Civil War Oddities #56

Confederate Brig. General Ben Hardin Helm was the only Southerner whose combat death caused conspicuous mourning in Washington. Having married Mary Todd Lincoln’s half-sister Emilie, he turned down his brother-in-law’s offer of a commission as Union paymaster. When Helm died from wounds received as Chickamauga, the Union commander in chief and his family went into mourning.

Civil War Oddities #55

While pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, the Rev. Dr. Henry Ward Beecher became the nation’s most famous clergyman. An ardent abolitionist, he helped to create conditions that led to the widely used label “Bloody Kansas.”

Hoping to cause the territory to tilt into the antislavery column when it became a state, the clergyman shipped substantial numbers of Sharps rifles to Kansas.

Some weapons seem to have gone to the west in crates that were marked “Beecher’s Bibles.” Hence for a time that name was applied to breech-loaders initially opposed by many Federal military leaders who believed that the use of them would encourage waste of ammunition.

Civil War Oddities #54

Missouri born Thomas Coleman Younger was just seventeen years old in 1861. He could have entered Federal service, but he chose not to do so. Instead, the youth, whose friends called him “Cole,” joined forces with guerrillas who ravaged Missouri and Kansas.

Younger gained fame as an outlaw during a dozen post-war years in which he cut a wide swath through the West. Then the Civil War veteran spent sixteen years behind bars for his part in a bank robbery at Northfield, Minnesota.

On September 7, 1876, Northfield experienced one of its most important historical events: The James-Younger Gang tried to rob the First National Bank of Northfield. Local citizens, recognizing what was happening, armed themselves and resisted the robbers and successfully thwarted the theft. The gang killed the bank's cashier, Joseph Lee Heywood and a Swedish immigrant, Nicholas Gustafson. A couple of members of the gang were killed in the street, while the rest were cornered near Madelia, Minnesota. Jesse and Frank James escaped west into the Dakotas, while the remaining gang members were killed or taken into custody. Considering the James gang as related to postwar insurgency, the raid has sometimes been called the last major event of the American Civil War. One of Northfield's slogans is "Jesse James Slipped Here", based on the raid's failure.

Civil War Oddities #53

Abraham Lincoln’s oldest son, Robert Todd, was a student at Harvard when hostilities began. Some Illinois leaders grumbled and complained at his sheltered life, but he entered law school instead of the army after his 1864 graduation. Under tremendous public pressure, Abraham Lincoln then arranged for his oldest son to become a member of McClellan’s staff.

Captain Lincoln took care of visiting dignitaries, including his father, but he never “saw the elephant” by engaging in combat. He was U.S. secretary of war and U.S. minister to Great Britain before heading the Pullman Car Company, then one of the nation’s largest corporations.

Civil War Oddities #52

John Jacob Astor, Jr., grandson of the fur trader who was the first American to accumulate a great fortune, was eager to demonstrate his patriotism. He was, however, less than enthusiastic about signing up for three years of military service. Hence he negotiated a deal whereby he became a volunteer aide-de-camp to Maj. General George B. McClellan.

Colonel Aster took up his duties in November 1861 and remained with the Army of the Potomac for eight months. There’s no record that he ever carried a musket or was exposed to confederate fire, but in 1865 he was awarded a brevet as brigadier general "for services rendered during the Peninsular Campaign.”

Civil War Oddities #51

Organization of the Forty-second Ohio Regiment was completed in August 1861 with the selection of its lieutenant colonel. Leading Ohio troops in numerous engagements, he won such rapid promotion that he became a major general on September 19, 1863.

Three months later, citizens of the Buckeye State elected the two-year veteran to Congress. He left Federal forces on December 5 to take the seat he had won without waging a campaign. Eighteen years later, James A. Garfield was inaugurated as out twentieth president.

Civil War Oddities #50

A steamer took some of the Federal soldiers who were seriously wounded at Fort Donelson to a St. Louis hospital. Among the civilians who visited them were sisters known only as “three maiden ladies from Philadelphia.” Not until they had been doing volunteer hospital work for weeks did patents discover the trio to be numbered among the top ranks of America’s bluebloods. They proved to be grandnieces of James ”Commodore” Biddle, a top naval commander during the War of 1812.