Civil War Vets Come Alive in Video and Audio Recordings

[frogmarch]

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Civil-War-Veterans-Come-Alive-in-Audio-and-Video-Recordings.html

The “Rebel Yell” video embedded in the article is remarkable. It brought tears to my eyes to see these old Confederate soldiers as the real, living people they once were, and to hear their voices. My ancestors fought on the Union side, but I was deeply moved just the same.

Video and audio recordings of Civil War veterans, Confederate and Union, are being stored at the Library of Congress and are available to the public upon request.

Article snip:

To most of us, perhaps, the men who fought the Civil War may seem like the inhabitants of a sort of cinematic prehistory, quaintly memorialized in Currier & Ives prints, old newspaper engravings and the photographs of Mathew Brady. But here they are, like living ghosts in the flesh, the survivors of Bull Run and Antietam, Shiloh and Chickamauga, who saw Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee with their own eyes, and cheered their comrades into battle with these very voices that we now hear.

Thousands of Civil War veterans lived far into the 20th century. In 1913, 54,000 Union and Confederate veterans gathered at Gettysburg for the battle’s 50th anniversary, and an astonishing 2,000 were still alive to show up for the battle’s 75th anniversary in 1938. (Both events are represented in the library’s film and audio collections.) The last verified Union veteran died only in 1956, and the last Confederate in 1951. From the early 1900s through the 1940s, they were filmed, recorded and interviewed at reunions, parades and other patriotic events where, as the century advanced, they came increasingly to seem like ambulatory trophies from some distant age of heroes.

[krispos42]

1. Wow.

Just... wow.

[redwitch]

2. I had no idea these films existed!

Remarkable!

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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[Withywindle]

4. That's fascinating!

We are not so far removed from history as we think we are. The last known people born in slavery lived into the 1960s/early 70s. And people who lived during the Civil War would have known grandparents who were contemporary with the Revolution.

Just a matter of generations, and the overlap is long. Listen to your elders' stories, they're valuable, priceless information.

[Spider Jerusalem]

25. Not so very far removed at all

my grandfather was born in 1923; his great-uncle was born in 1855 and died in 1932. That great-uncle was named Levin Handy; his uncle was Mathew Brady (the photographer), and he was Brady's apprentice, and would have met Abraham Lincoln as a boy. So I've met someone who met someone who met Lincoln; two degrees of separation.

[Withywindle]

69. I was lucky enough to get to know my great-grandparents on my dad's mom's side pretty well.

They were born in the 1890s. My ggf was a WWI vet.

They built a house for themselves in the suburbs of Baltimore, and later on shared it with their daughter (my grandmother) and her husband; my father and his sister were born in that house. Pop-pop and Ma-mah (as I knew them) spent their years working the garden and raising the peacocks. (SO LOUD!)

I knew them as a child, they doted on me, and they lived well into the 1980s, when I was a teenager.

Pop didn't like to talk about the war per se, but he did love to talk about his long trips on shipboard, and the people he met. But talk about his childhood memories of his grandfather in the Civil War were awkward, because his grandfather and his wife's grandfather were on different sides, and back in the 19teens when they met, the grandfathers were still alive and this was an ISSUE.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. Interesting. If you hear modern neo-confederates do a 'rebel yell'

they'll invariably come up with the 'yee-haw!' not this. I've always wondered what it actually sounded like because written accounts always talked about how spooky and scary and intimidating it was when that sound came up from hundreds or thousands of voices just a few hundred feet away.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

6. Yes, this almost sounds like a band of coyotes --

:scared:

[dixiegrrrrl]

24. It sounds very much like a screech owl, to me.

Partly because the old men in the film had higher voices, and because of the quality of the recording.
But the tone and duration of the yell is like a screech owl.
Anyone who has heard the owl in these parts would recognize that yell.

