American Civil War

choi

本文通过一路BBS站telnet客户端发布


(1) Harold Holzer, Civil War Diaries, Blue and Gray. Wall Street Journal, Apr 16, 2011 (in the column Five Best).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704529204576256913790298414.html?mod=rss_Books

Note:
(a) Mary Boykin Chesnut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Boykin_Chesnut
(born Mary Boykin Miller; 1823-1886; father Stephen Decatur Miller; husband James Chesnut, Jr)
(b) bewigged (adj): "wearing a wig"

All definitions are from www.m-w.com.
(c) Lost Cause
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause
(The term Lost Cause first appeared in the title of an 1866 book by the historian Edward A. Pollard, The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates)

(2) Sara Clemence, Salute to History; Ways to witness the sesquiten…seshquiecent…er, 150th anniversary of the Civil War. Wall Street Journal, Apr 16, 2011 (in the column Sites and Sightings).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704529204576257591431168376.html

Note:
(a) rolling-pin 擀麵棍
(b) Manassas, Virginia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manassas,-Virginia

(i) Bull Run (Occoquan River)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Run_(Occoquan_River)
(a creek that originates from a spring in the Bull Run Mountains in Virginia and is a tribute of Occoquan River, which in turn empties into Potomac River)
(ii) First Battle of Bull Run
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Bull_Run
(also known as the First Battle of Manassas (the name used by Confederate forces); fought on July 21, 1861; near the City of Manassas; the first major land battle of the American Civil War; Result[:] Confederate victory)

Quote:

"A brigade of Virginians under a relatively unknown colonel from the Virginia Military Institute, Thomas J. Jackson, stood their ground and Jackson received his famous nickname, "Stonewall Jackson".

"The name of the battle has caused controversy since 1861. The Union Army frequently named battles after significant rivers and creeks that played a role in the fighting; the Confederates generally used the names of nearby towns or farms. The U.S. National Park Service uses the Confederate name for its national battlefield park, but the Union name (Bull Run) also has widespread currency in popular literature.

My comment: Please read the introductory section.
(iii) Second Battle of Bull Run
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Bull_Run
(Second Manassas, as it was called by the Confederacy; fought August 28–30, 1862; culmination of an offensive campaign waged by Confederate against Union, and a battle of much larger scale and numbers than the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) fought in 1861 on the same ground; Result Confederate victory)
(c) Compared with the online version, the print edition of this article has two more photos, showing two different boys in military uniforms. The exhibition:
The Last Full Measure: Civil War Photographs from the Liljenquist Family Collection. Library of Congress (LOC), Apr 12, 2011–Aug 13, 2011.
http://myloc.gov/exhibitions/civilwarphotographs/pages/default.aspx


-----------------------The following has nothing to do with literature but informative nonetheless.
(1) This Week: April 11-15; A Budget, a Budget Fight, Libya on the Brink. Wall Street Journal, Apr 16, 2011.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704116404576262743962663906.html

My comment:
(a) Please see the graphic only:
Douglas A Blackmon and Sarah Slobin, An Economy Divided.
(b) In the print, the size of the graphic overshadows the text. At first I was puzzled, unable to comprend what dark blue, orange and light blue of the bar charts in the  graphic stands for, reading from the left upper corner. Then I realized the key was in the bottom horizontal charts. It is unbelievable that whites in the north (which had almost no blacks) was 3.5 times as many as whites in the south (though everybody knows population of the north was bigger than that of the south).
(c) In the yellowing census map, the state in the upper left corner, with Bootheel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootheel
is Missouri. On its south is Arkansas.

(2) Timothy W Martin and Cameron McWhirter, Reliving First Shots of Civil War. Wall Street Journal, Apr 11, 2011.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704366104576255170674733458.html
("Fort Pickens and Fort Sumter were the only two forts with U.S. soldiers remaining in the Confederacy by early 1861 * * * Situated near one of the Confederacy's largest ports, in the Deep South, it impeded rebel forces from importing goods and supplies from Cuba and the Caribbean that they sorely needed because the South lacked manufacturing plants")

My comment:
(a) Note the plural form of the "shots" in the title. For the very short was around Fort Sumter.
(b) Pensacola Beach, Florida
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensacola_Beach,_Florida
(a barrier island; situated south of Pensacola)

(i) Section 4.2 (headlined Fort Pickens) of this Wiki page said little. So go to another Wiki page:
Fort Pickens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Pickens
(ii) There is no map in Wiki page for Pensacola Beach. The City of Pensacola and the barrier island of Pensacola Beach can be appreciated in the map of
Pensacola, Florida
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensacola,_Florida
(the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle; At the time of European contact a Muskogean-speaking tribe known to the Spanish as the Pensacola lived in the region. This name is not recorded until 1677, but the tribe appear to be the source of the name "Pensacola" for the bay and thence the city)
(c) spiel (n): "a voluble line of often extravagant talk : PITCH"


(3) Bret Stephens, Lessons of Fort Sumter There is no substitute for principled leadership in war. Wall Street Journal, Apr 11, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704529204576256863623381494.html
("Lincoln then asked his top general, Winfield Scott, what it would take to hold the fort. Scott answered that 25,000 soldiers would be required, and that it would take six to eight months to organize a relief flotilla. At the time, the entire U.S. army numbered 16,000 men")

Note:
(a) Fort Sumter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Sumter
(Named after General Thomas Sumter, Revolutionary War hero, Fort Sumter was built following the War of 1812, as one of a series of fortifications on the southern U.S. coast)
(b) The article stated, "Fort Sumter was one of four federal forts in what by then was Confederate territory."

"The only immediate, natural conflict between the new Confederacy and the government of the United States lay in the basically trivial territorial issue of sovereignty over four Federal forts located within Confederate territory: Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, Pickens off Pensacola Bay, Taylor at Key West, and Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas."
JDZ, 150 Anniversary of the Start of the Civil War. Apr 12, 2011.
http://neveryetmelted.com/2011/04/12/150-anniversary-of-the-start-of-the-civil-war/

* Dry Tortugas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_Tortugas
(located at the end of the Florida Keys, about 70 miles (113 km) west of Key West)

(c) The article said, "Secretary of State William Seward, who thought of himself as the brains behind the throne, fretted that an expedition would "provoke combat, and probably initiate a war." He was particularly keen to shore up Unionist sentiment in slave states that hadn't yet seceded, particularly Virginia. * * * He wanted to let the seven seceding states go without a fight so they could stew in their own juices."

(i) brain (n): "the chief planner within a group —usually used in plural <she's the brains behind their success>"
(ii) "After a Republican victory [election day Nov 6, 1960], but before the new administration took office on March 4, 1861 [when Lincoln was inaugurated], seven cotton states declared their secession and joined together to form the Confederate States of America."   
American Civil War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War
(see teh map of section 2 Secession begins)

The seven states were the Deep South, led by South Carolina who declared seccession on Dec 24, 1860. They (the seven states) established the Confederate States of America on February 4, 1861, whose capital was Montgomery, Alabama.

"Virginia voted to secede from the United States on April 17, 1861, after the Battle of Fort Sumter and Abraham Lincoln's call for volunteers. On April 24, Virginia joined the Confederate States of America, which chose Richmond as its capital."
Virginia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia

(d) the article quoted Pres Lincoln as saying, "The tug has to come and better now, than any time hereafter."

tug (n): "a struggle between two people or opposite forces"

--