Battle of Fredericksburg...141 yrs today..

[El Mudo]

Today marks the 141st anniversary of the Battle of Fredericksburg, a really overlooked battle in the annals of the Civil War, but quite important. It featured the first amphibious assualt in US Army history, by elements of the 7th Michigan and 20th Massachusetts Regiments, and it also featured one of the few times in our history an American town has been sacked(the Feds went nuts after they finally chased Barksdale's Mississippians out of the town)

The main part of the battle has always been portrayed as having taken place in front of the famous "stone wall" in front of Marye's Heights, but in reality, the battle was pretty much over by then, when Meade's Pennsylvanians had been pushed back off of Prospect Hill, after breaking AP Hill's line and not being supported. An absolutely tragic display of bravery and guts by the Feds in front of that wall...they took over 13,000 casualties in the battle compared to about 5,000 for the Southerners..

http://www.civilwarhome.com/images/fredricksburg.gif

http://www.alleneasler.com/fredangel.jpg

Also i think Ambrose Burnside may have the greatest beard of anyone who ever lived....

http://www.nps.gov/frsp/images/burns.jpg

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<marquee> The First Brigade does not run sir! You must give them the bayonet!- Gen. Jackson</marquee>

[Freakshow]

The sideburn is named after Ambrose Burnside.

[Hottub]

Is that really true?

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"Ahh, Beer. The cause of, and answer to all of life's problems"

Big A.S.S.#22127 Checkin' in.
furie, YOU ROCK!
2%

[Freakshow]

<a href=http://www.indianainthecivilwar.com/hoosier/burnside.htm>It's written on the internet, it must be true</a>

(it's at the bottom).


You want to know why prostitutes are called hookers? <a href=http://www.swcivilwar.com/hooker.html>Cause of this guy</a>

This message was edited by Freakshow on 12-12-03 @ 10:14 AM

[Furtherman]

This Hooker guy just might be my new hero!

<IMG SRC="http://www.chaoticconcepts.com/randomizer/random.php?uid=7">
...with thanks to JustJon

[furie]

annals


http://www.nationalcynical.com/images/butthead.jpg

Huh huh huh..eh huh huh huh


<img src="http://tseery.homestead.com/files/ghostrider.jpg" height=100 width=300>
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

[Freakshow]

This Hooker guy just might be my new hero!

My favorite is still Dan Sickles:

<img width=400 src= http://nmhm.washingtondc.museum/exhibits/nationswounds/imgs/sickles_lg.jpg>

Major General Daniel E. Sickles, Union Third Army Corps commander, was struck by a cannonball during the battle of Gettysburg. Sickles was on horseback when the 12-pound ball severely fractured his lower right leg. Sickles quieted his horse, dismounted, and was taken to a shelter where Surgeon Thomas Sims amputated the leg just above the knee. Shortly after the operation, the Army Medical Museum received Sickles' leg in a small box bearing a visiting card with the message "With the compliments of Major General D.E.S." The amputation healed rapidly and by September of 1863 Sickles returned to military service. For many years on the anniversary of the amputation, Sickles visited his leg at the museum.

[El Mudo]

You want to know why prostitutes are called hookers? Cause of this guy



Actually, i think the term "hooker" was something that originated in Baltimo' before the war, and is wrongly attributed to Fightin' Joe Hooker, although his HQ was famous for its partyin' atmosphere..

Also, Gen. Dan Sickles was also the first person in the USA found innocent by reason of insanity. He shot Francis Scott Key's son Phillip after Phillip was banging Mrs. Sickles while Dan was a Congressman. Edwin M. Stanton, future Secretary of War, was the first to use the insanity defense and win...

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<marquee> The First Brigade does not run sir! You must give them the bayonet!- Gen. Jackson</marquee>

[Freakshow]

<a href=http://www.tafkac.org/faq2k/word_259.html>Looks like you are right. </a>

(like I said--it's on the internet, it must be true!).

[high fly]

The battlefield at Prospect Hill lost something like over 10,000 trees to that last hurricane.
A buddy of mine got himself a backyard of firewood out of there.
I used to live on Willis St., which is right in front of the Marye's Heights stone wall and I can tell you that the Park Service guys working there can be NAZIS!

" and they ask me why I drink"

[El Mudo]

I haven't been out there in years personally, i am going to try to get back out there maybe this spring or summer to the Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania/Chancellorsville area. Spotsylvania most espcecially cause thats where my ancestor was captured, and because that field and most of the Chancellorsville field will dissapear in the next 20/30 years as more and more rich schmoes from Fairfax country move out there...the field at Spotsylvania now is almost pretty non existent except for a few places...and that is a damn shame.

