Unsung Scots in American History #1

[Lachlan09]

Remember them all.

I would imagine nowadays that there are a substantial number of Americans who have no ancestry as far back as the War. To them I suspect the memory of it means very little and they have no cause to remember, other than as history at school.

I myself only have one American relative, Willie Gow of Roanoke, Va. who emigrated from Blair Atholl, Perthshire in the 1950’s. So I have no connection whatever with the War.

However, I have been intrigued by the War since I was a kid in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s. Being interested in Westerns and especially the US Cavalry (books, movies and TV), it was a short hop to seeing Civil War items in Western subjects (like Buffalo Bill during the ACW). I then became intrigued by the ACW itself. TV shows like The Gray Ghost and films like The Horse Soldiers, How the West Was Won and especially Shenandoah and Major Dundee (I really liked little Jimmy Lee's accent) whetted my imagination and had me looking for serious books on the subject. Being a kid, I was also into bubble gum (like many Scottish kids in the early 1960’s, everything American was good – and it was !) and a series of bubble-gum cards came out in the UK on the ACW. Amazing ! Each card showed a piece of artwork (usually gory) about an aspect of the war (a battle, siege, naval engagement etc) on the front and a newspaper type report about that aspect on the back. Also included was a reproduction CSA money bill. Therefore you could collect all 50 or more cards plus different denominations of CSA money. One thing these cards taught me, shallow as the bubble-gum card medium appears to be, was just how cruel and bloody the war was - as terrible as the First World War. The British still lament the number of British servicemen killed in WW1 but to many Brits, the ACW is American history, an extension of the Wild West and they wonder why Americans go on about it. What they fail to realise is that nearly as many servicemen died in the ACW as the British lost in WW1 !

I have been very interested in the War ever since. I will state that I have always favoured the South, mainly because I saw that side to be the underdog, making do with less of everything, yet showing a dash, vigour and imagination to make up for deficiencies and hardships.

My favourite ACW units both come from Louisiana – Wheat’s Tigers and Coppens’ Louisiana Zouaves. The Tigers especially seem larger than life and are worthy of a historical film about them ! They were often tough rogues and not pleasant to be around in camp, but were in the hot of the action every time. Even after being destroyed at Gaines Mill, they refused to die, their Pelican successors becoming Harry T Hays’ Tiger Brigade which assaulted Cemetery Hill, unsupported, on the evening of 2nd July 1863 and served with ANV until war’s end. Today, they are remembered in the LSU’s sports teams. On the other side, I have a favourite Union unit, the 79th NY, heroes of Fort Sanders, Tn.

That reminds me – today is Harry T. Hays’ birthday.

[macwilkin]

Not hijack Rathdown's thread, but you really need to read Life in the Confederate Army by William Watson, a Scot who served with the 3rd Louisiana Infantry in 1861 and 62. Watson's observations of his adopted home of Baton Rouge are fascinating, and I had a vested interest in his description of the Battle of Wilson's Creek, where the 3rd proved itself to be one of the best units on the field.

http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress/bookPage...807120156.html

So, I guess in a way, this isn't a hijack, since Watson, originally from Skelmorlie, is an unsung Scot in American history.

T.

[Mael Coluim]

Being a kid, I was also into bubble gum (like many Scottish kids in the early 1960’s, everything American was good – and it was !) and a series of bubble-gum cards came out in the UK on the ACW. Amazing ! Each card showed a piece of artwork (usually gory) about an aspect of the war (a battle, siege, naval engagement etc) on the front and a newspaper type report about that aspect on the back.

The British still lament the number of British servicemen killed in WW1 but to many Brits, the ACW is American history, an extension of the Wild West and they wonder why Americans go on about it. What they fail to realise is that nearly as many servicemen died in the ACW as the British lost in WW1 !

I remember those bubble gum Civil War cards! Wish I had hung on to them.


More Americans were killed in our Civil War then all wars America has fought before and since. Just in the Battle of Gettysburg in those four days of fighting more Americans died then in the eight years in Vietnam.

[Mael Coluim]

Our local newspaper, The Free Lance Star carried this column 'The New Intolerance' in its Saturday's Editorial section.

[Lachlan09]

Well, I am a member of the Museum of the Confederacy website and I don't see anything evil or unsavoury about that.

For me, it's all about the people who fought, suffered and died - on both sides.

[Lachlan09]

I remember those bubble gum Civil War cards! Wish I had hung on to them.


