#confederates
General Pierce M.B. Young(Confederate)
Here we have a distinguished gentleman indeed. Reclining in his chair, Young is wearing the fine civilian clothes he donned for his post-war career as a politician and diplomat, although this photo was apparently taken at the height of the war itself, in 1863. His face demonstrates an unusual take on a goatee, with his remarkable moustache almost blocking out what little beard he has on his chin.
Young was one of the leading Confederate cavalry figures of the war, more or less from start to finish. He served under Wade Hampton and J.E.B. Stuart, showing bravery and leadership skills in a series of battles that eventually won him promotion to major general late in 1864. He saw out the war desperately and vainly defending his home state of Georgia and then his birthplace of South Carolina. After the surrender he returned to Georgia and served four terms in the US House of Representatives, later becoming a consul in Russia and Central America.
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General Stonewall Jackson(Confederate)
His beard, although impressive, is actually one of the least remarkable things about Stonewall’s general physical appearance. Convinced that one of his arms was longer than the other, he usually held one arm up in order to improve his circulation. He also chewed lemons in an attempt to ease his chronic indigestion, although his typically serious expression may have had more to do with his famously devout Christian faith than his taste for bitter citrus fruit.
An early Confederate hero, Jackson got his nickname at the First Battle of Bull Run, when his brigade of Virginians stood firm against a fierce Union assault. His Shenandoah Valley campaign, in which he skilfully manouevred his smaller force to a series of victories over much larger Union armies, gave him the reputation as one of the great generals of the war. Although undoubtedly eccentric and sometimes unpredictable (his rather sketchy performances during the Seven Days battles have been criticised by historians), his death in 1863 was a serious setback to both Southern morale and Confederate military capability. He was hit by friendly fire in the immediate aftermath of one of his greatest victories, the routing of the Union right at the Battle of Chancellorsville.
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General John B Gordon(Confederate)
War is no laughing matter, but the photographic evidence suggests John B Gordon was a stern, unsmiling sort of fellow, even by the standards of the age. Just look at the dark hair, dark eyes, and that impressively dark and bushy goatee.
Soldiers with professional military experience were at a premium when the Civil War broke out, and Gordon didn’t have any. Not that it mattered. A lawyer and businessman from Georgia, he joined the Confederate Army in 1861 and rose through the ranks impressively, finishing the war as a major general. His aggressive style saw him personally wounded several times, including at Antietam where he was hit in the legs, arm, shoulder and then face, almost drowning in his own blood. A prominent Southern politician and white supremacist after the war, he served as Governor of Georgia and twice in the US Senate, as well as, according to some sources, a leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
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Major General Mansfield Lovell (Confederate)
Lovell was a man who apparently did his best, both during the war and in terms of growing a sideburns-and-moustache combo. However, in both cases, his best wasn’t nearly good enough.
His facial hair shows promise, but is completely trumped by his Union contemporary Ambrose Burnside. If Burnside had been clean-shaven perhaps we’d be talking about ‘lovells’ rather than 'sideburns’ to this day. But he wasn’t, and we aren’t. In battle, Lovell was the Confederate military commander at New Orleans and took the blame for the Union capture of the city in early 1862, a crucial incident that deprived the Confederacy of its largest city for the rest of the war. Historians now suggest it was unfair to pin it all on Lovell, but that’s what the Confederate government did, and his reputation never recovered during his lifetime.
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General Albert Sidney Johnston(Confederate)
The most senior general on either side to be killed in action during the war, Albert Sidney Johnston was one of the less hirsute military commanders. He had a long military career as a general in the Army of the Texas Republic as well as the US Army, and favoured just a moustache, albeit an immaculate one.
Johnston was put in charge of the huge western part of the Confederacy early in the war. He led his men into battle at Shiloh in April 1862 and was killed during a cavalry charge, apparently by friendly fire. His wound probably needn’t have been fatal, but he’d sent his personal doctor away to deal with injured Union prisoners, and the officers who went to his aid apparently had little idea of how to tie a tourniquet. One tried pouring brandy into his dying general’s mouth, unsurprisingly to little effect, and Johnston bled to death.
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General PGT Beauregard(Confederate)
The Louisiana general was one of several Civil War figures to be likened to Napoleon. And there’s certainly a European look to his stylish moustache-and-sliver-of-a-beard combo.
Beauregard was a star Confederate general in the early days of the war, overseeing the bombardment of Fort Sumter that kicked the whole thing off, and then assuming command at Shiloh following the death of Albert Sidney Johnston. Beauregard arrived at Shiloh with Napoleon’s line of battle from Waterloo in his pocket, and like his hero he had to spend some time in exile when he was relieved of command following his decision to withdraw from Corinth without a fight. His later defences of Charleston and Petersburg restored his reputation, and after the war he declined offers to take charge of the armies of Brazil, Egypt and Romania.
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Women’s History Month
Margaret Palm-African-American History-Civil War
Margaret Palm lived in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, along with 190 other free African-Americans, making up about 8% of the town’s population. She rented a white shack on the west end of Emmitsburg Road, and lived there with her husband, Alf Palm and their one child.
During the months leading up to the Battle of Gettysburg, African-American members of the Gettysburg community began fleeing their homes for fear that their freedom and safety would be in jeopardy, once the Confederate army invaded their little town.
There are many stories that surround the persona of “Mag Palm”, as she was called, some perhaps mere legends passed on by other civilians over the years. One legend refers to Mag as “Maggie Bluecoat”, referring to the story that she wore a blue coat of an officer of the War of 1812, and carried a musket while aiding other slaves in their fight for freedom from slavery.
One account, however, of an attempted kidnapping of Mag Palm by two local men is well known and well documented. Many free African-Americans were often victims of kidnapping by their own white neighbors, often to be sold off to Southerners for slavery.
Like the majority of African-American women in the Gettysburg community during the Civil War years, Mag made a hard living by scrubbing floors and washing the clothes of her white neighbors. One cold winter night in 1858, three years before the war even began, upon returning home from picking up her pay from one of her employers, Mag was attacked by two men who tried to tie her hands and take her away. . Mag managed to fight both men off with the help of another neighbor, John Karseen, a store owner in town, who witnessed the attack. Years later Mag Palm was photographed demonstrating how the men bound her hands and documented the attack for history.
During the battle, her home on Emmitsburg Road was occupied by the Union army and eventually destroyed in the fighting on the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 3, 1863. Despite hardships in her own marriage, as her husband drank and was often prone to fits of rage, she managed to buy her own home again along Long Lane, a black community in the town, after the battle was finally over. She continued to struggle financially and was never able to stop beating rugs and scrubbing floors for a living.
Mag Palm passed away in October of 1896 from a heart ailment. She was buried in the Lincoln Cemetery in Gettysburg, among many other African-American civilians of the town. Her courageous story of struggle and survival is only one of the many forgotten African-American civilian stories of the women who lived and survived the battles fought right in their own communities, during the Civil War.
