100 Interesting Facts About the American Civil War

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76Calixa Lavallée

Calixa Lavallée

The writer of "O Canada" was wounded while fighting for the Union in the American Civil War.


77. The Saguaro Cactus takes 75 years to grow its first "arm;" and a Saguaro that dies this year has, on average, been around since before the Civil War.


78. The song "Cotton Eyed Joe" predates Tchaikovsky and the US Civil War.


79. Wilmer McLean's house was involved in the 1st Battle of Bull Run, where the Civil War began. After, he moved 120 miles away to Appomattox Courthouse to avoid further battles, and 2 years later, the Civil War ended in his parlor where General Lee surrendered to General Grant.


80. During the U.S. Civil War, former President John Tyler became a Confederate and was elected to serve in the Confederate congress. He is the only U.S. President to not be mourned officially in Washington D.C. due to his being a Confederate supporter.


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81The Rebel yell

The Rebel yell

The "rebel yell" that terrified the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War has been successfully reconstructed


82. Prior to the American Civil War, most citizens of the United States referred to their country in the plural ("The United States are wealthy", "The United States have a large population")


83. Major General Henry A. Barnum was shot through the side in the Civil War. Assumed dead, he was taken the prisoner and survived. He kept the bullet tract open as a trophy by running a ramrod through the wound every day. He was later shot in two more battles and survived them both.


84. Soon after the outbreak of the American Civil War, former President Franklin Pierce tried to assemble all other living former US presidents to use their influence to end the war.


85. The US Postal Service began home delivery during the Civil War after a postal worker became so torn up by seeing women lined up in the cold to see if a letter had arrived from a son or husband at the front lines that he started delivering mail to homes.


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86Benjamin Runkle

Benjamin Runkle

An officer in the American Civil War, Benjamin Runkle, was mistakenly left for dead on the battlefield. An obituary was written for him while he was still alive, but ironically Runkle outlived the man who wrote it, and in return wrote an obituary for his obituary writer


87. Frederick Douglass consulted with President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and helped influence the Emancipation Proclamation. After President Lincoln’s death, Mrs. Lincoln sent Douglass her late husband’s walking stick.


88. During the Civil War, a man gained national recognition by repeatedly auctioning off a plain sack of flour. By doing so, he raised $250,000 which aided wounded soldiers.


89. The first American civil war reenactors were actually veterans of the war.


90. Many Civil War battles have two names because the Union named battles after natural features and the Confederacy after the man-made structures/towns nearby


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91Fountain Hughes

Fountain Hughes

Fountain Hughes lived through slavery, the Civil War, World War 1, World War 2, and the beginning of the Cold War.


92. The last surviving Civil War veteran lived long enough to have seen television.


93. Russians may have prevented France and England from entering the American Civil War


94. On October 19, 1864, Confederate soldiers slipped across the border from Canada and looted and robbed their way through Vermont during the American Civil War. They stole $208,000 or around $3 million in 2014 money


95. The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States from 5 states during the civil war used the word slave or a variant over 80 times. It also referred to the north as "non-slave-holding States".


96Civil war drafting

Civil war drafting

If a wealthy person got drafted during the American Civil War, they could pay a substitute to go to war for them.


97. During the Civil War, the Union ignited 8,000 lbs of gunpowder, destroying a mine under the Confederate encampment, then proceeded to charge into the crater from the explosion, got stuck in said crater, and were brutally massacred due to the Confederate high ground.


98. President Grover Cleveland avoided the draft by paying a Polish immigrant to fight in his place during the Civil War.


99. The H.L. Hunley, a fully functional naval submarine used by the Confederacy in the Civil War. Powered by hand cranks and armed with buoyant torpedos, it was the first submersible vessel in history to successfully sink an enemy ship

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7 COMMENTS

    • I don’t know what the problem is, everything seems alright to me. There don’t seem to be any fact repeated. I think they have corrected it.

      14
  1. Re: #31. Eddie Slovik was the uncle of a friend of mine. It was a real horrible tragedy for the family. Killing someone just to make an example, just doesn’t sit right with me. I still hold a grudge against the U.S. army for this act.

    2
  2. What’s with the Anderson Cooper being a Calvin Klein model , learned Vietnamese etc:. Oooo Wow.
    So he was related to a General !!! As if he were the only relation to anyone in the Civil War. ROFL. Get a grip

    890
  3. Well Lawdy Lawdy .
    Anderson Cooper was related to a Civil War General. Of course because of that we all must know about his Calvin Klein modeling, life in Africa, etc: ROFL

    956

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