Stan D. Jensen's Blog, page 2

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) was a fiery abolitionist, ...

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) was a fiery abolitionist, a minister, and a celebrated speaker.  Mark Twain went to see Beecher preach and described him as "sawing his arms in the air, howling sarcasams this way and that, discharging rockets of poetry, and exploding mines of eloquence."  While Beecher was on a speaking tour in England to argue against the Southern cause, a man in a London audience confronted him.
    The Londoner asked, "If your cause is so righteous with your great Northern strength, why can't you put down the rebellion?"
     Beecher answered, "Because we are fighting Americans and not Englishmen."

Photo from the Brady-Handy Collection, Library of Congress.  Published between 1855 & 1865.

After the sun went down, and the fighting ended for the d...

After the sun went down, and the fighting ended for the day, exhausted soldiers would hear appalling sounds coming from the battlefield as they tried to sleep.  Moans and cries of the wounded frightening to hear, frightening because it was unthinkable to believe  such sounds could be made by a human.  These sounds were far more than mere shouts for help and calls for water.  But soldiers wrote in their diaries that a no less harrowing sound heard coming from the battlefield at night was a low hum.  This hum was made by wounded men holding back the sound of their suffering by keeping their mouths tightly shut, and by wounded men too weak to give greater sound to their agony.


Federal dead after the first day of Gettysburg.  Photographer, Timothy O'Sullivan, 1840-1882.  Library of Congress.

-SDJ-

My Visit to Gettysburg Battlefield as a Boy in 1962

The minimum age for recruitment into the Union army was 1...

The minimum age for recruitment into the Union army was 18, but recruitment officers weren't particular.  It's estimated that there were nearly 100,000 soldiers in the Union army that were not yet 16 years old.  The picture here is of William Black.  William was 11 years old when he enlisted.  He was shot in the left arm during battle.  At 12 years old, he is thought to be the youngest combat soldier to be wounded during the Civil War.

-SDJ-

"Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn,We sh...

   "Had he and I but met
    By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
    Right many a nipperkin!

    But ranged as infantry,
    And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
    And Killed him in his place."

Excerpt from the poem "The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy, English novelist & poet
(June 2, 1840-January 11, 1928).

Ambrotypes of unidentified Confederate & Union soldiers from the Liljenquist Family Collection, Library of Congress.
  

"Had he and I but met ...

   "Had he and I but met
    By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
    Right many a nipperkin!

    But ranged as infantry,
    And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
    And Killed him in his place."

Excerpt from the poem "The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy, English novelist & poet
(June 2, 1840-January 11, 1928).

Ambrotypes of unidentified Confederate & Union soldiers from the Liljenquist Family Collection, Library of Congress.
  

"That night I lay beside the Charles Town Pike and watche...

"That night I lay beside the Charles Town Pike and watched until morning the grimey columns come pouring up from the pontoons.  It was a weird uncanny sight and drove sleep from my eyes.  It was something demon-like, a scene from an inferno.  They were silent as ghosts, ruthless and rushing in their speed, ragged, earth-colored, disheveled and devilish.  The shuffle of their badly shod feet on the hard surface of the pike was so rapid as to be continuous like the hiss of a great serpent.  The spectral, ghostly picture will never be erased from my memory."

From the diary of Captain Henry Hastings Ripley, dated September 16, 1862.

I had something to say about the Civil War, and wit...

 I had something to say about the Civil War, and with this novel, I've said it as clearly and vividly as my ability as a writer would allow.  My responsibility is done.  I leave the fate of my tale to the power of the reader's imagination.

-SDJ-
 
Link to amazon.com....read Ethan's Peach Tree!
http://www.amazon.com/Ethans-Peach-Tree-ebook/dp/B00A4OONK0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355013600&sr=8-1&keywords=ethans+peach+tree

I came across this "tintype" photo while going through th...

I came across this "tintype" photo while going through the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photos on the Library of Congress site.  Thousands of young Americans answered Lincoln's call to arms in 1861, not just as drummer boys or buglers, but as "soldiers of the Line."  Look at this photo...really look...sixteen at most, and yet, it was boys like him who saved our great Republic in its time of great peril.  I look at this tintype, into his face, and can't help but feel an enormous pride.

-SDJ-

"...the stride of every soldier was quick, full of energy...

"...the stride of every soldier was quick, full of energy, as they kept time to the fifes and drums that accompanied them into the fight.  The ranks advanced in good order, the Rebels shoulder to shoulder, their step a vast swinging movement, as if every man was part of a huge machine spiked with bayonets and battle flags."

"Muzzle flashes pierced the tumbling clouds of smoke, and along the Union line could be heard the whiz-zip-wheat! of minie balls, the hard slap of lead striking flesh.  Soldiers in blue twirled and fell, doubled over, leaped like drunken dancers..."

From Ethan's Peach Tree