[frogmarch]

7. The Rebel Yell

http://www.stonewallbrigade.com/articles_rebelyell.html

snip:

One of the enduring legends of the War Between the States is that of the Rebel Yell. Various primary and secondary sources declare that the sound made by victorious Confederate soldiers was so singularly unique, so unforgettable, so commanding, that some federal units became demoralized and fled when they first heard it. Other, equally romantic accounts speak of Southern units competing to be the "best yelling regiment" in their brigade, or of becoming known as a "good yelling unit." Douglass Southall Freeman, biographer of Lee and author of Lee's Lieutenants once described it as "the pibroch of Southern fealty." A "pibroch" is a musical piece, usually for the bagpipe, usually martial. "Fealty" refers to absolute loyalty, as that of a vassal to a feudal lord.


The Yell was best known as being shouted by Confederates when they charged or were winning a fight, but it had other uses. It is said that units would often take up "the Yell" while they were on the march, passing it from unit to unit down the road. When anyone in the pre-Chancellorsville Second Corps heard it from afar, soldiers would supposedly declare "It's Jackson, or a rabbit." On one occasion during the Valley Campaign, while the Stonewall Brigade was in camp, one of its five regiments began yelling. Soon another regiment took it up, and then another, and another, until every member of the entire brigade was delivering the Yell at the top of his lungs. General Jackson came out of his tent, leaned on a fence, and listened. The cacophony continued for several moments and then began dying away. When the last echo had rebounded from the Blue Ridge, old Blue-Light, universally known to be totally tone deaf, turning toward his tent and said "That was the sweetest music I ever heard."

[TwilightGardener]

8. Very cool, thank you.

[woo me with science]

9. Cool!

Thank you for posting this. Passing this along. K&R

[Luminous Animal]

34. Hey! Check out these cool audios and videos from the worst of the worst. They are so cool!

[deaniac21]

10. It's such a erie and cool sound...

[Hassin Bin Sober]

13. It sounds like......treason!

[Ian David]

11. One day, they will be equally fascinated with rare, surviving footage...

... of how Nazis used to shout, "Sieg Heil!"

[frogmarch]

12. You had to get in there, didn't you? nt

[ProdigalJunkMail]

15. some people cannot wait to piss all over anything

regardless of the original point of the thread...

sP

[Ian David]

17. Yeah, how dare someone piss all over slave-loving soldiers of Treason. n/t

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

70. yeah, because the poster here was cheering them on

and supporting their cause with this post of interesting historical film...

just the fact that you are breathing means through your past you are related to a murdering/thieving/slave-owning asshole. so, i hope you get up in the morning and piss on your image in the mirror and that you have zero references to any of your relatives in your home.

sP

[apocalypsehow]

19. I notice it quite often - there is a raging hostility and yearning for confrontation over even

innocuous, non-political OP's, and a willful determination to ignore, as you stated, the original point of any given thread.

It's like when we were in grade school, there was always one shit-stirrer that would say "but teacher, you forgot to give us any homework!" on a Friday afternoon just before the beginning of a long Christmas break. It's the same kind of mentality that pisses all over even OP's where there really is no issue to piss about, like this one.

[yawnmaster]

22. + and with that "rage" one gets to see their reply on the page!

I'm probably looking at my own reply right now and smiling.

[Luminous Animal]

37. Yes. It is so cool to listen to voices of racists who fought to keep human beings as property.

So cool!

[Ian David]

16. I see no difference. n/t

[AngkorWot]

28. Civil War: 1861-1865. WWII: 1939-1945

That in and of itself is a rather significant difference.

Also, the Nazis were a political party. And confederate soldiers were soldiers, often conscripted soldiers.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

45. Yeah, I'm sure that general in the video was a conscript. LOL

They were traitors.

And around the time this film was made, the traitorous scum was in the process of re-writing history to - "northern war of aggression" and "negro troublemakers."

The people in this film WERE the criminals and traitors. I can almost excuse some modern day racist bubba who runs around with his confederate flag in the name of "heritage" .... but the people in this film WERE the problem in post civil war America.

