
Chapter 24: If It Takes All Summer (Part 1: Wilderness) :: The Battle Cry Of Freedom By James McPherson
Response / Thought Quotes
- “if victorious, we have everything to hope for in the future. If defeated, nothing will be left for us to live for.”
- “They use a man here,” wrote a weary Massachusetts veteran, “just the same as they do a turkey at a shooting match, fire at it all day and if they don’t kill it raffle it off in the evening; so with us, if they can’t kill you in three years they want you for three more—but I will stay.”
- “Such another depraved, vice-hardened and desperate set of human beings never before disgraced an army,”
- “a Massachusetts officer reported that forty of the 186 “substitutes, bounty-jumpers . . . thieves and roughs” who had been assigned to his regiment disappeared the first night after they arrived. This he considered a blessing”
- “shall ever be elected or not depends upon . . . the battle-fields of 1864,” predicted a Georgia newspaper. “If the tyrant at Washington be defeated, his infamous policy will be defeated with him.”
- “acted independently and without concert, like a balky team, no two ever pulling together,”
- “Those not skinning can hold a leg.” … “But the leg-holders bungled their jobs”
- “in these dense, smoke-filled woods”
- “In the smoke-filled woods Longstreet went down with a bullet in his shoulder fired by a Confederate. Unlike Jackson he recovered, but he was out of the war for five months.”
- “The Federals held their ground and the fighting gradually died toward evening as survivors sought to rescue the wounded from cremation.”
- ““I am heartily tired of hearing what Lee is going to do,” Grant told the brigadier. “Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land on our rear and on both our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.””
- “It was not “another Chancellorsville . . . another skedaddle” after all. “Our spirits rose,” recalled one veteran who remembered this moment as a turning point in the war. Despite the terrors of the past three days and those to come, “we marched free. The men began to sing.””
Thought Questions
- Explain and Expand: “”Upon the progress of our arms,” said Lincoln late in the war, “all else chiefly depends.”
- Describe the appointment of Grantoverall commander of American forces and his reorganization of American military plans
- Describe the Battle of the Wilderness and how it lead to its culminating battle
- How did Grant begin to coordinate American military efforts in different theaters for greater impact?
- What responsibility did Sherman have in the plans around the Battle of the Wilderness
- What responsibility did Sheridan have in the plans around the Battle of the Wilderness
- What responsibility did Butler have in the plans around the Battle of the Wilderness
- What responsibility did Meade have in the plans around the Battle of the Wilderness
- What responsibility did Sigel have in the plans around the Battle of the Wilderness
- React and Respond: “Union’s three best generals—Grant, Sherman, Sheridan”
- In what ways did Confederates attempt to maintain the manpower of its forces?
- In what ways did the United States maintain the manpower of the Army?
- Explain and Expand: “But there were flaws in the Union sword and hidden strengths in the Confederate shield.”
- What is the significance of: “In Sherman’s campaign for Atlanta in 1864 the number of men protecting his rail communications 450 miles back to Louisville nearly equaled the number of front-line soldiers he could bring against the enemy.”
- Explain and Expand: “If this happened, the South might well seize victory from the jaws of defeat.”
- Explain and Expand: “This latter group experienced the usual aversion to risk-taking during their final weeks in the army”
- Describe the Confederate reaction “Southern leaders discerned these flaws in their foe’s sword.”
- Explain and Expand: “If southern armies could hold out until the election, war weariness in the North might cause the voters to elect a Peace Democrat who would negotiate Confederate independence.”
- React and Respond: ““Lee’s Army will be your objective point,” Grant instructed Meade. “Wherever Lee goes, there will you go also.””
- React and Respond: “to move against Johnston’s army, to break it up, and to get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources.”
- Explain and Expand: “The southerners’ local knowledge now came into play.”
- Explain and Expand: “But instead of heading north they turned south.”
Articles and Resources
- Brief Biography: General Phillip Sheridan – Encyclopedia Britannica
- Brief Biography: General Phillip Sheridan – Civil War Trust
- Brief Biography: General William T. Sherman – Encyclopedia Britannica
- Brief Biography: General William T. Sherman – Civil War Trust
- Brief Biography: General George Meade – Encyclopedia Britannica
- Brief Biography: General George Meade – Civil War Trust
- Brief Biography: General Franz Sigel – Encyclopedia Britannica
- Brief Biography: General Franz Sigel – Civil War Trust
- Brief Biography: General Benjamin Butler – Encyclopedia Britannica
- Brief Biography: General Benjamin Butler – Civil War Trust
- The Wilderness – Civil War Trust