Port Hudson

[jackruff]

My wife and I just traveled to Port Hudson, Louisiana.  The reason was that my great-grandfather was one of the defenders of that last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River.  He survived and was surrendered just as had happened at Fort Donelson.  He was first paroled and then exchanged, I think.  At any rate, he was in on the actions around Atlanta with Hood's Army.  His last action was the great, but ill-fated charge that Hood foolishly ordered at Franklin, Tennessee.  After suffering a cannon ball wound to his leg, he was captured.  He wouldn't fight again as the Yankees kept him in prison in Ohio until well after the war ended.  The historian at the state park at Port Hudson told me where his unit, the 1st Mississippi, had been, which was the object of a fierce Federal attack on June 14, 1863.  The attack didn't go well for the northerners.  The historian said my great-grandfather "probably killed a lot of Yankees."  And he was a native of Ohio - born near Cincinnati - who ran away from home to Mississippi as a teenager. 

[Ga.windbreak]

What a great bit of history, you must be proud. Welcome! We hope you will post often.

[jackruff]

Proud?  I suppose, because he was certainly dedicated.  But I have to wonder why.  What were his reasons for fighting?  There's no way to know, of course.  I was a good student of history while in school, but would have been a better one if I'd had any idea of where he had been during that war.  Back then it was just a foggy, vague notion that ancestors of mine had actually been in the war - had been shot at and had shot at others.  It's a lot more real to me now.  My parents took me to the Shiloh battlefield while a small boy.  They were from northeast Mississippi themselves.  It had been less than a hundred years since the battle and the tree General Johnston died under was still alive!  It all made a huge impression on me.  My great-grandfather missed the battle; he and 16,000 of his fellow Confederates were in northern prison camps having surrendered at Fort Donelson.

[Ga.windbreak]

Proud?  I suppose, because he was certainly dedicated.  But I have to wonder why.  What were his reasons for fighting?  There's no way to know, of course.

Well you surely have me stumped. If you are really curious I would think there are ways to research both he and the other men in his group and come up with the reasons he fought. It was an age where by people kept in touch by the written word and all of those letters are special to those who recieved them.

The basis of my knowledge of Lee, Davis, and even my own ancestors are the letters and notes left behind. They give a true and rich look into the past which the writers of today can not begin to compare. There is also the truth, which can't be discolored, unlike it is today with PC and opinion pieces put forth by those who consider themselfs expert at looking at the surface rather that the inner content. 

[jackruff]

Those are good points, and I have read a lot of letters from Confederate soldiers.  But I haven't read anything written by him, and I'm sure that if there was anything he had written I would have seen it.  I certainly know a lot of reasons given by a lot of Confederates, but can only speculate what his motivation was, especially with him being a native of Ohio.

[williamlayton]

It is not of interest to those who hold a one sided view--but there were more than a few crossovers from N to S and S to N.
As today--most everybody had an opinion. Some were of the opinion it was all foolishment and went West.
Some were caught in a vacuum and were where they were and without alligience to where they were.
Blessings

[jackruff]

There was nothing said when I was growing up and studying the Civil War about the crossovers.  I've read that every southern state but South Carolina had organized units to fight for the north - even Mississippi.  This subject fascinates me now.  By the way, my mother's father served briefly near the end of the war as a Confederate soldier.  (Her mother was a LOT younger than her father.)  I have a sister who is barely in her fifties.  It amazes me that we are still that close in time to the war, even though it was 150 years ago.