RPTM Podcast Episode 49: The American Civil War Part Six

The most notable byproduct of war is scar tissue. This takes many forms, from psychological to actual scarring of the landscape. As the war closed, Americans saw a transformed America; one that had been marred by railroads that careened over the landscape like fresh sutures, created to help move the war machines and supply troops. Settlers began to homestead out west, carving the land into small parcels. The country redrew state lines and even the creation of a new state of West Virginia in the wake of the secession. The divide of the mason Dixon line further split the country as the South came to terms with the North's boot heel crushing it into submission. The psychological wounds echo today, haunting the South. 

Lincoln's wartime reliance on the telegraph ultimately led to a wave of investment in new communication machines; lines quickly found themselves jutting out of the American landscape. The Democratic and Republican parties endured the war and have held their places as the dominant US political parties ever since. We still feel the political quagmire and tribalism to this every day.

War journalists are still very prevalent to this day. Reporters dispatched eyewitness accounts by soldiers via telegraph to the country's 2,500 newspapers, printed almost instantly, and then read voraciously by citizens frantic to know how the war was shaping up. The war was the first war in which people at home could absorb battle within a short time.

The first memorial days were group events arranged in 1865 in both the South and North, just a month after the war ended. Quickly developing into an annual ritual, these "decoration days" were usually set for early summer, when the most flowers would be available to lay on tombstones. Decoration days helped the torn nation heal from its wounds. People retold their war stories, celebrated the accomplishments of local heroes, and reconciled with one-time adversaries.

When I take a step back and recognize the civil war, all I see are phantoms that still torment us to this very day.

HIGHLIGHTS

• From November 15 until December 21, 1864, Union General William T Sherman led some 60,000 soldiers on a 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. Sherman's March to the Sea sought to shock Georgia's civilian population into leaving the Confederate cause. Sherman's soldiers did not demolish any of the towns in their path, but they stole food and livestock and torched the houses and barns of people who tried to fight back.
• An ironclad is a steam-propelled warship shielded by iron or steel armor plates, assembled from 1859 to the early 1890s. The first use of ironclads in action came in the US Civil War.
• The Confederate privateers were privately owned ships sanctioned by the government of the Confederate States of America to strike the shipping of the United States. Although the appeal was to profit by seizing merchant's vessels and seizing their cargoes, the government was most interested in shifting the efforts of the Union Navy away from the blockade of Southern ports and perhaps motivating European intervention in the conflict.
• Andersonville Prison held more prisoners at any given time than any of the other Confederate military prisons. It was built in early 1864 after Confederate officials determined to move many Federal prisoners in and around Richmond to a place of greater security and ample food. During the 14 months it existed, more than 45,000 Union soldiers were imprisoned here. Of these, nearly 13,000 died from illness, poor sanitation, malnutrition, overcrowding, or exposure to the elements.
• On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the initial Emancipation Proclamation, which announced that as of January 1, 1863, all enslaved people in the states presently engaged in rebellion against the Union "shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." Lincoln didn't free all the roughly 4 million men, women, and children held in slavery in the United States when he signed the formal Emancipation Proclamation in January. The document involved only enslaved people in the Confederacy and not those in the border states that stayed loyal to the Union.

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CHAPTERS
0:37 Intro
  3:23   Sherman's March to the Sea
 8:51  Ironclads
15:51 Piracy Part Four
22:28 Andersonville Prison
27:16 Emancipation Proclamation

RESOURCES
Sherman’s March to the Sea
Ironclad warship
Confederate privateer
Andersonville Prison
Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation