than risk open war with the Mongols.

As the Mongols marched on Novgorod in 1238, the spring thaws hampered their horses, halting the campaign 120 kilometers short of its objective. Seizing his opportunity, Alexsandr met the Mongols and accepted their terms. Pskov did the same. The Mongols moved on, establishing their western headquarters at Sarai under a yellow banner for which their force became known as the Golden Horde. Alexsandr made the right choice. He would later have to battle both his western enemies, defeating the Swedes on the Neva River on July 15, 1240 (for which he acquired the moniker Alexsandr Nevsky) and the Livonian Knights at Lake Peipus on April 5, 1242. Credited with preserving Russian civilization at a time of terrible duress, Alexsandr did so by knowing both when to fight and when not to.

The 335-Years War (1651-1986)

What if they gave a war and nobody came? Better still, what if they gave a war and nobody noticed? During the English Civil War, the United Provinces of the Netherlands sided with the English Parliament. As one consequence many Dutch ships were seized or sunk by the Royalist navy, which by 1651 was based in the Isles of Scilly, supporting the last diehards in Cornwall.

On March 30 Lt. Adm. Maarten Harpertsoon Tromp arrived at Scilly, demanding reparation for damages to Dutch ships. Receiving no satisfactory answer, Tromp declared war but then sailed away—and never returned. Critics of that so-called “war” have since noted that as an admiral, not a sovereign, Tromp was really in no position to formally declare war. The issue seemed moot in June 1651 when a Parliamentarian fleet under General at Sea Robert Blake arrived at Scilly to compel the last Royalists to surrender.

So things stood until 1986, when historian Roy Duncan chanced upon Tromp’s idle threat and in the course of investigation concluded that, the utter lack of hostilities notwithstanding, the Netherlands and Isles of Scilly had spent the past 335 years at war but had never gotten around to declaring peace. That oversight was finally remedied on April 17, 1986, when Dutch ambassador to Britain Jonkheer Rein Huydecoper formally declared one of history’s longest conflicts at an end—adding that it must have horrified the islands’ inhabitants “to know we could have attacked at any moment.”

The Kettle War (1784)

Along with winning independence, in 1585 the Republic of the Netherlands closed off the Scheldt River to trade from the Spanish Netherlands to the south, adversely affecting Antwerp’s and Ghent’s access to the North Sea while serving to Amsterdam’s advantage. Spain accepted that arrangement again in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, but in 1714 Spain ceded the southern Netherlands to Habsburg Austria. Between 1780 and 1784 the Netherlands allied with the fledgling United States of America in hopes of gaining an advantage over Britain but was defeated. Seeking to take advantage of that situation, on Oct. 9, 1784, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II sent three ships, headed by the large merchantman Le Louis, into the Scheldt.

Calling his bluff, the Dutch sent the warship Dolfijn to intercept the Austrians, firing a shot through a soup kettle aboard Le Louis. At this point the Austrian flagship surrendered. On Oct. 30 Emperor Joseph declared war and the Netherlands began mobilizing its forces. Austrian troops invaded the Netherlands, razing a custom house and occupying Fort Lillo, whose withdrawing garrison broke the dikes and inundated the region, drowning many locals but halting the Austrian advance. France mediated a settlement signed on Feb. 8, 1785, as the Treaty of Fontainebleau, upholding the Netherlands’ control over the Scheldt but recompensing the Austrian Netherlands with 10 million florins.

The Anglo-Swedish War (1810–1812)

With the signing of the Treaty of Paris on Jan. 6, 1810, Emperor Napoleon imposed his Continental System throughout Europe and placing a trade embargo on one of his remaining enemies, Great Britain. That included Sweden, Britain’s longtime trading partner. A booming smuggling trade led Napoleon to issue an ultimatum on Nov.13, 1810, giving his reluctant ally five days to declare war and confiscate all British shipping and goods found on Swedish soil, or itself face war from France and all its allies. Sweden duly declared war on Nov. 17, but there were no direct hostilities over the next year and a half—in fact, Sweden looked the other way while the Royal Navy occupied and used its isle of Hanö as a base.

Ironically, this delicate standoff was upset by a Frenchman, Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who with the death of Sweden’s Crown Prince Charles August on May 28, 1810, was elected crown prince on Aug. 21. Although King Charles XIII was Sweden’s official ruler, his illness and disinterest in national affairs caused him to leave Crown Prince Bernadotte as the de facto ruler—who put Swedish interests above France’s. Relations with Napoleon deteriorated until France occupied Swedish Pomerania and the isle of Rügen in 1812. Bernadotte’s response included the Treaty of Örebro on July 18, 1812, formally ending the bloodless war against Britain and thus declaring a soon-to-be bloodier war against Napoleon’s France.

The Aroostook War (1838–1839)

Both the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 ended with unfinished business regarding the boundaries between the United States and British North America. On several occasions both countries came to the brink of further conflicts. One such was the “Aroostook War” regarding unresolved land claims between Lower Canada and Massachusetts, exacerbated in 1820 when a new state, Maine, broke away from Massachusetts. By 1839 the U.S. had raised 6,000 militia and local posses to patrol the disputed territory while British troop strength rose to as high as 15,000.

There were no direct confrontations.

