Featured 1865 in the United States / GTG

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Enjoyed the photos and coin talk but I'm surprised the moderators allowed the Civil War talk in this thread.

 

Here’s a civil war classic confederate struck wb 13 bisected date speared olive bud

 

My Great Grandfather Joseph Farmer (born 1837) volunteered in the Kentucky Tenth Infantry (Union Army) formed in Lebanon, Kentucky in November 1861. He served in many southern battles including the decisive Siege of Atlanta before that infantry was disbanded in December 1864.
He fathered my Grandfather at age 55 with his second wife Katie McCollom Farmer. He died in 1923 at age 85, two years before my father was born.

 

I was at MS-64. Neat writeup

 

I grew up in the South and got tired of hearing the war replayed. I would always say: “Guess what? We lost.”

 

Indeed, I tried to keep it to the point... I have plenty of opinions about the way that history was written on both sides but best to keep it simple here.

Unfortunately not everyone is being taught these basic things now that seem so obvious to us. I have an early 20’s employee who I found out did not even know what the Civil or Revolutionary Wars were after she was hired. We stopped everything for twenty minutes and had an impromptu history lesson that day.

 

And this is the problem in this country they don’t teach history like it should be. Unedited not sugar coated but factual and raw. So we don’t make the same mistakes as the past I remember my 10th grade world history teacher showing us videos of the liberations of the concentration camps taken by the us army and the horrors there the ovens the piles of bodies. The emaciated survivors etc. the same teacher loved the French Revolution and thought the guilliotine was the greatest invention ever. I always had good history teachers and it was my favorite subject too especially American history I remember seeing the news feeds of the Oklahoma City bombing and the sept 11 attacks. I remember being in my bedroom listening to the radio when we attacked Iraq in 1991. I’ve read lots of books on French and Indian war revolutionary war and civil war history. And anyone who doesn’t understand or appreciate that our freedoms now are because of this

 

The French and Indian War...now there is a fascinating and complex period of North American history that doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves.

Digging through old family papers of my grandmother’s from the 30’s I found a family tree that has me distantly related to General Braddock’s brother on my mother’s side... another interesting read if any folks are not familiar with the Braddock Expedition.

George Washington himself was there for that one in 1755 and during one of the battles (a serious defeat for the British) his ability to escape carnage unscathed led to a Native American prophecy:

"He cannot die in battle. The Great Spirit protects that man and guides his destinies. He will become chief of nations, and a people yet unborn will hail him the founder of a mighty nation" (Hyatt, Pilgrims and Patriots, 128).

 

My family has been in the United States for a long time, but I have no direct ancestors who fought in the American Civil War.

The reason being that the men who were the right age were all in California.

If they ever saw a US gold coin it would probably be like this one:


United States $20 1864-S

 

Nice thread! The OP's Indian Head Cent is very beautiful. Good history lesson as well- somehow I had never made the connection that Lincoln was shot a mere 5 days after Lee's surrender to Grant.

 

I drive past Appomattox CH fairly often. next to the highway is a small cemetery with both Union and Confederate graves, under a huge spreading oak tree with a nice view of Appomattox village. One of the graves is that of a S.C. infantryman who joined just after Ft. Sumter, survived many battles, only to be killed in a skirmish on the last day of hostilities. War is full of ironies.

 

While I don't think I will try to duplicate Lord M.'s experience as a re enactor, reading "Confederates in the Attic" by Tony Horwitz gave me a pretty good idea of what the hard-core practitioners of the craft go through (and put themselves through).