He Received a Letter from the Confederate Who Ordered His Shooting
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- čas přidán 30. 07. 2024
- Neal Dow had a long career as a politician and staunch advocate for prohibition. The Maine-born Quaker was nicknamed the "Napoleon of Temperance" for his crusade against the evils of alcohol. By the start of the Civil War, 57-year-old Dow also championed the abolition of slavery. He became colonel of the 13th Maine Infantry and went on to become a brigadier. The story of his wounding and capture at Port Hudson is well-publicized. Less so is a letter sent to him by the Confederate officer on the other side of Port Hudson who ordered his men to fire on Dow. Here's what he had to say.
"Life on the Civil War Research Trail" is hosted by Ronald S. Coddington, Editor and Publisher of Military Images magazine. Learn more about our mission to showcase, interpret and preserve Civil War portrait photography at militaryimagesmagazine.com and shopmilitaryimages.com.
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Image: Ronald S. Coddington Collection.
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Thanks for a great story that I probably wouldn’t have heard anywhere else.
This was a superb story! You present the material so well! You put a human face on the war, which goes beyond statistics, troop movements, victories, defeats, and casualties! Thank you as always, your loyal follower!
Thank you!
Remarkable story. So glad to hear it, thank you. An illustrative small example of why the American Civil War was unlike any other war in human history and was, by my count, the noblest sacrificial undertaking ever drawn and completed by human beings. It’s very much too bad more Americans do not understand this about our country! Your video series is not only terrifically engaging but also a great service.
Just another ironic situation from your research that I'd never heard before. Thanks for these gems. Brings to mind the John Adams death bed quote, "Thomas Jefferson survives," when Jefferson had, in fact, died only a few hours before.
Dispute his sever wounds and time in Libby prison Dow had a long life. I look forward to to your insightful messages every day.
What irony. Another Civil War story which you present wonderfully.
I honestly believe that it is probably harder for someone who has served in the modern military to identify with how men fought and served in 19th and 18th century warfare, than it would be for someone who has never served at all. Things are so much different on so many levels, yet in some regards very much the same as well. It is where things are so much different that it would make it so hard to relate. The technology of the weapons and other instruments of warfare are so different, the tactics are night and day different, the way recruiting and the formation, the organizations of units were very different in some aspects.
When I was a young kid I attended military school for a year. The ROTC aspect of that school was as much a part of the curriculum as the academice aspect of that school. When families would come visit on Sundays we would perform a parade for them and we had to master every aspect of ROTC to put on flawless show for visiting family or even for our morning and evening formations and other daily formations. What I didnt appreciate at that time was the fact that all of these ROTC manuvers we worked so hard to master back then were part of the tactics for combat in 19th and 18th century warfare. What was very much part of the tactics back then goes against everything you are trained to do for modern warfare.
When I joined the US Army, at Ft. Benning GA I did my basic training with young men from all over the United States, not just the lower 48 either. I didn't know any of them prior to basic training, I didn't know my NCOs, didn't know my officers. More or less the United States military has purposely been that way since just prior to the American involvement in WWI. When you complete basic training you get assigned to an entirely different unit with other soldiers, of whom, you have never met before most likely, and they too, are, most likely, from all over the country.
That's not how it worked in 18th and 19th century warfare. When you joined, you joined along side others from where you lived, you trained along side them and you went into battle along side them. When the war was over, if you survived, you returned home to the same place that the men you served and survived with returned to the same communities. To me, that seems to be the hardest part to identify with.
I couldn't imagine going off to war along side of family and friends and neighbors I had known my whole life before hand. I couldn't imagine having to see those same men being butchered and killed in battle. I could only imagine how much worse that may have made comming to terms with what you had to endure after the war. I couldn't imagine comming home and seeing the mothers and wives and children and other family and friends, of men I knew who did not make it home, on a regular basis and what that experience would have been like. Some aspects of that must have been agonizing for those veterans. The constant reminders of what they had endured, seem to me, that they would be so much more inescapable and agonizing. I have no doubt that this is why so many Civil War veterans, from both sides, took part in the great western migration.
When the temperance movement began to gain momentum in the late 19th century it was because alcohalism was rampant. In my youth, so many veterans of Vietnam and Korea and WWII were hard drinkers. That is just how so many veterans dealt with their PTSD. They self medicated. There is no doubt in my mind that this was why alcoholism was so rampant in the late 19th century and early 20th century and why some felt that there was such a need for prohibition of alcoholic drink. Opiod addiction was every bit the epidemic back then as it is today as well. It is not hard to believe that the Civil War veteran suffered excruciating PTSD and often heavily medicated himself not only for PTSD but also for physical wounds as well. They had it rough man, as pretty much all combat veterans do. But with the way units were formed locally, I could only imagine, had to amplify their issues with PTSD even more so. God bless every one of them, both Billy Yank and Johnny Reb, "thy burdens are greater than mine".
Wow. Your words are so poignant and descriptive. I am forever grateful and indebted to you and others who have served for these very reasons that give and retain my freedom. I pray for our veterans to receive a healing of the soul so deep and peaceful. A simple thank you, I realize, is not suffice, but it is from the heart. Thank you.