Two British militiamen were injured by bears. The decisive action came in 1842 in the form of negotiations between British Master of the Mint Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton and U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster. As was often the case, the resultant Webster-Ashburton Treaty was a compromise. Most land went to Maine, leaving a vital area northeast for the Halifax Road to connect Lower Canada with the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In 1840 Maine created Aroostook County to administer civil authority in its expected territory, from which the incident got its name in the history books.

Great Britain and the United States of America nearly fought a war which began with the shooting of a pig.

The Pig War (1859)

Since at least the 1844 American presidential election that got James K. Polk elected on a slogan of “Fifty-four-Forty or Fight,” the United States set its sights on raising the northern border of the “Oregon Territory” (including what is now Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia) to 54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude, rather than 49 degrees north as it had been in 1846. That border bisected San Juan Island, in the Straits of Juan de Fuca between Seattle and Vancouver, where on June 15, 1859, American resident Lyman Cutlar caught Charlie Griffin’s pig rooting in his garden and shot it dead.

Cutlar subsequently offered to compensate his British neighbor $10 for his loss. Griffin angrily demanded that local authorities arrest Cutlar. The U.S. authorities would not countenance Britain arresting an American citizen. Soon both sides were reinforcing the island with troops and offshore warships. Things came to a head when the governor of British Columbia ordered the commander of the British Pacific Fleet, Adm. Robert Baynes, to invade the island.

At that critical hour Baynes became the voice of reason when he disobeyed the order, declaring that he would “not involve two great nations in a war over a squabble about a pig!”

News of the standoff spurred Washington and London to negotiate while reducing troop strength on San Juan to 100 each. Finally in 1872, an international commission headed by Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany settled the matter by ceding the entire island to the United States. Total casualties: one British pig.

The Pembina Raid (1871)

Following the American Civil War a committee of radical nationalists called the Irish Brotherhood, or Fenians, embarked on three attempts to capture large areas of British North America to ransom for an independent Irish republic. Although the participants were mostly hardened Civil War veterans—from both sides—their first attempt to seize the Niagara Falls peninsula in 1866 failed. A second attempt launched from New York and Vermont in 1870 was a greater failure—largely because the Fenians were facing better-prepared militiamen now defending their own sovereign state, the Dominion of Canada. Although the Irish Brotherhood itself had given up on the idea, Col. John O’Neill set out west for one more try, planning to invade Manitoba and form an alliance with the half-blood Métis, then rebelling against the Canadian authorities for land, ethnic and religious rights. By late 1871, however, Ottawa was acquiescing to Métis demands. Consequently the Métis had no intention of allying with the Fenians.

Undeterred, at 7:30 a.m. on the morning of Oct. 5, 1871, O’Neill led 37 followers to seize the Hudson’s Bay Company trading post and the nearby East Lynne Customs House in Pembina. Of 20 people taken prisoner, a young boy escaped and ran to the U.S. Army base at Fort Pembina. While about a thousand Canadian militia marched south to deal with the threat, Capt. Loyd Wheaton led 30 soldiers of Company I, 20th U.S. Infantry Regiment to the settlement. O’Neill later said he was loath to fight bluecoats alongside whom he had served during the Civil War.

The Fenians fled north, but O’Neill and 10 others were quickly captured. By 3 p.m. the crisis was over. Canada had seen off its last invasion threat without firing a shot. Taken to St. Paul, Minnesota, O’Neill was tried twice for violating the Neutrality Acts and twice acquitted on the grounds that he had not really done so. Unknown to O’Neill, in May 1870 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had straightened out the disputed Canadian border, resulting in Pembina no longer being a quarter mile north of the border, but three-quarters of a mile south in Dakota Territory. O’Neill gave up his invasion ambitions under an avalanche of public ridicule over not only failing to conquer Canada but failing to even find Canada!

The Lobster War (1961–1963)

There have been numerous conflicts over territory and others over the natural resources they produce. One example began in 1961 when French fishermen seeking spiny lobsters off Mauretania tried their luck on the other side of the Atlantic and discovered crustacean gold on underwater shelves 250 to 650 feet deep. Soon, however, the French vessels were intercepted and driven off by Brazilian corvettes upholding a government claim that that part of the Continental Shelf was their territory, as was any sea life that walked on it. On Jan. 1, 1962 Brazilian warships apprehended the French Cassiopée, but the next time two Brazilian corvettes went after French lobstermen they were in turn intercepted by the French destroyer Tartu.

France and Brazil in 1963 nearly waged a war over lobsters.

By April 1963 both sides were considering war. Fortunately, an international tribunal summarized the French claim as being that lobsters, like fish, were swimming in the sea, not walking on the shelf. This prompted Brazilian Admiral Paolo Moreira da Silva’s counterclaim that that argument was akin to saying that if a kangaroo hops through the air, that made it a bird.

The matter was finally settled by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on Dec. 10, 1964. By it, Brazilian coastal waters were extended to 200 nautical miles but permitted 26 French ships to catch lobsters for five years in “designated areas,” paying a small percentage of their catch to Brazil. Otherwise the two nations might have warred for a pretender to the throne of the true lobster—spiny lobsters, a.k.a. langustas, don’t have claws like their North Atlantic cousins and are thus not considered true lobsters. Although often used for “lobster tails,” some might not find them tasty enough “to die for.”

