“Sherman sent the news of its capture (Savannah) with twenty-five thousand bales of cotton and one hundred and fifty cannon, to President Lincoln, as a Christmas present to the nation.”
This is taken from Page 259 of the 1880 edition of A Brief History of the United States by Alfred Smith Barnes, one of many books I inherited from my parents. They often purchased boxes of books at auction. Although this book was published with the young student in mind, it contains much of value for the adult reader.
The author, Alfred Smith Barnes, was born in 1817 in New Haven, Connecticut. and died in 1888 in Brooklyn, New York. Barnes built a family publishing company with his sons, a brother, and a nephew. The firm became a leading publisher of textbooks in the United States. Barnes was a benefactor of Cornell University, Fisk University, other academies, churches, and the Long Island Historical Society.
Barnes divided the early history of the United States into six chapters as follows:
First Epoch, Early Discoveries and Settlements
Second Epoch, Development of the Colonies
Third Epoch, The Revolutionary War
Fourth Epoch, Development of the States
Fifth Epoch, The Civil War
Sixth Epoch, Reconstruction and Passing Events
My copy of A Brief History of the United States is hardbound and contains 303 pages. It is well written, concise, and contains many beautiful engravings and colored maps. Our contemporary young American students would not likely be required to study such a comprehensive history by our vacuous unionized public school “educators.”
I was particularly interested in how the author would approach our War for Southern Independence, especially his evaluation of that struggle and the valor of our Southern soldiers. I was pleasantly surprised by Barnes’ mostly unbiased reporting of the War. Thankfully, Barnes did not harangue his readers about slavery; although I did question several of Barnes’ military details that I felt would not stand up to historical scrutiny.
Barnes prepared a separate evaluation for each year of the War to include some of the major battles that took place during that year. He would follow up with a review of how these events affected both the North and the South. Barnes also included a section on several of the naval battles.
From Page 238: “Robert Edward Lee was born in Stratford, Virginia, Jan. 19, 1807; died in Lexington, Oct. 12, 1870. The wonderful success he achieved in the Seven Days fight made ‘Uncle Robert,’ as he was familiarly called, the most trusted of the Confederate leaders. For three years he baffled every attempt to take Richmond, which fell only with the government of which it was the capital, and the army and general which were its defence. General Lee was handsome in face and figure, a graceful rider, grave and silent in deportment—just the bearing to captivate a soldier; while his deep piety, truth, sincerity , and honesty won the hearts of all.”
Barnes wrote this about the battle at Corinth on Page 229: “The Confederates exhibited brilliant courage, but were defeated, and pursued forty miles with heavy loss.”
From Pages 241 and 242: “Lee had sent Jackson with twenty-five thousand men against Harper’s Ferry. That redoubtable leader quickly carried the heights which overlook the village, forced Colonel Miles, with eleven thousand men, to surrender, and then hastened back to take part in the approaching contest.
“During this invasion the Confederate soldiers had endured every privation; one-half were in rags, and thousands barefooted had marked their path with crimson. Yet shoeless, hatless, and ragged, they had marched and fought with a heroism like that of the Revolutionary times. But they met their equals at Antietam.”
While Sherman was presenting the city of Savannah to Lincoln in 1864, the Yankee blockade and Sherman’s goons were causing great suffering in the South. From Page 267: “Paper was so expensive that matches could no longer be put in boxes. Sugar, butter, and white bread became luxuries even for the wealthy. Salt being a necessity, was economized to the last degree, old pork and fish barrels being soaked and the water evaporated so that not a grain of salt might be wasted. Women appeared in garments that were made of cloth carded, woven, spun, and dyed by their own hands. Large thorns were fitted with wax heads and made to serve as hair-pins. Shoes were manufactured with wooden soles to which the uppers were attached by means of small tacks.”
A copy of this old history book can be found for sale on the website www.abebooks.com.
I feel that Alfred Smith Barnes tried to balance the scales of justice with reference to the War in spite of his own northern persuasions.
I concur with the author regarding the capture of Confederate-held Fort Fisher from Page 267: “Late at night the garrison, hemmed in on all sides, surrendered (January 15, 1865). One knows not which to admire the more, the gallantry of the attack or the heroism of the defence. In such a victory is glory, and in such a defeat, no disgrace.”
While that old reprobate “Honest Abe” was celebrating the Christmas of 1864 with all of the typical festivities of the season along with the gift of an entire city, the majority of Southerners of all races remained in the cold, destitute, facing starvation, and defeat.
Nancy Hitt – 2012
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