Last Pensioned Civil War Child
26. A child of a Civil War soldier, Irene Triplett, lived until 2020 and received a monthly government pension of $73.13 for her father’s service in the Union Army.
27. The first Memorial Day was a funeral organized by freed slaves for Union soldiers who had liberated them after the American Civil War in 1865.
28. During the U.S. Civil War, former President John Tyler became a Confederate and was elected to the Confederate congress. He is the only U.S. President whose death was not officially mourned in Washington D.C. because he supported the Confederacy.
29. The Presidents of the United States from the end of the Civil War through the 1890s were known as the ‘Forgettable Presidents’ because they were either impeached, assassinated, embarrassed by their own party, surrounded by corruption, or possibly elected through fraud.
30. Civil War veteran Jacob Miller was shot in the forehead on Sept. 19th, 1863 at Brock Field at Chickamauga and was left for dead. He lived for many years with an open bullet wound, and the last pieces of lead came out 31 years after he was first shot.
31. A massive abandoned stronghold, Fort Jefferson, stands 70 nautical miles from Key West, Florida. Fort Jefferson is still the largest fort in the United States built entirely of masonry, and it was used for a short time as a prison for Union deserters during the Civil War.
32. Before the American Civil War, most people in the United States spoke of their country in the plural, saying things like “The United States are wealthy” and “The United States have a large population.”
33. The Gatling gun was created by a physician, Richard Jordan Gatling, after he observed that most soldiers in the Civil War died from disease rather than gunshot wounds.
34. During the American Civil War, Southern children were given excuses for why Santa would not come to see them on Christmas. One of those excuses was that a Yankee had shot him.
35. Anderson Cooper is connected to Cornelius Vanderbilt and a Civil War general, worked as a Calvin Klein model, interned at the CIA, studied Vietnamese, lived in Africa, and contracted malaria.
Across Five Historic Eras
36. A man named Fountain Hughes lived through slavery, the Civil War, World War 1, World War 2, and the beginning of the Cold War.
37. Frederick Douglass consulted with President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and helped influence the Emancipation Proclamation. After President Lincoln’s death, Mrs. Lincoln sent Douglass her late husband’s walking stick.
38. During a major Civil War battle, both armies briefly stopped fighting to watch a fist fight between two opposing soldiers, who had both taken cover in the same place.
39. After Union cemeteries were filled, general Robert E. Lee’s own former property in Virginia was chosen to bury Civil War casualties, a partly vindictive move ensuring that no one could ever live there again. The property eventually became Arlington National Cemetery.
40. Contrary to popular belief, almost all surgery during the American Civil War was performed under general anesthesia and “pain bullets” are a myth. They were actually chewed by pigs.
41. Alexander Turner, Daisy Turner’s father, was an enslaved man who fled his Virginia plantation during the Civil War, enlisted in the Union Army, and led his regiment back to the plantation, where he killed his former overseer.
42. Civil War General Phillip H Sheridan took over Yellowstone because 4,000 acres had been approved for development. His efforts succeeded, and Yellowstone remained under military occupation until the National Parks Department was established in 1916.
43. During the American Civil War, soldiers had to possess at least four front teeth on opposing sides so they could open a gunpowder pouch. Some men chosen for the draft had their front teeth removed to avoid serving.
44. The largest uprising in U.S. history since the Civil War occurred when more than 10,000 armed coal miners tried to overthrow lawmakers in an effort to unionize West Virginian mine workers. The U.S. Army stepped in, and the workers were defeated.
45. The first use of anti-aircraft fire did not happen in World War 1 but in the American Civil War. Confederates used artillery and small arms to fire on the Union Balloon Corps. The first specialized anti-aircraft weapon was used by the Germans during the Franco-Prussian War.
Confederate Monuments Outnumber Union
46. Kentucky did not leave the Union during the Civil War, sent more than twice as many troops to the Union Army, and yet 72 of the 74 Civil War monuments in Kentucky honor the Confederacy.
47. After the American Civil War, Southern states required literacy tests to stop former Black slaves from voting. When whites also failed, an exception was made for anyone whose grandfather was eligible to vote. All whites had eligible grandfathers, and few Blacks did.
48. More than 20,000 American service members deserted during World War 2. Private Eddie Slovik was executed as an example to others, and he remains the only service member executed for desertion since the Civil War to this day.
49. The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States from five states during the civil war used the word slave, or a variation of it, more than 80 times. It also described the north as “non-slave-holding States”.
50. During the American Civil War, some soldiers’ wounds glowed blue. Those whose wounds glowed had a better chance of surviving, and the glow was therefore called “Angel’s Glow.” It is now known that the luminescence came from bacteria that produce antibiotics and live in nematodes.
Add Comment