The War for Southern Independence (1 Viewer)

[UKReb]

Another fighting cavalry man Im searcing for information on is Ben Grierson, famous for his ride across Mississippi.

Colonel Benjamin Henry Grierson led a cavalry expedition that Ulysees Grant hoped would distract Confederate forces while the Union army made it's move toward Vicksburg. In the spring of 1863 setting out from La Grange, Tennessee Grierson took a column of Yankee troopers south the length of Mississippi, destroying rail lines and rolling stock, torching supply depots and disrupting Confederate communications. Sixteen days and 500 miles later, he brought his men safely into Baton Rouge, Louisiana- a feat of great skill and daring but also a large dollop of luck.
A brilliant Union cavalry leader but practically unknown and unsung and over-looked by authors more interested in Custer, Sheridan, Kilpatrick and such like.

However, there are a couple of books you should look up that deal with the real story of his famous ride
"Grierson's Raid" by Dee Brown
"The Horse Soldiers" by Harold Sinclair
"Fiction as Fact-The Horse Soldiers & Popular Memory" by Neil Longley York

You might want to look also for the DVD of an old and unsung Ford/Wayne film "The Horse Soldiers" for some reason (most probably because of it's civil war story-never really popular with US movie-goers) it is not one of the famous Ford cavalry films most critics rave about. But it was very popular in Europe and still is, if you just ignore the ridiculous love plot between the Southern Belle and a far too old Duke it's a pretty darn close depiction of the Grierson Raid.

Your study of this war and your knowledge of a number of little known characters is applauded-You learn well young Skywalker- sorry I mean young Harris-I'm impressed.

Reb

 

[VanguardFC007]

Thanks Reb for the compliment as well as the information. Up until recently I had always focused on the big names of the war, but have discovered the lesser knowns offer an interesting perspective if the information can be found. However anytime I can get my hands on new stuff about Marse Robert, I tend to get a little giddy.

 

[Spitfrnd]

....
You might want to look also for the DVD of an old and unsung Ford/Wayne film "The Horse Soldiers" for some reason (most probably because of it's civil war story-never really popular with US movie-goers) it is not one of the famous Ford cavalry films most critics rave about. But it was very popular in Europe and still is, if you just ignore the ridiculous love plot between the Southern Belle and a far too old Duke it's a pretty darn close depiction of the Grierson Raid....
Reb

Interesting stuff as always Reb. I do like that one as well. So is the scene pitting Greirson's detachment against the boys from the military academy based on one of the events of that raid?

 

[UKReb]

Interesting stuff as always Reb. I do like that one as well. So is the scene pitting Greirson's detachment against the boys from the military academy based on one of the events of that raid?

No Bill after all that's Hollywood. Ford was a great civil war buff and loved the story of the cadets but it was the Virginia Military Institute and not the Jefferson Military College which Ford found outside Natchez which fitted nicely into his film story.

The real event occurred a year after Grierson's raid in May 1864 at the Battle of New Market. Inserted late in the fighting, the VMI cadets advanced on a Yankee position and took it. To this day the cadets are revered in VMI annals and those who were slain are listed on an honor roll. They were not as some in the South would have it, sent out as cannon fodder to be slaughtered or mere children who were massacred by the Yankees. All of the boys were sixteen or older, and their casualty rates were in line with those of regular Confederate army units they fought alongside.

But it has become the best remembered scene in the film, some critics say this scene and the doomed Confederate charge at Newton Station proved that Ford identified with the lost Southern cause. I dont agree his films of the US Army/Cavalry etc prove that he presented a very fair balance between the two sides.

Reb

 

[marco55]

Grierson also commanded the 10th US cavalry after the war.One of two all black cavalry outfits and died in 1911 at the age of 85.
Mark

 

[VanguardFC007]

A tv station over here in the states has been running a marathon of John Wayne movies for the weekend. But the only one Ive caught so far of a Civil War theme is Undefeated. The movie where the Rebels flee to Mexico but need the Yankee horses.

By the way Reb, are you British by birth or an American over on that side of the pond?

Harris

 

[UKReb]

By the way Reb, are you British by birth or an American over on that side of the pond?

Harris

Brit all the way Harris, Brit all the way and to try and pre-empt your next question "What's a Brit doing studing the ACW?" Haven't got a clue! but maybe like you I enjoyed watching Western movies and just wanted to know a bit more about Why a guy in grey was shooting at a guy in cavalry blue???

Reb

 

[VanguardFC007]

For me it actually started on a family visit to Savannah, Georgia when I was 6and we toured Fort Pulaski, the end of masonry forts.

 

[UKReb]

Grierson also commanded the 10th US cavalry after the war.One of two all black cavalry outfits and died in 1911 at the age of 85.
Mark

Spot on Mark and absolutely true

Reb

 

[theBaron]

Hi, everyone, I'm going to post a sort of sidebar again, prompted by something I read in an essay by Walter Williams over on TownHall.com.

When VanguardFC007 started the thread, I posted an observation about the name of the conflict ("War Between the States" vs "War for Southern Independence"). After reading this passage from Williams' essay, I now understand and appreciate VanguardFC007's preferred term better:

"One of the unappreciated casualties of the War of 1861, erroneously called a Civil War, was its contribution to the erosion of constitutional guarantees of state sovereignty. It settled the issue of secession, making it possible for the federal government to increasingly run roughshod over Ninth and 10th Amendment guarantees. A civil war, by the way, is a struggle where two or more parties try to take over the central government. Confederate President Jefferson Davis no more wanted to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington wanted to take over London. Both wars are more property described as wars of independence." (from "Oklahoma Rebellion", published today at Townhall.com).

Never thought of it like that before, and what a clear expression of the term!

Anyway, I'm sorry if I sidetrack the discussion, but it's a followup to my earlier post.

Prost, beianand!
Brad

 

[VanguardFC007]

I will say that its nice to have a published essay that supports my perspective. One of the major Southern reasonings for the conflict was the thought, "what would Washington and Jefferson wanted?" To that end Jefferson clearly would have thought that Lincoln overstepped his powers. But again Jefferson could be argued a hypocrit because he overstepped some of his own stated boundries as President.

For an interesting read on Jefferson, see Joe Ellis' American Spinx. It explains a good deal of Jefferson's self-inflicted hypocracies.


Harris