Revisiting the Civil War

We are in the final days of the American Civil War sesquicentennial, marking one of the most defining trials in our nation’s history. The beginning of the end for Confederate forces came with Lee’s well-known surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House. These events are recounted on the Fold3 Blog.

At the outset of the Civil War in early 1861, both sides thought they would achieve victory within three months. The reality of war over the next four years produced as many casualties as all other American conflicts combined. The Civil War nearly tore our nation apart, and changed it fundamentally in many ways.

Our impressions of events such as the American Revolution and the American Civil War are inevitably shaped by our perspective. As the character Caulfield pointed out in the comic strip Frazz, the difference between a revolution and a civil war is primarily a matter of who won. Our popular notion of history paints the rebels in the American Revolution as the good guys, while the rebels in the American Civil War are sometimes viewed with less esteem. History tends to be written by the victors and, not surprisingly, takes their point of view. The conflict that we remember as the Civil War was known in the past as the War of the Rebellion or the War Between the States. It preserved a United States of America that would become a leader among the nations of the world and a standard for principles that we are still challenged to uphold.

The federal election of 1860 called Abraham Lincoln to be the sixteenth President of the United States. Lincoln’s election as the head of a strictly Northern anti-slavery party was viewed in the South as a grave threat to their right of self-determination. Before Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4, 1861, southern states had seceded from the Union, formed the Confederate States of America, and inaugurated Jefferson Davis as their President.

Many Americans have ancestors who served in the Civil War. Residents of both the United States and the Confederate States were nearly all affected by the conflict, whether they lived near battlefields or experienced loss and change from a distance. I have identified three great-great grandfathers who served, John Samuel Dennis, Thomas M. Green, and Charles Homer Kidder. Many brothers, cousins, and in-laws also wore a uniform during the Civil War.

In the summer of 1860, census enumerators recorded my direct ancestors who would become soldiers as follows:

• John Dennis was a listed as a 15-year-old farmhand in Mill Creek Township, Williams County, Ohio.
• Thomas Green was listed as a 36-year-old farmer with a wife and child in Bushnell Township, Montcalm County, Michigan.
• Charles Kidder was listed as a 28-year-old day laborer with a wife and two children in Reading Township, Hillsdale County, Michigan.

They could not have had any idea how much their lives would change in the next few years.

Charles Kidder enlisted in the 8th Illinois Cavalry at Batavia, Illinois in September 1861. His service in the Army of the Potomac included the Battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. In November 1863 he was detached to a battery of federal artillery. He reenlisted to return to his old unit and was reported as a deserter by the federal unit. He was reprimanded by a court martial and granted a furlough to visit his dying wife Ellen. He was mustered out with the 8th Illinois Cavalry at Benton Barracks, St. Louis, Missouri in July 1865.

John Dennis enlisted in the 111th Ohio Infantry in Mill Creek Township, Williams County, Ohio in August 1862. As part of the Army of the Ohio, his regiment was involved in the Siege of Knoxville and the Battles of Kennesaw Mountain and Nashville. He was part of Sherman’s army at the occupation of Raleigh and at Joseph Johnston’s surrender in April 1865. He was mustered out with his regiment at Salisbury, North Carolina in June 1865.

Thomas Green enlisted in the 13th Michigan Infantry in North Plains Township, Ionia County, Michigan in February 1864. He served with his regiment in Sherman’s march to the sea and the occupation of Savannah. He was wounded in action at the Battle of Bentonville, North Carolina in March 1865 and transferred to hospitals in New Bern, North Carolina and New York Harbor in April. He was mustered out from the hospital on David’s Island, New York in June 1865.

The nation and people that emerged from the American Civil War were fundamentally changed from their prewar condition and view of themselves. Immediate crises were resolved but underlying divisions and unresolved problems lingered for generations and are still not entirely healed. The crucible of civil war ultimately strengthened our moral fiber, our system of government, and our economic development. This experience was the watershed in our identity first as Americans rather than as citizens of our states.

John Dennis, Thomas Green, and Charles Kidder survived the war and fostered families that led to our existence today. They all lived in Michigan at the end of their days:

• John Dennis died in Morenci, Hillsdale County in 1926. He is buried in Morenci with his first wife, my great-great grandmother Rachel (Powell) Dennis.
• Thomas Green died in Greenville, Montcalm County in 1910. He is buried in Stanton with his first wife, my great-great grandmother Amanda (Brown) Green.
• Charles Kidder died in Sheridan, Montcalm County in 1903. He is buried in Sheridan with his second wife, my great-great grandmother Laura Louise (Davis) Kidder.

As the days of Civil War remembrance draw to a close, we should be mindful of the personal impacts of that great conflict.