It Wasn't A Civil War

It Wasn't a Civil War. That title gives just a hint that the reading is about the division of a relatively new nation. As a nation we have become divided partly because of human rights issues, states rights issues and of course the long practice of a class system. Throw in a little politics and the political machine promising to change things for the betterment of the citizens … very often without consent of the citizens. The book is somewhat chronological in that we start with the Fall of Fort Sumpter in 1861 and go forward from there. The stories are in blocks of 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864 and 1865. As would be expected, there are stories of Heroes, True leaders of men, Deserters, Military Strategist (whom we dearly counted on), and weeping widows with orphaned children. There are plenty of lessons to be learned about mankind and the years of the American Civil War. Thinks happened we do not want to go through again.

The stories are not all doom and gloom. There are a few romantical letters written by soldiers. A few light hearted situations; such as the unauthorized fraternization between the two armies. The armies would carve out small boats, and send items such as cigars floating down a creek to the opposite side. Soon the opposition would send something in return on their little wood boats. Dis you know General George Armstrong Custer was a player in the Surrender of General Lee at Appomattox? He reportedly offered a truce to Lee's last stand. Custer intercepted intelligence papers that revealed Lee's troops were standing by down the road for a last hooray! to overtake the Federal Troops. Had Custer not acted on that intelligence, things may have turned out quite different. The total number of people who died in the American Civil War is around 750,000. Originally, the count was that 618,222 people died, with 360,222 Union deaths and 258,000 Confederate deaths. Recent research based on improved census data has shown that the original count underestimated the number of deaths. Some will say General Ulysses S. Grant won the war. Some will say Robert E. Lee made peace possible with his Surrender to save a Nation.

I love History & Genealogy. The stories of American Founding Fathers, The Explorers such as Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, Daniel Boon. The builders of our Nation. The soldiers and Peacekeepers that tried to keep us safe. These are the long list of a young boy's heroes that kept my interest. The wife and I have shared a passion for Genealogy for and the discovery of finding our ancestors (and of course a good bit of history comes with the Genealogy). After High School and a few years in the Military I decided to go back to school and look again at the History options. My Bachelor's Degree was a double major; History and Education. It didn't take long to learn I could make considerably more money in the Human Resources field than in teaching. My business years consisted mostly of being a Human Resource Director in a variety of businesses. Then, years later back to school to earn a Master's in Human Resource Development. Back to school again; this time for a Doctorate in Adult Education. I taught for Webster University, then online teaching for DeVry University, University of Phoenix and Western Governor's University. Now that Retirement has become reality, I can revisit the History and Genealogy. As a result, eight Genealogy books have been written (unpublished) for family members. My recent publication Westward Expansion - News of the Westward Movement. This is about the period of the Louisiana Purchase and covers information from 1793 to 1906. The information in the book is straight from actual newspapers of the era. You can read about the Lewis and Clark expeditions, characters such as Daniel Boone, Jeremiah Johnson, Jim Bridger, Kit Carson and many more. Of the 80 plus characters in the book, 25 of them are my cousins or in some cases my wife's cousins. I have started work on a new book which will deal with actual news accounts of the Civil War. It was surprising how much information was actually printed during the war. The newspapers of the day were giving great detail about some of the major military campaigns and printed their stories the following day.