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Civil War Speech and Jargon

The soldiers of the Civil War had their own way of saying things. The words, slang, and phrases of Billy Yank (a Union soldier), Johnny Reb (a Confederate soldier), and the civilians of the 19th century are unique and strange to our modern-day ears. The language of Civil War soldiers was rich and colorful, it reflected their lives and times.

It is natural for language to change and develop over time as new words are added to the dictionary. For example, your Learn Civil War History BlogMaster can sometimes be accused of being a mouse potato. The term “mouse potato” is a recent addition to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It means I spend too much time at the computer, just as a couch potato spends too much time sitting on the couch watching television.

If you could, can you imagine asking someone from Civil War times what the words Internet and BlogMaster mean! Words also fall from use and become forgotten. Some words used during the Civil War are not often heard or understood today.

In this podcast is a brief story I’ve written that uses lots of Civil War speech and jargon. See if you can understand what my imaginary Jonathan (a Yankee) soldier is talking about. I’ll translate it later in the podcast.

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John Burns - The Old Hero of Gettysburg

Robert E. Lee and his invading Army of Northern Virginia brought the Civil War to the quiet and pastoral town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in early July 1863. A gutsy Gettysburg civilian named John Lawrence Burns who was a cobbler, a town constable, and an old man, took part in the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Civilian Burns is known as, “the old hero of Gettysburg.”

There is truth and myth concerning the story of John Burns. Over time, his story has become somewhat confusing. Burns or others seemed to add to it, or change it, as time went by, usually by embellishing Burns’ story. Whether this was intentional or not, who can say? It can be difficult historically to separate fact from fiction regarding John Burns. Let’s recognize that and enjoy the story of “the old hero of Gettysburg.”

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Immediately after the battle, the Dunker Church served as a makeshift hospital for the wounded. It was not used as a proper hospital because it was too small, and it had no supply of water or food. The Dunker Church was used as a place where the wounded could be brought to and evaluated, like modern-day triage.

The Dunker Church continued as a reference point after the battle. It was a common and easy-to-find location to meet and gather for army commanders, soldiers, and for the citizens whose help was now so greatly needed. There is a sketch by Civil War artist Alfred Waud that depicts a truce meeting between the Rebels and the Yankees near the Dunker Church in order to exchange wounded and bury the dead.

The Dunkers moved to a new church on Main Street in Sharpsburg in 1899. After the move, the old whitewashed church on the Antietam battlefield was mostly ignored, it was seldom used and fell into neglect and disrepair. As time went on, the old Dunker Church continued its physical decline. Tourists to the Antietam battlefield sometimes even took bricks home from the church walls as souvenirs.

The physical decline of the battlefield Dunker Church building continued to worsen as time went on. A strong windstorm, or whirlwind as it was described, flattened the church into a pile of rubble on April 24, 1921. The Dunker Church congregation did not have the financial ability to repair the old church. The Dunkers deeded the old church to the Samuel Mumma family, who had originally donated the church’s property to the Dunkers.

The Mummas then sold at auction the Dunker Church property to a Sharpsburg grocer named Elmer Boyer. Boyer salvaged what was left of the Dunker Church building and stored the material in a shed. Boyer then sold the Dunker Church property to Charles Turner.

Turner used the Dunker Church foundation to build a new frame structure. Being an entrepreneur, Turner used his new building during the 1930s and 1940s as a lunch counter and to sell souvenirs. Tourists at the Antietam Battlefield could quench their hunger and thirst by treating themselves to refreshments and food at Turner’s lunch counter. Turner’s efforts were not appreciated.

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The Battle of Antietam or the Battle of Sharpsburg as the South called it, was fought on September 17, 1862. This one-day battle left a terrible carnage on the beautiful and pastoral countryside of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Antietam is the battle in United States history where the most casualties occurred in one day. At Antietam, there were more American dead than at Pearl Harbor, D-Day, or at 911. Over 3,600 were killed and over 19,000 were wounded, missing, or captured.

In the middle of the Antietam battlefield stood the whitewashed Dunker Church. The Dunker Church was meant to be a place for the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was where the good news message of love, forgiveness, peace, and salvation was faithfully believed and taught. The congregation of the Dunker Church were members of the German Baptist Brethren which began in Germany in 1708. In Germany, they baptized adults in a local river, which was uncommon for the time.