The Sumdorong Chu Standoff (1986–1987)

While the United States and the Soviet Union were having a nuclear Cold War faceoff, in October 1962 border tensions in the Himalayas between India and the People’s Republic of China flared when Indian troops seized Thag La Ridge. The People’s Liberation Army reacted in force, inflicting a stinging defeat on the Indians at Namka Chu. Over the next 24 years both sides reformed and improved their military capabilities while still eying one another suspiciously. On Oct. 18-20, 1986, India staged Operation Falcon, an airlift that occupied Zemithang and several other high ground positions, including Hathung La ridge and Sumdorong Chu. The PLA responded by moving in reinforcements, calling on India for a flag meeting on Nov. 15. This was not forthcoming.

In the spring of 1987 the Indians conducted Operation Chequerboard, an aerial redeployment of troops involving 10 divisions and several warplane squadrons along the North East India border. China declared these activities a provocation, but India showed no intention of withdrawing from its positions. By May 1997 soldiers of both powers were staring down each other’s gun barrels while Western diplomats, recognizing similar language to that preceding the 1962 clash, braced for a major war.

Cooler heads seem to have prevailed, for on Aug. 5, 1987, Indian and Chinese officials held a flag meeting at Bum. Both sides agreed to discuss the situation and in 1988 Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Beijing, reciprocating for the first time Zhou Enlai’s April 1960 visit to India. The talks were accompanied by mutual reductions in forces from a Line of Actual Control that was agreed upon in 1993. With the crisis defused, there would be no major Sino-Indian border incidents again until 2020.

Hans Island became the focus of the informal “Whisky War” between NATO members Canada and Denmark, who respectively left bottles of liquor behind on the island as “claims.” The “conflict” was settled in 2022.

The Whisky War (1984–2022)

The disagreement over the exact national boundaries dividing little Hans Island involved two of the least likely adversaries, both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization: Canada and Denmark. Lying in the Kennedy Channel between Ellesmere and the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland, Hans was divided in half by a line that left a gap in its exact border descriptions. That gap went ignored until 1980, when the Canadian firm Dome Petroleum began four years of research on and around the island.

Matters took a more specific direction in 1984, however, when Canadian soldiers landed on Hans and left behind a Maple Leaf flag and a bottle of whisky. In that same year the Danish Minister for Greenland Affairs arrived to plant the Danish flag with a bottle of schnapps and a letter saying, “Welcome to the Danish Island.” These provocations heralded decades of escalating mutual visits and gestures that left all manner of souvenirs behind. Finally, on Aug. 8, 2005—following a particularly busy July—the Danish press announced that Canada wished to commence serious negotiations to settle the remaining boundary dispute once and for all.

Even so, it took the Russian “special military operation” against Ukraine to remind the world how serious war could be, resulting in the rivals unveiling a plan on June 14 for satisfactorily dividing the unresolved remnants of Hans Island between the Canadian territory of Nunavut and Danish Greenland.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

See the Real Rosie the Riveters at Work

Tom Huntington — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 18:24:26 +0000

The Summer 2023 issue of Aviation History magazine will feature some classic photography by Alfred Palmer, who shot scores of images while working for the Office of War Information during World War II. There wasn’t enough room in the print magazine to include all the images we wanted to feature, so here’s another selection, just in time for Women’s History Month.

At the Douglas Aircraft Company plant at Long Beach, California, a real-life Rosie rivets an A-20 Havoc bomber.

During the war, 6.5 million American women entered the workforce, filling jobs that opened up when men joined the military. Women workers were necessary at a time when American was ramping up to become the arsenal of democracy, cranking out munitions, ships, tanks, landing craft—and airplanes. As FDR said in a speech on Columbus Day in 1942, “In some communities employers dislike to hire women. In others they are reluctant to hire Negroes. We can no longer afford to indulge such prejudice.”

“The men were all being drafted,” said a Chicago woman named Lois Wolfe. “They were taking them right and left, and even those that had been exempt in the beginning were being called, and they desperately need people to fill their jobs. That what we girls did, we filled men’s jobs.” Wolf went to work making parts for the Consolidated B-24 Liberator at a plant in Melrose, Illinois.

A household iron proved useful to smooth the surface of self-sealing fuel tanks at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., in Akron, Ohio.

Some women started working out of patriotism. Others did it for economic reasons. Some did it out of a combination of both. “Suddenly, the standard idea of seeing women as fragile creatures, ill-suited for work outside the home, much less for hard labor, seemed like a peacetime luxury,” wrote Emily Yellin in her 2004 book Our Mother’s War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II. “Like never before America asked women to take up the slack—to join in producing the vital machinery of war.” The aircraft industry was among the biggest employers of women, who made up around 40 percent of its workforce. Douglas Aircraft alone employed around 22,000 women.

Also at the Goodyear plant, a woman works in the electronics shop.

The enduring symbol of women in the workforce is Rosie the Riveter, a character that emerged in a song by the singing group the Four Vagabonds and later made indelible as the subject of a Saturday Evening Post cover by Norman Rockwell and in a government-issue “We Can Do It!” poster. One worker who became even more famous than the fictional Rosie was the very real Norma Jean Dougherty, who packed parachutes at a factory in Burbank, California. After the war she dyed her hair, changed her name, and became the film icon Marilyn Monroe.