@phillipcole3068 Thank you, I did serve a short time in the Army, but I am no combat veteran myself. I can not speak from personal experience. But I have known many combat veterans and had just a glimpse into what they have been through and how they deal with what they have been through.
We have much to learn about how to help them. The British were the first to really take what we now call PTSD seriously during and after WWI. But even before then, there were terms such as "battle fatigue" and "shell shock."" Unfortunately, the US didn't really start to take PTSD very seriously until after the Vietnam War.
I have had Iraq War veteran friends of mine who are on disability for PTSD and other medical problems that can be attributed to their time in the service and more directly in combat. I don't particularly like what I have heard from them about the medications they have been prescribed by the VA.
First off, they are required to take these medications if they want to receive their disability. Second, based on what one Marine Corps veteran explained to me, his medication, for PTSD, makes him feel a bit off. I was on Ritalin as a kid and did not care for it at all. It made me feel very antsy and nervous, and it sounds to me like this PTSD medication made this USMC Iraq war veteran feel very similar. I don't think it is right that one should be required to take a medication that makes them feel uncomfortable in order to receive what they rightfully earned. If it were me, and my meds made me feel that way, I think I would prefer self medication with alcohol the way combat veterans of old dealt with their PTSD.
We have to find better ways of treating our veterans and caring for them. The VA would not be as overburdened as it is, and we wouldn't have so many veterans with PTSD and so many other problems, if we stayed out of undeclared wars, we didn't need to be fighting. That would be the first step in the right direction.
I am fortunate to have just now stumbled upon this channel, this video, and now your excellent and insightful note.
Whether you realize it or not, you have in very few words outlined a lifetime of scholarship for some eager, bright, energetic young academic.
Were I forty years younger I’d be sorely tempted to pick up the banner you have so ably handed off and run with it. I can’t imagine a more satisfying way for a military historian to spend a career.
@CAROLUSPRIMA I know the feeling. I, too, will have to wait and see what someone is younger and wiser, more able and energetic than I am to do some good here.
we're back and all in one piece
Love your program!
“Slaughter’s Plantation” .. a ironic name. 34 years later. Dow was probably never the same after 1863. Love your channel.
Amazing story. Never would have heard of this without ur content ron
Very interesting
Just wonderful.....this touched me deeply. Great presentation, as always.
What an extraordinary story! Thank you for bringing it to us.
In the words of Paul Harvey..." Now you know the rest of the story"... Thanks, always thought provoking and insightful.
So very interesting - thank you for bring this to light and sharing with your infectious enthusiasm
There's always the chance that reading that letter may have been the last thing he did on this earth, in the event he had read it. If someone in poor health reads a detailed recollection of multiple sharpshooters being ordered to dispatch him, and him alone, the shock could be fatal in his condition. You would absolutely feel something in your chest after reading a letter like that.
Absolutely amazing story.
Imagine modern politicians putting their lives on the line
Like JFK?
Well, I bet that was a surprise!!! It took a lot for Thomas J. Reid, Jr. to write such a letter. Time does a lot to change perspectives and bring peace to once inflamed feelings. Great story on Neal Dow.
My great-great grand father, Hazen Lewis (I know, that’s a weird first name) served in the 15th Main Regiment.
154 yrs later, I’d serve in the famous 69th NY Regiment, the “Fighting 69th.
My great-grandfather's cousin was the last Union soldier killed at Port Hudson. Corporal David Plotts served in a New York volunteer infantry regiment. He participated in another of those failed frontal assaults. After the retreat was called, He stayed behind to tend to his wounded comrades and was captured by Confederate troops. He escaped but was caught by Confederates, who warned him that they would shoot him if he tried again. He attempted to escape a second time successfully and made it back to the Union lines. Because he had observed the Confederate fortifications from the inside, General Banks summoned him to his headquarters, and he briefed Banks on the disposition of Confederate positions and their general condition, which wasn't good. Shortly after that, a Union naval officer requested that he spot for the Navy guns, then bombarding the fortifications. He was killed by a direct hit from Confederate artillery while performing this duty. This was the last shot fired from Port Hudson before the fort surrendered.
Some things are better not to know. Who knows but a reminder of those painful and violent times would have brought on an agonizing final thought and regrets as he died?
Thanks for a great story !
Ron, that was fascinating. Keep going!
This is truly an amazing story.
Incredible story.
Very interesting!
Fitz Lee was Robert's nephew, not son. His son was Major General Custis Lee and his son Robert, Jr. was an enlisted man in the artillery.
My mistake. I misspoke. Appreciate the correction.
@@lifeonthecivilwarresearchtrail Actually, you were correct. Robert E Lee's second son, Brigadier General William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, nicknamed Rooney by his father, served as a brigadier general in the Army of Northern Virginia. He was captured and spent nine months as a prisoner as Fort Monroe and later Fort Lafayette. He was exchanged in March of 1864 for Neal Dow. Robert E Lee did have a nephew, Fitz Lee, who served as a Confederate calvary general, but he was never captured.
Quite a story.
This is a captivating story of one man trying to honor his former foe , before that foe passes away. I don't think that a letter like that was ever written by the person who ordered " sharpshooters" to fire 100 years later......in Dealey Plaza, Dallas ,Texas, 1963...