Vexillological prank

TRI-WEEKLY ALAMO EXPRESS

San Antonio, TX, February 6, 1861, p. 3, c. 1

The Lone Star flag which was raised over Carolan’s Auction room on Tuesday and left up over night, was floating Wednesday morning bespangled with the complete “glorious constellation,” much to the annoyance of the enterprising gentlemen who put it up. Of course the culprit is not known. The stars were sewed on.

So some bold wag sewed six stars around the Texas star, after the 2/1/61 Texas secession. The other four states seceded after Texas.

 

Another RACIST Civil War general

RALEIGH, June 4, 186x.

Brigadier-General HAWLEY,

Wilmington:

You are to use the colored troops as you think best, so as to relieve the white troops from duty where they would be exposed to disease.

x. x. xxxxxxxxx,

Major-General.

Those Southerners, what a group of bad men….

Wait, this order came out 9 days later, I reveal the year and the general for the above note:

GENERAL ORDERS, HDQRS. DEPT. OF NORTH CAROLINA,, ARMY OF THE OHIO, Numbers 84.
Raleigh, N. C., June 13, 1865.
The time has arrived when I must bid farewell to many of my old comrades of the Army of the Ohio, and doubtless the time will soon come when we all must separate. It is a farewell tinged with no feeling of sadness, save for the loss of our brave comrades who have fallen. Our thoughts at parting are of duty faithfully done, of hardships and dangers bravely met, of battles fought and victories won, of our glorious Union saved from destruction and more firmly reestablished on the basis of freedom for all, of dear homes and friends to which we are returning, rendered tenfold more dear by the price it has cost us to preserve them, and of the grateful welcome that awaits us among our friends and countrymen.

Let the memory of Knoxville, Resaca, Dallas, Kennesaw, Chattahoochee, and Atlanta; of Columbia, Franklin, and Nashville; of Fort Wagner, Drewry’s Bluff, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Richmond, and Fort Harrison; of Fort Fisher, Anderson, Wilmington, and Kinston, ever remind us of the priceless value of our free institutions, and incite in us that faithful discharge of our duties as citizens which alone can secure to us and to our posterity the full fruits of the victories which as soldiers we have won.

My comrades, I bid you farewell, and may Almighty God bless and reward you for patriotism and fidelity in the cause of liberty and Union, and may he comfort and protect the widows and orphan children of our comrades who have given their lives for their country.

J. M. SCHOFIELD,
Major-General.

Things were not as clear-cut as we have convinced ourselves during the intervening 150 years.

Idiot

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI, IN THE FIELD, BIG SHANTY, June 16, 1864.

General Halleck, Washington, D. C. :

General Thomas did not make the progress last night I expected. He found the enemy strongly intrenched on a line slightly advanced from a straight line connecting Lost and Kenesaw Mountain. I have been along it to-day, and am pressing up close. Shall study it, and am now inclined to feign on both flanks, and assault the center. It may cost us dear, but in result would surpass an attempt to pass round. The enemy has a strong position, and covers his road well, and the only weak point in the game is in having the Chattahoochee in his rear. If, by assaulting, I can break his line, I see no reason why it should not produce a decisive effect. I know he shifts his troops about to meet our supposed attacks, and thereby fatigues his men, and the woods will enable me to mask our movements.

W. T. SHERMAN,

Major- General Commanding.

150th anniversary at Kennesaw Mountain

Cost were “dear” indeed to ~3,000 men and their families.