[AngkorWot]

48. Was he even a general during the war?

Plenty of honorific promotions given after the war. Colonel Sanders, for example, was neither a colonel nor a civil war veteran.

But then again, that involves Civil War history, and Civil War history is something that should be shunned and forgotten, apparently.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

51. Yeah, I know what a Kentucky Colonel is. My neighbor is one.

And you better put up some proof conscripts got promotions to general rank officers post-war before I bust a gut laughing at your non-sense.

Sure history should absolutely be taught. Not glossed over when some racist old fuck looks all harmless and grandfatherly with his band of traitors that couldn't "get over it" so they decided to run around with their traitor uniforms.

Hence the few posts on this thread calling those bigot traitors what they were.

How many lynchings you think those folks in the film attended?

[AngkorWot]

53. How about you tell me who that soldier is, and what rank he actually served in during the war.

"How many lynchings you think those folks in the film attended?"

Probably about as many as the Union veterans, who for the most part were just as racist as the Confederate veterans.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

55. I can only go on the historical record provided by the Smithsonian.

In it, I count at least 2 generals and a captain.

I suppose they could be lying chicken-hawks..... just like freepers, teabaggers and their filth ancestors tend to be.

[Lars39]

57. Ya know, I've probably got an ancestor or 2 who fought in that war...

also some who fought in the Revolutionary War and WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam. I guess that makes me "filth",too.

[apocalypsehow]

60. Isn't it telling, the rhetorical company we keep? For instance, I can usually tell I'm dealing with

a person who doesn't keep progressive or liberal company as a rule when I start hearing rhetoric about "filthy ancestors" - which is a right-wing meme going clear back to the Alien & Sedition Acts.

Amazing how easy it is to spot that sort of thing, without even having to look very hard, huh?

Good post, BTW.

[AngkorWot]

59. And how many privates and corporals and sergeants do you find?

Also, why do you think it matters?

[yawnmaster]

21. I already find it fascinating to watch old 40's footage of Nazis. It is at least...

a reminder of certain aspects of human nature.

I found the rebel yell footage very interesting!

[Luminous Animal]

36. And cool!

[woo me with science]

32. Yes, how disturbing for people to be interesting in viewing history.

This is the kind of mentality that gets old records burned, buried, or shoved in closets.

Sheesh. :eyes:

[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[apocalypsehow]

39. Precisely. The mark of a mature mind is the ability to separate our OPINIONS about the tide of

historical events and the persons who figured largely in them from the sources themselves, especially primary sources. All of genuine historical scholarship rotates around the notion that while "objectivity" may be impossible, allowing rampant subjectivity to interfere with the ability to study primary sources in their context is paramount.

In this case, the availability of these wonderful primary sources in forms of recordings from historical actors who were actually there should be a cause of celebration by any & all who consider themselves inquisitive and open-minded in our quest for knowledge and better understanding of the myriad things that made up that epochal event in American history, the Civil War.

Mostly, it has: but there is the mentality that simply wants to "pick a fight," and posts accordingly. Every-thing's a punchline or an opportunity to spew some snark, to such an absurd extent that celebrating the availability of said primary historical sources is twisted and perverted into some kind of enthusiastic approval of the motives and beliefs behind the actions of the (long-dead) historical figures who took part in helping shape that history.

Which is, on the other hand, the mark of an immature mind.

Good post. :thumbsup:

[Luminous Animal]

40. The mark of the immature mind is to suppose that history can be reported objectively.

In this case, the availability of these disturbing primary sources in forms of recordings from despicable racist historical actors who were actually there should be a cause of contemplation by any and all who consider themselves open-minded in our quest for knowledge and better understanding of the closest thing to the Nazis that made up that epochal event in American History, the Civil War.

[AngkorWot]

44. I think it's the mark of an immature mind to compare confederate vets to Nazis.

Rather than, say, soldiers of the Wehrmacht.