During their river baptism, a person would be completely submerged or dunked, into the river. Babies were usually baptized by sprinkling water on them. In Germany, The German Baptist Brethren had the nickname of “Tunkers,” but when they began arriving in Maryland during the middle 1700s, the nickname “Tunkers” became “Dunkers.” By 1853, the number of Dunkers in the Sharpsburg, Maryland area grew large enough so they could have their own church building.

The Dunkers believed in a literal interpretation of the New Testament. They were similar to the Quakers, the Amish, and the Mennonites in their beliefs. The Dunkers often associated with these other Protestants. The Dunkers did not like any type of indulgence. They were against drinking alcohol, violence, slavery, and gambling.

At the end of the Battle of Antietam, the Dunker Church would be riddled by cannon and small arms fire, the now bloody landscape around it torn and littered with the remains of the great battle. The Samuel Mumma farm was in ashes. The Dunker Church would forever be a part of the Antietam battlefield and United States Civil War history.

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Elizabeth Van Lew – A Union Spymaster in Richmond

When the Southern states began seceding from the Union after Abraham Lincoln’s election as president in November 1860, young Elizabeth Van Lew thought secession was a bad policy. Elizabeth supported the Union, the Republican Party, and the abolition of slavery. She thought the opposite of what most all Southerners thought.

When the Civil War began, Elizabeth had the means and opportunity to move North and be with other family members. She could have been free of Richmond’s Civil War struggle. Instead, she chose to stay in Richmond, the seat of the Confederacy. The young lady had plans.

Elizabeth Van Lew Gave Aid and Help to Union Prisoners of War Held In Libby Prison

Richmond’s Libby Prison held Union officer prisoners of war under difficult and overcrowded conditions. The prisoners suffered from disease and malnutrition, and the prison had a high death rate. Elizabeth Van Lew visited the prison pretending to be a loyal Southern lady living up to her Christian faith and womanly concern for others.

She provided help and aid to the suffering and needy Yankee prisoners. Elizabeth used her family’s wealth to bribe guards and officials to gain favors and assistance for the prisoners. She helped the prisoners by giving them food and medicine. What she also sneakily did, was to help them escape.

Van Lew gathered information from the prisoners and passed it on to Union forces. In March 1862, President Jefferson Davis clamped down on Richmond with an iron fist of martial law. Many people thought to be Union supporters in the Confederate capital were arrested.

Elizabeth Van Lew could no longer visit Libby Prison and give aid to the prisoners. This did not stop her clandestine pro-Union efforts in Richmond. She changed her tactics.

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Isabella Maria Boyd ran her father’s hotel in Front Royal, Virginia. Front Royal is at the northern end of the Civil War-strategic Shenandoah Valley. Belle Boyd was a Confederate spy. Most often she was called Belle, but she had other names too. She was called; the “Siren of the Shenandoah,” the “La Belle Rebelle,” the “Rebel Joan of Arc,” the “Amazon of Secessia,” and the “Cleopatra of the Secession.”

Belle was described as, “without being beautiful, she is very attractive…quite tall…a superb figure…and dressed with much taste.” She was not unattractive, but she wasn’t a raving beauty. She shrewdly used her feminine charm and appeal to gather information from unwitting Union officers and troops staying at her father’s hotel. Union officers and soldiers were vulnerable to Belle’s playful toying with them. Their loose lips would tell the Confederate spy Belle information she ought not know.

Having lived in western Virginia and in Front Royal, seventeen-year-old Belle had a good knowledge of the area and its geography. This was valuable knowledge to the Confederates and Belle became a Confederate spy. Belle was a courier for Union troops and had access to Union camps. As a spy, she always had her eyes and ears open for information that would help the Confederates.

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Jourdon Anderson was born a Tennessee slave around 1825. When he was only seven or eight-years-old he was sold by his first owner to General Paulding Anderson of Wilson County, Tennessee. General Anderson then gave Jourdon to his son Patrick Henry to be his servant and playmate. Patrick and his slave Jourdon were about the same age.

Jourdan was Colonel P. H. Anderson’s slave until Yankee soldiers camping on the Anderson plantation freed him in 1864.

