The Saltville Massacre

The Saltville Massacre PDF

Author: Thomas D. Mays

Publisher: TX A&m-McWhiney Foundation

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781886661059

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In October 1864, in the mountains of southwest Virginia, one of the most brutal acts of the Civil War occurs. Brig. Gen. Stephen Burbridge launches a raid to capture Saltville. Included among his forces is the 5th U.S. Colored Cavalry. Repeated Federal attacks are repulsed by Confederate forces under the command of Gen. John S. Williams. As the sun begins to set, Burbridge pulls his troops from the field, leaving many wounded. In the morning, Confederate troops, including a company of ruffians under the command of Captain Champ Ferguson, advance over the battleground seeking out and killing the wounded black soldiers. What starts as a small but intense mountain battle degenerates into a no-quarter, racial massacre. A detailed account from eyewitness reports of the most blatant battlefield atrocity of the war.

Washington County, Virginia, in the Civil War

Washington County, Virginia, in the Civil War PDF

Author: Michael K. Shaffer

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2012-02-10

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 1614233128

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The citizens of Washington County, Virginia gave up their sons and daughters to the Confederate cause of the Civil War. Contributing six Confederate generals as well as Union officers, the region is emblematic of communities throughout the nation that sacrificed during the war. Though the sounds of cannon fire and gunshots were only heard at a distance, Washington County was the breadbasket for Confederate armies. From the fields surrounding Abingdon to the coveted salt works in Saltville, Union Generals were constantly eyeing the region, resulting in the Saltville Massacre and the burning of Abingdon's famous courthouse. Historian Michael Shaffer gives a detailed narrative of Washington County during the Civil War, painting vivid images of heroism on and off the battlefield.

Cumberland Blood

Cumberland Blood PDF

Author: Thomas D. Mays

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2008-08-13

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 0809387034

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By the end of the Civil War, Champ Ferguson had become a notorious criminal whose likeness covered the front pages of Harper’s Weekly, Leslie’s Illustrated, and other newspapers across the country. His crime? Using the war as an excuse to steal, plunder, and murder Union civilians and soldiers. Cumberland Blood: Champ Ferguson’s Civil War offers insights into Ferguson's lawless brutality and a lesser-known aspect of the Civil War, the bitter guerrilla conflict in the Appalachian highlands, extending from the Carolinas through Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. This compelling volume delves into the violent story of Champ Ferguson, who acted independently of the Confederate army in a personal war that eventually garnered the censure of Confederate officials. Author Thomas D. Mays traces Ferguson's life in the Cumberland highlands of southern Kentucky, where—even before the Civil War began—he had a reputation as a vicious killer. Ferguson, a rising slave owner, sided with the Confederacy while many of his neighbors and family members took up arms for the Union. For Ferguson and others in the highlands, the war would not be decided on the distant fields of Shiloh or Gettysburg: it would be local—and personal. Cumberland Blood describes how Unionists drove Ferguson from his home in Kentucky into Tennessee, where he banded together with other like-minded Southerners to drive the Unionists from the region. Northern sympathizers responded, and a full-scale guerrilla war erupted along the border in 1862. Mays notes that Ferguson's status in the army was never clear, and he skillfully details how raiders picked up Ferguson's gang to work as guides and scouts. In 1864, Ferguson and his gang were incorporated into the Confederate army, but the rogue soldier continued operating as an outlaw, murdering captured Union prisoners after the Battle of Saltville, Virginia. Cumberland Blood, enhanced by twenty-one illustrations, is an illuminating assessment of one of the Civil War's most ruthless men. Ferguson's arrest, trial, and execution after the war captured the attention of the nation in 1865, but his story has been largely forgotten. Cumberland Blood: Champ Ferguson's Civil War returns the story of Ferguson's private civil war to its place in history.

Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath

Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath PDF

Author: George S Burkhardt

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2007-05-02

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 9780809327430

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This provocative study proves the existence of a de facto Confederate policy of giving no quarter to captured black combatants during the Civil War—killing them instead of treating them as prisoners of war. Rather than looking at the massacres as a series of discrete and random events, this work examines each as part of a ruthless but standard practice. Author George S. Burkhardt details a fascinating case that the Confederates followed a consistent pattern of murder against the black soldiers who served in Northern armies after Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. He shows subsequent retaliation by black soldiers and further escalation by the Confederates, including the execution of some captured white Federal soldiers, those proscribed as cavalry raiders, foragers, or house-burners, and even some captured in traditional battles. Further disproving the notion of Confederates as victims who were merely trying to defend their homes, Burkhardt explores the motivations behind the soldiers’ actions and shows the Confederates’ rage at the sight of former slaves—still considered property, not men—fighting them as equals on the battlefield. Burkhardt’s narrative approach recovers important dimensions of the war that until now have not been fully explored by historians, effectively describing the systemic pattern that pushed the conflict toward a black flag, take-no-prisoners struggle.

As It Was

As It Was PDF

Author: Douglas John Cater

Publisher: TX A&m-McWhiney Foundation

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781933337258

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Cater's reminiscences of his Civil War experiences, simply titled As It Was, comprises a superbly detailed and colorful description of a soldier's life in the ranks of the Third Texas Cavalry and the Nineteenth Louisiana Infantry. In the early chapters of As It Was, Cater describes his youthful experiences, including his family life, education, hunting, and other pleasant pastimes, plantation activities and relationships with slaves, as well as social conditions. These chapters are valuable for their honest views of life in the late antebellum northwestern Louisiana and northeastern Texas. In early May 1861 a wealthy Rusk County planter, Richard H. Cumby, began recruiting a company of volunteers to serve as cavalrymen. More than one hundred men, including Douglas John Cater, answered the call. Representing the cream of Rusk County's young male population, they would be designated as Company B of Col. Elkanah Greer's Third Texas Cavalry, formed the following month in Dallas. Cater served with the Third Texas Cavalry in the Battle of Wilson's Creek and Elkhorn Tavern. In June 1862, Douglas Cater transferred to the Nineteenth Louisiana Infantry to be with his brother Rufus, and remained with that unit until the end of the war. He participated in the Battles of Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Franklin, and Nashville.

Fort Pillow, a Civil War Massacre, and Public Memory

Fort Pillow, a Civil War Massacre, and Public Memory PDF

Author: John Cimprich

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2011-04-08

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 0807139181

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At the now-peaceful spot of Tennessee's Fort Pillow State Historic Area, a horrific incident in the nation's bloodiest war occurred on April 12, 1864. Just as a high bluff in the park offers visitors a panoramic view of the Mississippi River, John Cimprich's absorbing book affords readers a new vantage on the American Civil War as viewed through the lens of the Confederate massacre of unionist and black Federal soldiers at Fort Pillow. Cimprich covers the entire history of Fort Pillow, including its construction by Confederates, its capture and occupation by federals, the massacre, and ongoing debates surrounding that affair. He sets the scene for the carnage by describing the social conflicts in federally occupied areas between secessionists and unionists as well as between blacks and whites. In a careful reconstruction of the assault itself, Cimprich balances vivid firsthand reports with a judicious narrative and analysis of events. He shows how Major General Nathan B. Forrest attacked the garrison with a force outnumbering the Federals roughly 1,500 to 600, and a breakdown of Confederate discipline resulted. The 65 percent death toll for black unionists was approximately twice that for white unionists, and Cimprich concludes that racism was at the heart of the Fort Pillow massacre. Fort Pillow, a Civil War Massacre, and Public Memory serves as a case study for several major themes of the Civil War: the great impact of military experience on campaigns, the hardships of military life, and the trend toward a more ruthless conduct of war. The first book to treat the fort's history in full, it provides a valuable perspective on the massacre and, through it, on the war and the world in which it occurred.

Texans in the Confederate Cavalry

Texans in the Confederate Cavalry PDF

Author: Anne J. Bailey

Publisher: Civil War Campaigns and Comman

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781886661028

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Examines the contributions of the veteran Texas Rangers to the Civil War as "horse soldiers," and highlights their confrontations, in which they were often outnumbered but frequently managed to turn the tide of battle.

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