I've never seen anybody throw a shit fit because an elderly German or Japanese veteran was interviewed to give their account in a WWII documentary.

[apocalypsehow]

50. And there you touch on the core of the matter: the "shit fit" was never about the actual content of

the OP; it was about throwing a "shit fit" in the middle of an otherwise amiable appreciation of the OP's primary historical resource posting, simply because it could be done.

Thus it ever is among the tedious, score-keeping ranks of the petty and the irreducibly juvenile on this great big wonderful thing we call the internet, world without end.

[AngkorWot]

52. It's about "look at me! I'm edgy and cool!"

"I'm gonna call them all Nazis and there's nothing you can do to stop me!"

Yes, in fact, there are some pretty decent similarities between the Confederacy and the Third Reich.

No shit, Sherlock. Nobody gets any brownie points for pointing that out. Or, for that matter, for taking some kind of personal offense over it like some sort of angsty teenager.

[apocalypsehow]

54. Well stated, and quite right.

:thumbsup:

[Luminous Animal]

33. Indeed. And this from one of my favorite movie critics... (bolded part mine)

The treatment of the Civil War in our popular culture has been fairly peculiar. For reasons that are understandable, the North has felt it necessary to act the way you do when you win an argument with your spouse: "No, honey, you weren't completely wrong; you had a point." After all, if you win completely, it's always smart to make the other party feel as good as possible. And so our national culture has turned itself inside out ignoring that the Confederacy was a disgrace - that the leaders who brought it about were uncomfortably close to Nazis, willing to ruin the Earth's last best hope for the sake of perpetuating an absolutely evil institution, which they not only wanted to maintain but also to extend all the way to the Pacific and into Central and South America. For all their noble cavalier posturing, they were greedy, cruel, power-driven and yet somehow convinced of their own superior honor and virtue, and they came closer to obliterating this great country than Adolf Hitler ever did in his wildest dreams.

Honestly, I find it astounding that schoolchildren are still taught about the Civil War as though it were a misunderstanding between two equally worthy sides. Such misinformation helps to perpetuate and give sanction to much residual psychosis in American life

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/25/PKFM1L2SP8.DTL

[MadHound]

67. So what should we do, ignore all things pertaining to the Civil War?

Ignore history for the sake of some sort of PC wet dream? Sorry, but the deed is done, the Reconstruction botched, and your ultimate beef is with Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant and other political figures of the day, not the Smithsonian.

Should we censor history in some bizarre Orwellian plan in the vain hope that by rewriting the past we can change the future? That indeed is the way of the Nazi, the exact same tactic that they depended upon so heavily to achieve their objectives.

Careful that you don't become that which you hate.

[Condem]

14. Excellent , frogmarch.

Very much appreciated.

[Uncle Joe]

18. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, frogmarch.

[apocalypsehow]

20. Kick & Rec.Fascinating voices from history! Very grateful the Library of Congress is preserving

these historical recordings for future generations of both scholars and just folks interested in studying America's rich tapestry and past. :thumbsup:

[Lars39]

23. Fascinating!

I especially liked this paragraph, By the late 1930s, faced with the looming threat of totalitarianism in Europe and Japan, Americans were more interested in national unity than they were in reliving old divisions.

Typically, in a sound-only radio address at Gettysburg covered by NBC News in 1938, Overton Minette, commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (the leading Union veterans’ organization) declares, to the sound of ceremonial cannon fire, “Let be an example to the nations of the earth. . . that the deepest hate can be resolved into love and tolerance.”

Following him, the Rev. John M. Claypool, the commander-in-chief of the United Confederate Veterans, drawls, “I have to forgive my brother here for anything that may have occurred between us. We can’t hold anything against each other.”