When men began returning from the war, women began leaving work. Some left voluntarily; others were forced out. But something had changed. In her book, Yellin quotes a woman named Katherine O’Grady, who said, “After the war, things changed, because women found out they could go out and they could survive. They could really do it on their own.”

A new hire gets trained as an engine mechanic at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant in Long Beach, California.

Two employees of North American Aviation work on the wing section of a P-51 Mustang.

According to the original captioning, “The careful hands of women are trained in precise aircraft engine installation duties at Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, Calif.”

Douglas employee Annette del Sur publicizes a salvage campaign at the company’s plant in Long Beach. She is looking over lathe turnings in the metal salvage pile, while sporting a tiara and necklace made out of the scrap.

At the North American factory, employees prepare to punch rivet holes in a frame for a B-25 Mitchell bomber.

Sheet metal parts get numbered with a pneumatic numbering machine in North American’s sheet metal department in Inglewood, California.

A North American B-25 Mitchell bomber is prepared for painting on the outside assembly line in Inglewood.

A woman assembles switch boxes on the firewall of a North American B-25 bomber in Inglewood.

this article first appeared in AVIATION HISTORY magazine

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A Look at the Damage from the ‘Secret’ War in Laos

Zita Ballinger Fletcher — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 18:03:20 +0000

When Mark Watson and his partner Hana Black set off on a dream long-distance bicycling trip through Southeast Asia, they weren’t quite prepared for what they would find in Laos and Vietnam. Evidence of the Vietnam War was vividly apparent—in everything from the landscape to people’s farms, home decor, and innovations created from former weapons of war from decades past.

As a journalist, photographer, adventurer, and military history enthusiast, Watson is no stranger to harsh environments and former battlefields, but what he experienced on his journey caught him off guard. He was especially surprised by what he saw in Laos.

“It’s remarkable how you can visit a place and be so blown away by what you’re seeing. As an adult who’s grown up reading books, watching the news and filling my mind with history, I could still go to a place like this in 2011 and witness something that’s far greater than anyone can imagine in terms of the impact it’s had on the land and people’s lives,” Watson told Vietnam magazine in an interview.

“The country is so much living under the shadow of this carnage, and yet it’s not something you really hear about.”
Mark Watson

Traveling from China into Laos, and from there into Vietnam, Cambodia, and eventually into Thailand, Watson rode along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and explored villages, noticing traces of UXO (unexploded ordnance) and documenting it in his photography.

“It was an amazing adventure,” he said. “After I experienced this, I longed to go back, because there is just so much there to see.”

These external fuel tanks in Laos were slung underneath aircraft and discarded into swamps and jungles when emptied. “These have been recovered and turned into canoes,” Watson said. “These are ubiquitous on the rivers, particularly in the poor regions of Laos.”

War relics are displayed at the entrance to a business in Laos near the border with Vietnam.

“She’s holding what the locals call a ‘bombie’—which is a cluster bomb,” explained Watson. “That one’s been defused. There’s millions of these scattered through swamps, fields, and people’s tribal lands, right through northern and eastern Laos. This was a pretty remote village. They were surprised to see us, and very friendly.” Watson added that the Ho Chi Minh Trail is extremely dangerous due to UXO. “You just don’t leave the road. It’s not worth the risk.” While farming, local people sometimes “hit these bombs accidentally, which blow up and take off a leg or an arm or kill people.”

This cluster bomb canister in Laos has been used as a planter. “As well as people using this material for scrap metal, there’s also a burgeoning art scene where people are using bits of UXO and war scrap to make artwork like bracelets, necklaces, and pieces of art for the home,” said Watson.

Watson saw enormous craters such as this one in Laos everywhere. “Something very vivid in my memory is that, as we were going along the road, most of the jungle had been destroyed by bombing and napalm….There were massive bomb craters. You’d be riding along the road and there’d be three or four massive craters on either side. Seeing those was really quite horrifying.”

These cows in Laos wear bells formed from cluster bomb cylinders.

War relics have been repurposed for Laotian house stilts and a ladder. “The houses are elevated to help keep them cooler. This was something we saw cluster bomb cylinders used for a lot,” noted Watson.

“Since I was a boy I’ve had more than a passing interest in war history, so I was very aware of what took place in Vietnam during the war, but not so much in regard to Laos,” said Watson. “I had no idea there was still so much evidence of what took place there during the ’60s and ’70s.”

this article first appeared in vietnam magazine

Immerse Yourself in the Chaos of Battle at Gettysburg’s New Museum

Melissa A. Winn — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 13:59:00 +0000

For years, the Adams County Historical Society has been housed in a cramped Victorian house on Seminary Ridge, unable to display its rich horde of artifacts or offer access to researchers. But this April, the ACHS will open a new 29,000-square-foot complex just north of the Gettysburg battlefield. The expansive building will feature 12 galleries of immersive exhibits that showcase the county’s deep history.