Was that the same company which created the Mars Attacks cards (Topps) ? I had the set !


More Americans were killed in our Civil War then all wars America has fought before and since. Just in the Battle of Gettysburg in those four days of fighting more Americans died then in the eight years in Vietnam.

Totally true and it puts the losses into perspective. That was one of the main features of the ACW I homed in on.

[Lachlan09]

I’ve sometimes pondered who I would have fought for in the ACW, had I been around at the time. The difficulty is applying modern perceptions on events of 150 years ago. I have been trying to think as a mid-19th Century Scot. I’ve come to the conclusion, it would depend on where I hung my hat.

As a mid-19th Century emigrant from Scotland, if I had landed in the North, worked and settled down in New York State, Ohio, Michigan etc and then the war started, I think I would have felt I should be doing my duty to my adopted home and I would have fought for the Union to preserve the unity of my new country from those who would cut it apart.

If I had landed in the South, worked and settled down in Virginia, North Carolina or elsewhere, then I would feel it my duty to defend my new adopted home from invasion by strangers. I wouldn’t have become some plantation owner with numerous field-slaves; I would likely be a modest tradesman, farmer, shop-keeper or businessman. As a Scot, if I did have a bonded-man (in keeping with many of the same demographic group), I would like to think that I would free him and offer him a fair wage to keep him on. But I wouldn’t have been an abolitionist and moved North in disgust. When in Rome etc – even if I felt uncomfortable at times.

In a modern context, when I moved with my family to work in Indonesia in 1995, we were expected to hire local women as maids. For me, the whole concept of a live-in house-maid was alien to me. We had always done chores, cooking etc ourselves and having a maid seemed indulgent, even decadent and only for toffs. We could do things for ourselves. We didn’t want a maid. However, the local nonyas (well-off Indonesian matrons) and expat wives told us that we must have a maid, it was expected. Not to have one was considered really odd and even unhelpful, as having a house-maid provided local employment. Having conceded that, when I found out how pathetically little maids were paid (the pay being pathetically little, not the maids who were at least 5 feet tall ) , I was shocked and wanted to pay a prospective maid much more, a fair wage. When I suggested this, I was pulled down by nonyas and expats alike and told that to pay too much would cause a mini-riot and completely upset the status quo, as word would get out and maids everywhere would demand more. That would make me highly unpopular with all the expats.

So I complied and paid the same pathetic wage, which I later secretly increased through imaginative wage hikes and bonuses.

The point is, most of us comply and go along with our peers. So it would have been for me a 19th Century émigré.

[McElmurry]

My McElmurry ancestor arrived in the colonies from Ulster prior to 1750. The first two generations lived on the frontier in Kentucky and then Arkansas. They fought, traded with, and married Native Americans. The fourth generation was John "Pegleg" McElmurry. He was a wagon master and led supply trains for the South even after he lost his leg.

While the war may have begun over economic, moral, and/or political issues, I agree most folks were probably fighting for local loyalties.

[Galician]

Our local newspaper, The Free Lance Star carried this column 'The New Intolerance' in its Saturday's Editorial section.

So if I understand Buchanan's point, the fact that Virginia and the accompanying states tried to secede from the Union because they didn't want to fight other southern states made it okay for them to fight northern states in their defense.

They could have chosen neutrality, I would think. This would mean that this nation is not worth fighting for to defend. Also, Buchanan never says what he understood the cause of the initial secession to be. Slavery?

[macwilkin]

So if I understand Buchanan's point, the fact that Virginia and the accompanying states tried to secede from the Union because they didn't want to fight other southern states made it okay for them to fight northern states in their defense.

They could have chosen neutrality, I would think. This would mean that this nation is not worth fighting for to defend. Also, Buchanan never says what he understood the cause of the initial secession to be. Slavery?

Missouri & Kentucky tried neutrality, but it did little good. Both states were torn apart by both camps, and in the case of Missouri, suffered from 4 years of guerilla warfare. Yet from a manpower standpoint, more Missourians favored the Union, with over 100,000 joining the Union Army, as opposed to the 40,000 (approx.) that joined Confederate forces. Even individuals, such as the noted Missourian Alexander Doniphan, who attempted to remain neutral found themselves caught in the middle.

The first paragraph above is essentially correct; many in the "Upper South", such as Doniphan, while supportive of "treason", could not bear arms against fellow Southerners.

T.