1. General Ulysses S. Grant wasn’t the bloodiest general of the war-Robert E. Lee was. Mary Lincoln referred to as Grant a “butcher” for the horrific losses sustained by his troops through the Overland Campaign inside the spring of 1864-twice the number of casualties as Lee’s army. But if casualties are counted proportionally, Lee’s army suffered by far the most all through the war. This can be mainly because Lee relished the attack, a trait that won him essential battles for instance Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg but expense him heavy casualties-Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg is definitely an example-and at some point decimated the Army of Northern Virginia.

2. Lincoln planned to deport all blacks from the country. This policy was created in 1817 when the American Colonization Society set up Liberia in West Africa to deal with the situation of absolutely free blacks in America. By 1822, the initial African-Americans have been resettled there with mixed reactions from the black community. Lincoln believed it was a great notion, on the other hand. In August 1862, he invited several black ministers to the White Home to pitch the concept to them. He even offered to set up a equivalent colony in Latin America with Congressional funding, but the ministers unanimously rejected the president’s supply.

3. The Civil War Created a Nation of Addicts. Health-related care is among the most significant debates surrounding the Civil War: on one particular hand there are actually accounts of unnecessary butchery around the surgical bed, but other people strain that vast medical advances have been produced during the four years of fighting. It is true that there are actually stomach-churning reports of vastly beneath qualified surgeons amputating as well a great deal of a limb - so much to ensure that some soldiers would rather face the battlefield than the hospital. However, these reports overshadow the vast healthcare achievements created throughout the era. One particular pervading myth is that physicians and nurses overprescribed newly accessible anesthesia, causing the reported rise in narcotic addiction at the end on the 19th century. Even though the Union alone is estimated to possess administered 10 million opium tablets and nearly three million ounces of opium powder, the claim that this was the reason for such an epidemic is a lot more fiction than reality. Some veterans no doubt developed an addiction but these are couple of in quantity - certainly, those who had been addicts were denied their pension. As an alternative, the surge in drug use is often blamed on its wider availability, with opium importation quickly growing within the 1880s and 1890s.

4. Privates weren’t cannon fodder throughout the Civil War-generals were. Robert E. Lee’s impulse to personally lead a counterattack for the duration of the Battle of your Wilderness in Might 1864 (his troops held him back) wouldn't have shocked his males if he were a bit decrease in rank. That’s because many top rated officers, like generals, literally led their troops into battle, a rare occurrence in contemporary wars. Because of this, generals were 50 % more probably to die in combat than privates. At the Battle of Antietam alone, 3 generals have been killed and six wounded-on each and every side. In the Battle with the Wilderness, Confederate Basic James Longstreet took a bullet to his shoulder and throat, even though he would be one of several fortunate couple of: He returned to command and outlived a lot of generals and privates, dying in 1904, just short of his 83rd birthday.

5. The Civil War was a War for the Young. Fact and fiction blends nowhere a lot more so in war than in propaganda. With the minimum age of enlistment for each the Union and Confederacy set at 18, stories have been told about youngsters who lied about their age to take up the weapons of the civil war fight. It can be a truth that, such was the get in touch with to arms, that kids below 18 tried to join up, often succeeding when abetted by the blind eye of an officer. Fictions were soon spun even though, puffing out the facts to produce inspiring war stories. One such story is the fact that of John Clem: supposedly aged nine when he attempted to enlist, Clem went on to become a drummer boy for the Union and is said to possess shot a Confederate colonel dead. How much of Clem’s extraordinary Civil War experience is true is inseparable in the fictions from the time, but the fact remains that the war drastically affected the young, each at dwelling and around the battlefield.