No matter how much has been written, displayed, or filmed about the Civil War’s largest engagement, the appetite for more information about the Battle of Gettysburg remains insatiable. The ACHS will help satisfy that hunger with its revolutionary Beyond the Battle Museum, featuring some of Gettysburg’s rarest artifacts and using media and special effects technology to take visitors on a journey through time.

“Beyond the Battle will push the boundaries of a traditional museum experience to deliver a new perspective of the fight,” says Andrew Dalton, ACHS’ energetic executive director. “What was it like to live through the battle? To hear Abraham Lincoln’s immortal words? These questions and more will be answered and help visitors expand their knowledge of this remarkable town and its people.”

Caught in the Crossfire, a 360-degree re-creation of a home trapped between Union and Confederate lines, will be a unique feature of the museum. This immersive experience uses light projections, surround-sound speakers, and special effects to transport visitors back to the battle. Guests will enter a family’s home shortly after their rush to safety in the cellar below, hear their hushed conversations, split-second decisions, and life-or-death encounters with Union and Confederate troops. Visitors will hear the whizzing of bullets through the home, the hiss of shells overhead, the shaking of floorboards and furniture, and the family’s frightened reaction from below.

The new museum will also include a spacious library and archives where visitors can access rare archival holdings, including civilian accounts from the Battle of Gettysburg and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

To learn more, visit achs-pa.org or follow the ACHS on Facebook and YouTube. Advanced tickets go on sale starting March 1, 2023.

The American Civil War Through the Eyes of the French

Gary W. Gallagher — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 13:37:00 +0000

One of the great benefits of working in the field of Civil War history derives from the generosity of other scholars. Their sense of shared exploration promotes the circulation of materials that otherwise would remain unknown. More than 25 years ago, I met Donald E. Witt, a scholar of French literature with a deep interest in the American conflict. He had spent years translating the French newspaper Le Temps (The Times) for the period 1860-65. Because historians had frequently quoted the British press but paid relatively little attention to French newspapers, the materials he showed me seemed especially fresh. Happy to know someone else shared his enthusiasm for the project, he gave me seven thick binders containing more than 3,500 pages of translations.

A perusal of Le Temps revealed a rich body of descriptive and analytical evidence. The newspaper’s correspondents pursued an expansive approach to the American war that addressed politics, military affairs, swings of national morale, diplomatic maneuverings, and other topics. Political and military leaders figured prominently in the articles, which suggests Parisians exhibited a desire for such news.

Fourteen newspapers served Paris in 1861. Napoleon III’s government sponsored Moniteur and received largely favorable treatment from several other papers deemed “semi-official press.” Le Temps, which would become one of the important French dailies, supported the house of Orleans. With a pro-Union, antislavery editorial slant, it stood at odds with a pro-Confederate imperial press. In October 1861, Le Temps made a distinction regarding slavery’s role in the American crisis. “Yes, slavery is at the root of the war,” read the piece, “since it is the institution of slavery that, in the North and in the South, has made two nations, has created hostile interests between them…that has determined for her (the South) the rupture of the pact…” But it was not a war to kill slavery because “the abolitionist opinion has ever been, in the North, only that of an intimate minority.”

Le Temps allocated considerable attention to the Emancipation Proclamation. Noting that President Lincoln’s preliminary proclamation of September 22, 1862, finally “placed the debate between the North and the South on its true terrain,” the editors labeled it a military expedient forced on Lincoln by Rebel victories in the Eastern Theater. The paper found it “regrettable that the President hesitated for so long a time” and quoted from his letter to Horace Greeley dated August 22, 1862, concluding that “[t]his policy has only one aim, the re-establishment of the Union.” The newspaper responded to the final proclamation, which it termed “very important news from America,” on January 15, 1863. “This proclamation,” read the perceptive article, “…can hardly have any immediate effect; but it is not any less one of these utterances destined to have repercussions in history, to be converted into acts, and to become definitive.”

The January 15, 1863, edition of Le Temps discusses the Battle of Murfreesboro, fought from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863, as well as the Emancipation Proclamation.

The prospective dual between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in 1864 generated sustained coverage in Le Temps that praised both commanders. “General Grant has acquired in his western campaigns habits of vigor” that would allow him “to lead the Army of the Potomac to victory,” while Lee, a general of “remarkable talent,” had won victories that showcased “the courage and energy of the Confederate troops.” Le Temps initially predicted Union triumph, largely because of faith in “the military capacity, but especially in the tenacity and the character of Grant.”

After the Battle of the Crater, the editors adopted a more ambivalent stance. “Whatever will be the denouement of this campaign in Virginia,” observed a piece treating Lee and Grant as equals, “it will remain a testimony of the indomitable tenacity of the two armies and the two generals who resist each other for so long…without any perceptible advantage on either side.”

Grinding operations in Virginia between early May and August 1864 set up a long piece in early September. Analyzing the two societies at war, a correspondent explored the combatants’ national morale and chances for victory. Confederates had faced “bankruptcy, despotism, famine” and “no longer have anything to hope for except independence; they no longer have anything to lose except their life.” The author admired “the courage that they deploy in this long resistance” and resoluteness in “this obstinacy of a common people who, for two years, block[ad]ed, invaded, decimated, found resources, [and] faced immense forces from the Union.” The Confederate economy lay in ruins “from top to bottom; all able men from fifteen to fifty-five are under arms….One no longer sees but women in the families and Negroes in the fields.” Yet Confederates manifested discipline born of “a unity of will” and still “held on, and no one can say when they will succumb.”