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Civil-War-Veterans-Come-Alive-in-Audio-and-Video-Recordings.html#ixzz1c7IwH0T7

[stevedeshazer]

26. Fascinating, thanks! n/t

[Gin]

27. Fascinating!!! Thanks.

[Raine]

30. Interesting ... THANKS for posting this. nt

[Tuesday Afternoon]

31. thanks for posting this. bkmrkd. k&r

[Condem]

38. Bruce Catton, I believe.

Second day at Gettysburg. Union reenforcements were coming down a dirt lane just to the north of Little Round Top. Heading towards the shattered line at the Peach Orchard. As they passed an old shack, they heard the Rebel Yell in the distance and became quite unnerved. The old crone, sitting in a rocker, said "they're just men, boys. Just men". Steeled the regiment for the job ahead.

[apocalypsehow]

41. *Kick* for a wonderful, fascinating primary historical resource. Also, an interesting side article,

somewhat thread-related

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

[frogmarch]

42. Thanks to everyone

who posted on this thread.

I hadn’t meant to stir up any ill feelings. I thought the video provided a wonderful glimpse of history – a double glimpse, really. We were looking back in time at Civil War veterans looking back in time.

My great- grandfather and great-great grandfather served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and both were wounded – one at Cold Harbor and the other in the Wilderness Campaign. My great-grandfather served in the Appomattox Campaign and was there when General Lee surrendered. Neither my great- nor my great-great grandfather ever hated the South or the soldiers of the Confederacy. In eloquently worded letters he wrote home, my great-great grandfather asked his family not to hate them either. He explained many Confederate soldiers had no choice but to enlist - economic and other factors drove them to it. He also said that many Confederate soldiers thought they were fighting to protect their homeland from evil invaders, not realizing they were merely pawns of the big plantation owners who profited from having slaves. He said many Confederate soldiers were very poor, and few Confederate soldiers owned slaves themselves. Some even opposed slavery, which was also true of the South in general. Not everyone in the South was pro-slavery or pro-secession.

I feel no animosity for the soldiers of the Confederacy. I don’t hate them for having been soldiers who fought for what I consider to have been the wrong side, or for getting together years later as old men and having some fun while showing a bit of respect for their Southern heritage.

The modern day “Johnny Rebs” who yee haw around in their trucks with miniature Confederate flags on them and whose horns play Dixie – well, they’re a different animal altogether. Effin teabaggers, the lot of them. They can kiss my ass.

[Condem]

46. Different world, then, frog.

To have some asshole in the present shout about the injustice, doesn't know whether to shit or wind his wristwatch. It's fucking pompous to
suggest otherwise.

[apocalypsehow]

47. Thank you for posting it! Great resource. You stirred no "ill feelings": some folks just thrive on

the exquisite practice of full-tilt assholery.

It's as old as the internet, and I wouldn't worry about it: your link was informative, and greatly appreciated! :hi: :thumbsup: :toast:

[cordelia]

63. + 1,000

[csziggy]

49. Thank you for posting this

I think it is valuable to preserve any history we can and strive for understanding of both sides of all conflicts and wars. The only way we can learn to move beyond those conflicts is to learn from them.

Every one of my great-great grandfathers on my mother's side fought for the South in the Civil War. One died as a prisoner of war, leaving a six week old son that he never saw and a young bride. One lost an arm, another lost three brothers and two brothers-in-law and helped his father raise their children and support their widows. Another who was a doctor left Alabama just before the war to avoid the conflict but ended up treating the wounded and ill at camps in Arkansas and died of disease he probably contracted while doing so.

My grandfather's generation did not glorify the war - he probably remembered the pain the memories caused his father and grandparents. It took some of the next generation who refused to deal with integration and refused to give up their racism to bring back the "pride" in their losing side and revived the resentment of the North.

I am not proud of my ancestors who owned slaves and fought to preserve that institution. But I can learn from their mistakes and work to make this world better because of what I learn.

[frogmarch]

56. What a heartbreaking

story, csziggy! I am glad you shared it, although it was sad to read. Your ancestors endured a lot of pain and hardship and suffered great loss. It’s hard to even imagine what it must have been like for them to have gone through so much.

