| Trivia, Oddities and Interesting Stuff |
| "Of the 1033 West Point Academy graduates of the class 1830 to 1860 alive in 1861, nearly 91 per cent took part in the Civil War. Of these, 936 graduates who elected to fight in the war, 661 (70.6 per cent) took the Union side and 275 (29.4 per cent) joined the Confederacy." from "West Point, Two Centuries of Honor and Tradition" Edited by Robert Cowley and Thomas Guinzburg |
| Comments for Flag Ceremony Mukwonago, Wis. - 19-20 June 2004 Department of Wisconsin Senior Vice Commander Kent A. Peterson, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Since last Monday was Flag Day, it seemed appropriate that I should say a few things about our nation's flag. First, let me begin by asking a question of the kids in the audience. Do you know how old the flag of the United States of America is this year? Does anyone know why Flag Day is always on June 14th? And for extra credit, do you know where the tradition of observing Flag Day began? This year, our flag is 227 years old. On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution that gave birth to our national flag. The resolution read: "Resolved that the flag of the United States be made of 13 stripes, alternate red and white, that the union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." The Stars and Stripes first flew in a Flag Day celebration in Hartford, Connecticut in 1861, during the first summer of the Civil War. The first nation-wide observance of Flag Day occurred June 14, 1877, on the 100th anniversary of the flag resolution. And it was schoolteacher Bernard J. CiGrand of Fredonia, Wisconsin who promoted the idea of annually observing Flag Day. In hundreds of written articles and speeches, Mr. CiGrand advocated a national celebration of the 14th of June as the "Flag Birthday" or "Flag Day." After 30 years of state and local celebrations, President Woodrow Wilson officially established Flag Day by proclamation in 1916. In President Clinton's 1996 Flag Day resolution, he wrote that "there is no better symbol of our country's values and traditions than the Flag of the United States of America. It continues to exemplify the commitment to freedom, equality, and opportunity made by our founders more than two centuries ago. The Flag is a badge of honor to all -- a sign of our citizens' common purpose." Today and year-round let's us, as parents, role models and leaders, work a little harder to teach our younger generations the significance of our Flag. Its 13 red and white stripes represent not only the original colonies, but also the valor and purity of our Nation, while its 50 stars stand for the separate but United States of the Union. Each year, the days from Flag Day through Independence Day have been set aside by Congress as a time to honor America, to celebrate our heritage during public events and activities, and to recite publicly the Pledge of Allegiance. We certainly do have something to celebrate from Flag Day to the 4th of July: our freedom. Let us never forget it was paid for with a tremendous price. |
Civil War Facts from www.pbs.org
• More than three million men fought in the war.
• Two percent of the population—more than 620,000—died in it.
• In two days at Shiloh on the banks of the Tennessee River, more Americans fell than in all previous American wars combined.
• During the Battle of Antietam, 12,401 Union men were killed, missing or wounded; double the casualties of D-Day, 82 years later. With a total of 23,000
casualties on both sides, it was the bloodiest single day of the Civil War.
• At Cold Harbor, Va., 7,000 Americans fell in 20 minutes.
• Senator John J. Crittendon of Kentucky had two sons who became major generals during the Civil War: one for the North, one for the South.
• Ulysses S. Grant was not fond of ceremonies or military music. He said he could only recognize two tunes. "One was Yankee Doodle," he grumbled.
"The other one wasn’t."
• Missouri sent 39 regiments to fight in the siege of Vicksburg: 17 to the Confederacy and 22 to the Union.
• During the Battle of Antietam, Clara Barton tended the wounded so close to the fighting that a bullet went through her sleeve and killed a man she was
treating.
• At the start of the war, the value of all manufactured goods produced in all the Confederate states added up to less than one-fourth of those produced
in New York State alone.
• In March 1862, European powers watched in worried fascination as the Monitor and Merrimack battled off Hampton Roads, Va. From then on, after
these ironclads opened fire, every other navy on earth was obsolete.
• In 1862, the U.S. Congress authorized the first paper currency, called "greenbacks."
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., future chief Justice, was wounded three times during the Civil War: in the chest at Ball’s Bluff, in the back at Antietam and in
the heel at Chancellorsville.
• Confederate Private Henry Stanley fought for the Sixth Arkansas, and was captured at Shiloh, but survived to go to Africa to find Dr. Livingston.
• George Pickett’s doomed infantry charge at Gettysburg was the first time he took his division into combat.
• On July 4, 1863, after 48 days of siege, Confederate General John C. Pemberton surrendered the city of Vicksburg to the Union’s General, Ulysses S.
Grant. The Fourth of July was not be celebrated in Vicksburg for another 81 years.
• Disease was the chief killer during the war, taking two men for every one who died of battle wounds.
• North and South, potential recruits were offered awards, or "bounties," for enlisting, as much as $677 in New York. Bounty jumping soon became a
profession, as men signed up, then deserted, to enlist again elsewhere. One man repeated the process 32 times before being caught.
• African Americans constituted less than one percent of the northern population, yet by the war’s end made up ten percent of the Union Army. A total of
180,000 black men, more than 85% of those eligible, enlisted.
• In November 1863, President Lincoln was invited to offer a "few appropriate remarks" at the opening of a new Union cemetery at Gettysburg. The main
speaker, a celebrated orator from Massachusetts, spoke for nearly two hours. Lincoln offered just 269 words in his Gettysburg Address.
• Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest had 30 horses shot from under him and personally killed 31 men in hand-to-hand combat. "I was a horse
ahead at the end," he said.
• The words "In God We Trust" first appeared on a U.S. coin in 1864.
• In 1864, Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General, a rank previously held by General George Washington, and led the 533,000 men of
the Union Army, the largest in the world. Three years later, he was made President of the United States.
• Andersonville Prison in southwest Georgia held 33,000 prisoners in 1864. It was the fifth largest city in the Confederacy.
•By the end of the war, Unionists from every state except South Carolina had sent regiments to fight for the North.
• On November 9, 1863, President Lincoln attended a theater in Washington, D.C., to see "The Marble Heart." An accomplished actor, John Wilkes
Booth, was in the cast.
• On March 4, 1865, Lincoln was inaugurated for a second term. Yards away in the crowd was John Wilkes Booth with a pistol in his pocket. His vantage
point on the balcony, he said later, offered him "an excellent chance to kill the President, if I had wished."
• On May 13, 1865, a month after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Private John J. Williams of the 34th Indiana became the last man killed in the Civil
War, in a battle at Palmito Ranch, Texas. The final skirmish was a Confederate victory.
• Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first black man ever elected to the U.S. Senate. He filled the seat last held by Jefferson Davis.
Copyright 2002 WETA. All rights reserved.
http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/war/facts.html
• More than three million men fought in the war.
• Two percent of the population—more than 620,000—died in it.
• In two days at Shiloh on the banks of the Tennessee River, more Americans fell than in all previous American wars combined.
• During the Battle of Antietam, 12,401 Union men were killed, missing or wounded; double the casualties of D-Day, 82 years later. With a total of 23,000
casualties on both sides, it was the bloodiest single day of the Civil War.
• At Cold Harbor, Va., 7,000 Americans fell in 20 minutes.
• Senator John J. Crittendon of Kentucky had two sons who became major generals during the Civil War: one for the North, one for the South.
• Ulysses S. Grant was not fond of ceremonies or military music. He said he could only recognize two tunes. "One was Yankee Doodle," he grumbled.
"The other one wasn’t."
• Missouri sent 39 regiments to fight in the siege of Vicksburg: 17 to the Confederacy and 22 to the Union.
• During the Battle of Antietam, Clara Barton tended the wounded so close to the fighting that a bullet went through her sleeve and killed a man she was
treating.
• At the start of the war, the value of all manufactured goods produced in all the Confederate states added up to less than one-fourth of those produced
in New York State alone.
• In March 1862, European powers watched in worried fascination as the Monitor and Merrimack battled off Hampton Roads, Va. From then on, after
these ironclads opened fire, every other navy on earth was obsolete.
• In 1862, the U.S. Congress authorized the first paper currency, called "greenbacks."
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., future chief Justice, was wounded three times during the Civil War: in the chest at Ball’s Bluff, in the back at Antietam and in
the heel at Chancellorsville.
• Confederate Private Henry Stanley fought for the Sixth Arkansas, and was captured at Shiloh, but survived to go to Africa to find Dr. Livingston.
• George Pickett’s doomed infantry charge at Gettysburg was the first time he took his division into combat.
• On July 4, 1863, after 48 days of siege, Confederate General John C. Pemberton surrendered the city of Vicksburg to the Union’s General, Ulysses S.
Grant. The Fourth of July was not be celebrated in Vicksburg for another 81 years.
• Disease was the chief killer during the war, taking two men for every one who died of battle wounds.
• North and South, potential recruits were offered awards, or "bounties," for enlisting, as much as $677 in New York. Bounty jumping soon became a
profession, as men signed up, then deserted, to enlist again elsewhere. One man repeated the process 32 times before being caught.
• African Americans constituted less than one percent of the northern population, yet by the war’s end made up ten percent of the Union Army. A total of
180,000 black men, more than 85% of those eligible, enlisted.
• In November 1863, President Lincoln was invited to offer a "few appropriate remarks" at the opening of a new Union cemetery at Gettysburg. The main
speaker, a celebrated orator from Massachusetts, spoke for nearly two hours. Lincoln offered just 269 words in his Gettysburg Address.
• Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest had 30 horses shot from under him and personally killed 31 men in hand-to-hand combat. "I was a horse
ahead at the end," he said.
• The words "In God We Trust" first appeared on a U.S. coin in 1864.
• In 1864, Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General, a rank previously held by General George Washington, and led the 533,000 men of
the Union Army, the largest in the world. Three years later, he was made President of the United States.
• Andersonville Prison in southwest Georgia held 33,000 prisoners in 1864. It was the fifth largest city in the Confederacy.
•By the end of the war, Unionists from every state except South Carolina had sent regiments to fight for the North.
• On November 9, 1863, President Lincoln attended a theater in Washington, D.C., to see "The Marble Heart." An accomplished actor, John Wilkes
Booth, was in the cast.
• On March 4, 1865, Lincoln was inaugurated for a second term. Yards away in the crowd was John Wilkes Booth with a pistol in his pocket. His vantage
point on the balcony, he said later, offered him "an excellent chance to kill the President, if I had wished."
• On May 13, 1865, a month after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Private John J. Williams of the 34th Indiana became the last man killed in the Civil
War, in a battle at Palmito Ranch, Texas. The final skirmish was a Confederate victory.
• Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first black man ever elected to the U.S. Senate. He filled the seat last held by Jefferson Davis.
Copyright 2002 WETA. All rights reserved.
http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/war/facts.html
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