The United States presented a vastly different picture. It “has not renounced its richness,” asserted the author, “the war has interrupted neither its industry, nor its commerce.” Daily life progressed essentially as in peacetime, and Northerners shrank from “extreme measures, acting little and spending a lot, placing mercenaries opposite seasoned men, wasting immense resources without breaking down a poor enemy.”

The Union effort lacked the sense of collective direction evident in the Confederacy. Writing before the full impact of Sherman’s capture of Atlanta had become evident (travel across the Atlantic took 10 days or more), this writer perceived a possibly disastrous lack of will above the Potomac: “The North can yield to fatigue; then the war would have served only to substitute a national hate for a political rivalry; and to ruin more profoundly the Union.”

Four months later, on January 2, 1865, the paper had changed its tone. It celebrated the “re-election of Mr. Lincoln, and the manner in which it was accomplished” as “the gage of an indestructible liberty, and will remain in history as an imperishable testimony of political and moral grandeur.” The editors accurately predicted the difficult road that remained ahead: “[If] it is no longer hardly possible to doubt the re-establishment of the Union, the final success, and especially the final pacification do not appear still less a rather lengthy operation.”

Whenever I see the seven binders on the bookcase in my library, I think of Donald Witt’s great generosity and the trove of French evidence he made available to me.

this article first appeared in civil war times magazine

War is Hell…on the Environment

Zita Ballinger Fletcher — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 15:16:08 +0000

Warfare’s impact on nature and the environment is not often discussed in military history circles, even in this age of increased environmental awareness. Sadly, it’s a topic that will remain painfully relevant to humanity not only from the after-effects of wars long past, but from war that continues raging in the world even today.

It can be easy to overlook the toll of war on nature because nature doesn’t have its own voice—at least not one that can be heard easily by humans unless we go out of our way to listen. Popular movies and TV shows may give us distressing but relatively simplistic impressions of destruction caused by battles and war. Historic photos and archival films present contemporary visuals, but these don’t show us the full picture. War has a much more drastic impact on ecosystems than we can imagine, continuing to cause harm even centuries after the din of battle falls silent across former frontlines.

France, for example, is still coping with poisons left in local environments from World War I. Areas near former battlefields have absorbed heavy metals, chemicals and even arsenic. In some places, toxins in the soil prevent anything growing from it. In other areas where trees and animals have returned, toxins remain present in flora, fauna and ground water.

In 2012, the French government prohibited citizens in more than 500 municipalities from drinking locally sourced water due to contamination from perchlorate, which derives from World War I ammunition. A “red zone” of more than 42,000 acres where it is impossible for humans to live exists today in France due to vast amounts of unexploded ordnance—including deadly gas shells—and chemical pollution.

Chemicals used during the war included phosgene, sulfur mustard to cause blistering, and diphenylchlorarsine—the latter a “vomiting agent” used by the Germans in September 1917 in combination with lethal gases to cause Allied soldiers to become sick, remove their gas masks, and be killed by toxic fumes.

These poisons continue to lurk in shells beneath the soil, to leak and to spread. Their effects are still deadly.

The French continue to extract about 900 tons of unexploded ordnance from the soil of their country per year. They have a long road ahead in terms of bringing healing to the land. Experts say it will take literally several centuries before those areas are clean again.

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War unleashes a Pandora’s box of hurt. The Second World War also saw large-scale damage to nature. Globally, unexploded bombs and land mines remain a deadly problem; sunken ships spread heavy metals and toxins into the ocean as they deteriorate, wounding marine life. The impact of radioactive particles from the testing and use of nuclear weapons remains—as have the far-reaching effects of chemical defoliants used during the Vietnam War, which have had long-lasting harmful effects on men exposed to them, as well as their families and citizens living in affected areas. We can well imagine the suffering of animals in times of war, from pets and livestock to birds of the air and sea creatures in the deepest oceans. When humans fight to destroy one another, the whole world suffers.

All of this is certainly very grim to think about—but it ought not to leave us feeling depressed or hopeless. The effects of war on nature deserve more research and public attention, especially in these times when, in addition to the ongoing need to clean up after wars past, war has yet again erupted in Europe and international tensions are high.

While it’s true that war creates worlds of hurt, studying war gives us opportunities to appreciate what is good in the world around us and to reflect, with amazement and reverence, on the resilience of human beings, animals and the environment. More than harmful substances are expended in war—what is also spent is courage, endurance, and a desire to uphold human dignity and freedom, which no brutal force has ever been able to destroy. War does not only leave us with an inheritance of poisons and contamination in our world. What also remains with us are echoes of the greatness of the human spirit, and the memory of those whose bravery makes them immortal to us who hold them in our hearts and in our admiration. This legacy, alongside the sufferings that remain, can and should encourage us to seek ways to honor the sacrifices that have been made, to educate others and to do what we can to help the world heal.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

Famed Confederate Diarist’s Home Up For Sale for $950,000

Dana B. Shoaf — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 15:06:15 +0000

There are hundreds of published primary sources of soldiers, civilians, and politicians, but the massive diary kept by South Carolinian Mary Chesnut (1823-1886), published as Mary Chesnut’s Civil War in 1981, remains a classic must-read of its genre. Mary, the wife of South Carolina politician and officer James Chesnut, knew and interacted with the Confederacy’s elite.