But what can you do i guess? The spot where one of the greatest generals in US History, Pat Cleburne, was killed in Franklin, Tennesee is now a Pizza Hut parking lot...Our battlefields are slowly dissapearing, and its going to take miracles to save most of them, miracles i dont think are going to happen

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<marquee> The First Brigade does not run sir! You must give them the bayonet!- Gen. Jackson</marquee>

[high fly]

Don't wait, bro. Subdivisions are going up near the battlefield and a local developer has bought county supervisors and will be building a town on the Chancellorsville battlefield. He was recently delayed, but he'll get his way eventually.
It's a damned disgrace, but money talks...


The bastards won't be happy till everything is paved and it's one giant concrete and steel anthill...



(edit) From time to time I walk the battlefields at Chancellorsville. One will still run into officers from Quantico as well as other nations out there studying the battle. I can't help but wonder, however, whether all of the old trenches and other earthworks are original.
You see, back in the twenties (if memory serves) two-time, yeah, that's right, TWO-TIME Medal of Honor recipient Smedley Butler, brought Marines down from Quantico to stage a large scale reenactment of the battle for leading politicians of the day including the president.
I wonder if they just used the existing earthworks, or added some of their own?




" and they ask me why I drink"





This message was edited by high fly on 12-14-03 @ 4:08 PM

[El Mudo]

(edit) From time to time I walk the battlefields at Chancellorsville. One will still run into officers from Quantico as well as other nations out there studying the battle. I can't help but wonder, however, whether all of the old trenches and other earthworks are original.
You see, back in the twenties (if memory serves) two-time, yeah, that's right, TWO-TIME Medal of Honor recipient Smedley Butler, brought Marines down from Quantico to stage a large scale reenactment of the battle for leading politicians of the day including the president.
I wonder if they just used the existing earthworks, or added some of their own?



I'm not sure about the earthworks thing, but someone told ol' Smedley that Stonewall Jackson's arm was buried at this one spot, and he didn't believe them(*Bosh! I will take a squad of Marines to the very spot!*), but he dug up the spot and found Jackson's arm, and reburied it and put a new tablet up there...

BTW Smedley's not the only person ever to have won two Medals of Honor, there have been several others, most notably(that i can think of offhand) Lt. Tom Custer, George's brother..

EDIT: Now that I think on it more, I dont think they would be the "original" breastworks, I dont think they would have survived that long, through both battles fought up there(and almost 150 years). I know at Spotsylvania you can still see the old depressions where the trenches were, they look like big swales...but i assume most of them would be there for posterity

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<marquee> The First Brigade does not run sir! You must give them the bayonet!- Gen. Jackson</marquee>

This message was edited by El Mudo on 12-14-03 @ 4:58 PM

[high fly]

You're right on Smedley Butler not being the only one to have two MOH's.
The total is in the upper teens. Most were awarded it before it meant what it does today.
There were a coupla Marines in WWI who were awarded the MOH by the Army. The Navy, being shamed into it, also gave them the medal.
Cukela (sorry, I can't remember the first name, Louis, I think) was one, if I recall.
The only other Marine to have two for separate actions is Dan Dailey.

Butler also staged a large scale reenactment of Gettysburg, but showing how modern tactics would have been employed.



" and they ask me why I drink"

[high fly]

Ah, here's the quote I've beenlooking for, and it's for those who don't attach much significance to these old battlefields:

"In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to see this deathless field, to ponder and dream; and lo! The shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in it's bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls."

Those words were written about Gettysburg by American war hero Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who distinguished himself in that battle.




" and they ask me why I drink"

[El Mudo]

Those words were written about Gettysburg by American war hero Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who distinguished himself in that battle.



Chamberlain got(and should have recieved) a lot of props for the way he handled his regiment on Little Round Top, but there are way too many other Regiments, even in Vincent's Brigade proper, who don't get the respect that the 20th Maine gets, even though they fought longer and harder and against greater odds...Hell the 83d Pennsylvania went all the way from First Manassass to Appomattox, which is absolutely astounding...

I'm not trying to rip Chamberlain, but his regiment gets way too much credit for what they did at Gettysburg and it shortchanges other units...mostly in I Corps..

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<marquee> The First Brigade does not run sir! You must give them the bayonet!- Gen. Jackson</marquee>

[high fly]

Lovely prose though, huh?

" and they ask me why I drink"

[El Mudo]

Lovely prose though, huh?



Beautiful. The inscription on the 4th Michigan monument in memory of their Colonel Harrison Jeffords is beautiful as well...



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<marquee> The First Brigade does not run sir! You must give them the bayonet!- Gen. Jackson ...*Compliments Hell! Ask General Law if he expcets me to hold the enitre world in check with the Fifth Texas Regiment!*-Gen. Jerome Robertson</marquee>

[El Mudo]

Lovely prose though, huh?



Beautiful. The inscription on the 4th Michigan monument in memory of their Colonel Harrison Jeffords is beautiful as well...



http://www.flagguys.com/img/stars_bars.gif
<marquee> The First Brigade does not run sir! You must give them the bayonet!- Gen. Jackson ...*Compliments Hell! Ask General Law if he expcets me to hold the enitre world in check with the Fifth Texas Regiment!*-Gen. Jerome Robertson</marquee>