I agree that the way to come to terms with the past is to face it, work to understand it, and learn from it. It sounds as if you’ve done that with your family’s Civil War history, and have now moved forward.

Thanks for sharing your family's story. It's a powerful one.

[csziggy]

64. Thanks

On one level I feel sorry for those people, but then I think of how wealthy they were, all built on the backs of slaves. After the war, they pretty much went broke. By the time my Mom was born, most of her family were poor dirt farmers, lucky to have a small piece of land to scrape out a living.

Back to the Smithsonian article - one poster here mentioned the bit about the procession for the veteran of the War of 1812. The ggggrandfather who lost three sons and two sons in law had to apply for restoration of his rights after the Civil War. In his affidavit he stated that he had fought in the War of 1812. He was also linked to the Revolutionary War - he gave character testimony for a veteran applying for a pension. I found both of those documents in the National Archives records online.

What I don't understand is how a man who fought for his country as a young man (he was 16 in 1812) could let his sons go out and fight against that same country fifty years later.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

61. I hear what you are saying and I appreciate your GG Grandfather's point of veiw....

But keep in mind a little historical perspective of when THIS film recording was made.

This was the height of the re-write of history. Sons of the Confederacy. The height of the KKK. Birth of A Nation was just made showing the Negro agitators as being the cause for the KKK and the northern war of aggression.

You say you have disdain for the modern day Johnny Rebs. These people were the originals. These weren't the folks who went back to their lives and got on with life. These people perpetuated the myth of the noble war against Negroes and northern aggression. Two of these people were supposedly generals - doubtful poor farming kids before the war.

Don't be surprised when people don't see these folks as kindly od grandfathers. That's all.

Thanks for the thread.

[AngkorWot]

62. Hassin, the second KKK started in the teens and peaked by the mid twenties.

By 1930, before this was recorded, it was a fraction of what it had been just a few years previously.

"But keep in mind a little historical perspective of when THIS film recording was made."

The reason THIS film was made because by the 1930, the Civil War had been over for seventy years. There were few veterans left, those who were left where historical treasures, and the ability to record their appearance on film, and their voices on sound track was a relatively recent addition.

[Mendocino]

72. And in the twenties the state with the largest klan..

not Alabama or Texas or South Carolina, it was Indiana. Racism knows no boundaries.

[bluestateguy]

43. God bless all of the men who fought for the union

nt

[Mendocino]

73. Well yes, then some went west and

killed off those "godless savages".

[XemaSab]

58. I was wondering about this the other day

Nice to hear it straight from the source, as it were. :D

[malthaussen]

65. Looks like I'm the only one

... who found this clip pathetic. For more than one reason.

-- Mal

[Mendocino]

66. At the end of Ken Burns'

documentary "The Civil War" these clips and recordings appeared. The sight of the old soldiers gathering at Gettysburg, walking to wards each-other on the old battlefield, then shaking hands brought tears to my eyes. They could forgive.


"With charity for all and malice towards none"

Abraham Lincoln-2nd Inaugural Address

[apocalypsehow]

68. And here is a very fair point: "With charity for all and malice towards none," a liberal sentiment,

if there ever was one.

It's not quite as hatefully satisfying in the emotional sense as compared to, say, referring to people's "filth ancestors" (as one poster in this thread has), but it is a noble sentiment of forgiveness, reconciliation, and liberalism, in the truest sense of the word.

:thumbsup:

[Mendocino]

74. In the Gettysburg Address

Lincoln dedicated the field to all who died. Wisdom and forethought eclipsed ignorance.

[rasputin1952]

71. This is a part of our history, the wise learn from history, fools are...

doomed to repeat it.

This is also science, sociology, psychology, a deep look into our past that needs to be understood beyond the written word and stills. In history, we tends to not realize that people were real, this adds a new dimension, a new facet in how we see those who came before us.

Films of historical events should be preserved and seen through the eyes or the past and the present.