The Civil War was over and the slaves were free. Colonel Anderson’s plantation was in bad shape after the war, he needed help, and he was in debt. The 1865 harvest season was coming soon. Anderson had to have the crop harvest’s income, but he could not do the work alone of bringing in the crops. In August, Anderson sent a letter to Jourdon desperately asking his former slave and childhood playmate to return and help with the back breaking work of crop harvest.

In response, Jourdon Anderson dictated a scornful, humorous, and mocking letter to his former master.

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Mules are sturdy, strong, and durable animals and in the Civil War they provided a lot of brute strength to get tough, backbreaking work done for both the North and the South.

In the 19th century mules were commonly used on farms. They are so strong they can perform hard work under severe conditions that might injure or kill a horse. Mules can survive on the poorest of food. Before America become mechanized, the mule was a much-needed draft animal.

During the Civil War mules were used to pull wagons of supplies and forage, they were pack animals, beasts of burden. Mules would carry regimental baggage, rations, and boxes of small arms ammunition with specially designed pack saddles strapped on their backs. Mules would used in teams of six and hitched to wagons in pairs.

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The Army of Northern Virginia led by General Robert E. Lee made a fateful charge from Seminary Ridge attacking the Union lines on Cemetery Hill on July 3, 1863. This was Pickett’s Charge. If the Johnny Rebs overtook the Billy Yanks then they would win the Battle of Gettysburg, and possibly the Civil War.

There was a moment before Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg when victory or defeat for the Johnny Rebs hung in the balance. The hope of victory was in the heart of the Johnny Rebs. But Pickett’s Charge failed. 

Author William Faulkner wrote a famous quote that takes us back to the moment before Pickett’s Charge. A moment before the hope of the soldiers in gray uniforms was lost at the Battle of Gettysburg. After the Battle of Gettysburg, the normally peaceful crossroads town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania would be forever etched into United States history.

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Slaves were not treated as human beings in the slave-holding South. They were treated as animals, nothing more than beasts of burden to their owners. The lives of the slaves were like hell on Earth. The exploitation of the slaves’ sweat and toil caring for and harvesting crops like tobacco, rice, sugar cane, and cotton brought high profits and riches to their owners. Slavery was called the “Peculiar Institution,” but more truthful names might be the Cruel Institution, or the Institution of Hell.

“When you is a slave, you ain’t got no mo’ chance than a bullfrog.” – Former slave Virginia Harris from Coahoma County, Mississippi.

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Powhatan Beaty was born into slavery on October 8, 1837, in Richmond, Virginia. Beaty’s African-American parents were free, but baby Powhatan was a slave because freedom was not granted to children of freed slaves in the South. Beaty became a freeman when he was twelve years old sometime in 1849 after his family took him to Cincinnati, Ohio. He went to school and gained a good education.

Powhatan Beaty joined the Union Army for a three-year term on June 7th, 1863, when he was twenty-five years old. Soon he was promoted from private to sergeant. The Battle of Chaffin’s Farm and New Market Heights was fought on September 29 to 30, 1864, as part of the Union Siege of Petersburg. Powhatan Beaty was now the first sergeant of Company G. Company G was ordered to attack the center of the Confederate position of New Market Heights. This was a daunting order, it was like a suicide mission. Beaty actions were heroic at Chaffin’s Farm.

On April 6th, 1865, First Sergeant Powhatan Beaty was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Abraham Lincoln for his actions at the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm.

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"Andy ain't a drunkard."

- Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural on March 4, 1865 was held on a miserable, windy, rainy, and muddy day in Washington, D.C. The inaugural ceremonies were planned to be held outside, but were moved inside to the Senate chamber because the weather was so bad. The Senate chamber was muggy and sticky, and it was a very uncomfortable place to be.  

Andrew Johnson, President Abraham Lincoln's new vice president, was in poor health during the weeks prior to the inaugural. He’d been suffering from typhoid fever and his travel from Nashville to Washington only added to his health problems and discomfort.

Shortly before the inaugural ceremony began, Johnson was feeling especially ill. He downed three glasses of “medicinal” whiskey to prepare himself before entering the uncomfortable Senate chamber. When the booze kicked in, the inaugural "fun" began.

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Learn Civil War History from quotes by and about the radical abolitionist John Brown. Was he a hero or a terrorist? Historical information about the background of the quotes is included.

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