Mary Chesnut’s Civil War

by Mary Chesnut, Yale University Press, January 1, 1981

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Whether expressing disgust at the contradictions of slavery (“our men live all in one house with their wives and their concubines, and the mulattoes one sees in every family exactly resemble the white children….”), describing a general’s appearance (Maj. Gen. Edward Johnson “had an odd habit of falling into a state of incessant winking as soon as he was the least startled…”), or bemoaning command decisions (“Jeff Davis did hate to put Joe Johnston at the head” of what was left of the Army of Tennessee, “For a day of Albert Sidney Johnston, out West! And Stonewall, could he come back to use here!!!”), her opinions provide a page-turning chronicle of the rebellion’s rise and fall.

You can own the Columbia, S.C., home the Chesnuts lived in for periods during the war, and where she wrote a part of her diary. The six-bedroom house was built in the 1850s, and survived the February 1865 fires that swept the South Carolina capital after William T. Sherman’s men occupied the town.

Offered at $950,000 and located on Hampton Street in the historic district, the house has operated as a bed & breakfast and is still zoned for such use. Or it can serve as a private residence. Buy it and walk to the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, or swing by the old capitol building and see where the scars remain from Union shellfire. Upon returning, you might want to sit down and record your own thoughts of the war that so intrigues us.

this article first appeared in civil war times magazine

The Day Miss America Almost Got Shot Down Over Vietnam

Laurel Schaefer-Bozoukoff — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 18:13:40 +0000

I’ve always believed that “with time, all truth is revealed.” Fifty years have provided a time to remember, reflect, and reconsider my USO experiences touring Vietnam and Thailand for 21 days in August 1972. As Miss America 1972, I traveled the length and breadth of the United States, accumulating about 250,000 miles. When pageant officials invited me to headline a Miss America USO Tour to Southeast Asia, I enthusiastically accepted. Not only was this an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream, but was also a significant way to conclude my year’s reign.

My WWII Navy veteran father instilled in me the ideals of service and sacrifice. He once told me, “War forever changes you. Always honor and respect those who have served our country in the military!” I took dad’s words to heart. During my college years at Ohio University, I joined Angel Flight, a women’s support group for the Air Force, and rose to the rank of [ROTC] Cadet Lt. Colonel.

Burned in Effigy

After being named Miss America, I approached pageant officials to adopt a platform for my year of service. I was motivated to support our military and suggested I lead a campaign among local and state Miss America participants to wear a pewter wristband inscribed with the name of a POW/MIA. I hoped media coverage would focus on supporting U.S. troops to counter the pervasive antiwar protests.

I discovered that my Miss America mission was as unpopular as the war. My appearances met with controversy, including: being burned in effigy, having objects thrown at me during parades, protests outside my hotel room, and death threats. I quickly learned that when you take a stand on an issue, you had better be prepared to defend it!

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I believe the Miss America title provided a platform to reinforce what is right and good about America and its people. The USO Tour was an opportunity to thank our troops for their service.

The Miss America Organization’s (MAO) director, George Cavalier, wrote and produced the show, “Something’s Coming On.” For the first time, MAO and USO decided to send two troupes: one to Vietnam and Thailand and another to Europe. We spent two weeks rehearsing and prerecording the show in New York City. We would perform live, but having the show’s music prerecorded meant we did not need live music.We could thus be transported by small aircraft or helicopters and reach remote areas where service members hadn’t seen American women in months.

Our 21-day adventure began Aug. 6, 1972. I was joined by six 1971 state representatives: Miss Louisiana, Avis Ann Cochran; Miss Maine, Allyn Warner; Miss New Mexico, Michele Cornali; Miss South Carolina, Pam Inabinet; Miss Utah, Janis Gentry; Miss Virginia, Linda Jean Moyer, along with our traveling companion, Mrs. Irene Bryant.

My mother flew in from Columbus, Ohio, to bid us farewell. Although visibly anxious about us traveling to a combat zone, she remained supportive and wished us well. As I departed, my mother handed me a travel diary and suggested I record each day’s activities. I recorded the locations visited, what we did, who we met, and my impressions.

Finding the Diary 50 Years Later

Fifty years later, my journey began again when the travel diary emerged among other 1972 memorabilia. On Aug. 6, 2022, I transcribed what I wrote in my diary detailing Day 1: “‘en route’ New York City to San Francisco International Airport to Travis AFB to Elmendorf AFB (Anchorage, AK) to Tokyo, Japan, to Saigon, Vietnam.”

Each day for 21 days, I sent the SE Asia Troupe ladies an email with that day’s diary transcription and pictures. Memories flooded back. They told me how that trip also impacted them for a lifetime—above all their visits to hospitals, mess halls, or lounges where we would “meet and greet” service members, sign autographs, take pictures, and listen to their stories and experiences.

