Memories for Meade...

[Joe Guy]

Click on the pic...

[Guinevere]

Amazing photographs Joe, thanks for sharing.

Anyone who is interested in the Civil War but hasn't been to Antietam should make a point of going. It was the most moving experience of any battlefield I have ever visited - and I grew up surrounded by them from both the Civil War and Revolutionary War.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Nice one, Joe and right you are Guin. Sadly, after leading the Army of the Potomac on the victory march from Gettysburg to Appomattox, Meade missed the surrender because he had a bilious catarrh.

The truth about Antietam and the "lost order" is to be found in "Snooks North and South" - a remarkably accurate and funny account of the war up to the NY draft riots. The truth about Appomattox will be revealed in "Snooks: All the Presidents' Man" to be found in fine bookstores everywhere some time in .... April? May?

Bit of trivia: the war of the rebellion officially ended when? Not on April 9 when Lee agreed to surrender the ANV. Joe Johnston was still roaming around the Carolinas; Smith wasn't to give up until he heard the news in June was it? Stand Watie was the last Confederate to surrender, if you don't count the CSS Shenandoah sailing into a UK port and quitting in July.

Pres. Johnson declared the war all-but-over in June 1865. And he declared the formal end of the war in...... August 1866. I guess he wanted to make sure there were no confederate hold-outs on some island in the Pacific

[rubato]

The photographs themselves are remarkable. You don't appreciate how good they are, the sharpness of focus and the depth, when you've only seen reproductions in books and magazines. Until now, when they can be displayed on a high-resolution computer screen without the distortion of shooting them through a grey-tone screen for offset reproduction, there was no way to appreciate them unless you could see them in person.

Large format cameras and long exposure times! Having relatively expensive materials made the photographers take their time to get a good shot as well.


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[Crackpot]

You know how you can tell who's alive in an old photo?

They're the ones in perfect focus

[rubato]

http://www.bradford-delong.com/2015/04/ ... matox.html

"... What General Lee's feelings were I do not know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassible face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. I do not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us.

General Lee was dressed in a full uniform which was entirely new, and was wearing a sword of considerable value, very likely the sword which had been presented by the State of Virginia; at all events, it was an entirely different sword from the one that would ordinarily be worn in the field. In my rough traveling suit, the uniform of a private with the straps of a lieutenant-general, I must have contrasted very strangely with a man so handsomely dressed, six feet high and of faultless form. But this was not a matter that I thought of until afterwards. ... "

"... Lee soon mounted his horse, seeing who it was, and met me. We had there between the lines, sitting on horseback, a very pleasant conversation of over half an hour, in the course of which Lee said to me that the South was a big country and that we might have to march over it three or four times before the war entirely ended, but that we would now be able to do it as they could no longer resist us. He expressed it as his earnest hope, however, that we would not be called upon to cause more loss and sacrifice of life; but he could not foretell the result. I then suggested to General Lee that there was not a man in the Confederacy whose influence with the soldiery and the whole people was as great as his, and that if he would now advise the surrender of all the armies I had no doubt his advice would be followed with alacrity. But Lee said, that he could not do that without consulting the President first. I knew there was no use to urge him to do anything against his ideas of what was right. ... "

I saw this yesterday and reproduce it here first for the 3 rd section which relates to a comment of Maj Genls above and second because of the beautiful simplicity and clarity of Grant's writing.


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