One of the ladies recalled a difficult visit to the 95th Evac Hospital (China Beach), where we sat by the beds of wounded soldiers, many in critical condition. We held their hands, signed autographs, and tried to give them a glimmer of hope and a glimpse of home. One young soldier, a double amputee, told us he was to be married but didn’t know why his fiancée wanted to marry only half of a man!

Recalling that visit, my colleague remarked, “I was so young and had never really traveled much. I remember thinking the fellows looked like just kids out of high school. I’ll never forget the look in their glazed eyes. It was as if their souls had been amputated!”

Almost Shot Down by a SAM

Reconnecting was a big part of this 50-year journey; making contact with the six troupe ladies was the priority. I also wanted to find service members who had been part of our support team and others we met. This sleuthing was no easy task. Making those connections was essential to verify my diary entries and help identify pictures. Finding our security officer, Lt. Joe Shogan, was a significant step.

Joe revealed his assignment presented more risk than anticipated. He was concerned for our safety and questioned many locations on our itinerary. Joe’s instincts were realized Aug. 18 on a “Handshake Tour” near the Mekong Delta that included: Hau Nghia Province, Tan An (Long An Province), Ham Tam, Tay Ninh, Phu Cuong, and Xuan Loc, all of which had recently seen enemy action. No performances were scheduled in these very remote areas. There would simply be a “meet and greet” before we moved on.

At our first stop in the Province of Hau Nghia, we were shown damage from a recent mortar attack and how the shrapnel tore through a colonel’s quarters and hit him. No one was there when we arrived in Tan An due to “contact” from “a major road being cut-off by the Viet Cong (VC).” Our next stop, Ham Tan, looked like a tropical paradise. Ironically, we were told that the surrounding mountains and dense jungle were favorite hiding places for the VC!

According to this transcript from my diary:

“Off again, on our way to Xuan Loc. I was getting a bit sleepy, and the day seemed like it would never end. I closed my eyes to catch forty winks when suddenly our helicopter was diving down toward the water below! I was sitting in the gunner’s seat wearing headphones and heard something about a ‘Sammy?’ My first thought was that we had been hit and were going to crash. I offered a prayer to Jesus and a few ‘Hail Marys!’ It was strange, but for a brief moment, it crossed my mind, is this it? Will my legacy be the Miss America killed in Vietnam?…

As the chopper stabilized and everyone regained their composure, I asked what had happened and was informed that the V.C. had launched a heat-seeking missile at our helicopter. Fortunately, our gunner saw the plume of smoke and immediately warned the pilot, who engaged in a diversionary maneuver. Once again, I am convinced about divine protection!”

We learned the importance of listening and following instructions, briefs, and orientations, especially when wearing helmets and flak jackets.

While in the mountain area of Pleiku, there was a threat of incoming fire. I was washing my hair when suddenly my chaperone banged on the door and yelled for me to get out and get my gear on. In my zeal to follow orders, I climbed out of the shower dripping with water and suds, and hit the floor wearing my helmet and flak jacket, albeit nothing else!

An Eye-Opening Experience

Although we were based in Saigon, our tour took us near the DMZ to Phu Bai and Da Nang. In the Gulf of Tonkin we visited or entertained on the USS Midway, USS America, USS Hancock, and the destroyer Worden IV. In Vietnam, our tour took us to Gia Dinh, Corpus Christi Bay, Monkey Mountain, China Beach, Marble Mountains, Pleiku, Long Binh, Hau Nghia, Tan An, Ham Tan, Xuan Loc, Phu Cuong, Tay Ninh, Can Tho, Tan Son Nhut AB, and Saigon.

On Aug. 25, we boarded a MAC (Military Airlift Command) flight en route to the USA via Clark AFB in the Philippines, Hawaii, Travis AFB, San Francisco, and Philadelphia, where a limo met us to transport the troupe back to Atlantic City, N.J.

In two weeks, a new Miss America would be crowned, and we were to perform on the live broadcast for the pageant. According to my diary:

“Thoughts swirl in my head as I contemplate the full ramifications of what these last 21-days represent. I must confess that what I experienced and witnessed on this tour differed from what I had expected. So many factors to consider, process, and interpret. It will be interesting to see how history handles the truths of the Vietnam War and this time in our American history!”

Before I went to Vietnam, I was naïve in believing the rhetoric and political spin that attempted to justify why we were there and what we hoped to accomplish. Being in Vietnam and Thailand opened my eyes. I experienced it firsthand and had been one-on-one with our military men and women, many of whom didn’t want to be there but fulfilled their duty. I heard the opinions of officers and high-ranking officials who debated if the war was “winnable.”

I walked the streets of Saigon and learned many Vietnamese considered it the “American War” and not the “Vietnam War,” while others shared their hopes that U.S. troop involvement would result in their country becoming “united, prosperous, and anti-communist.” It was a confusing and challenging time that ended with tragic and disappointing results in 1975 as an abrupt pull-out from Saigon occurred.

My experiences validated my father’s words about war changing people. For me, that change resulted in appreciation for the resiliency of the human spirit and a humble awareness of mortality.

By retelling my story in this article and my forthcoming book, “The Last Miss America in Vietnam,” I hope to honor the brave men and women who served our country. Their commitment and sacrifices need to be dignified and remembered now and for future generations. God bless America!

this article first appeared in vietnam magazine