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Who Do You Think You Are? Season Two
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The Civil War
Matthew Broderick's journey revealed relatives who fought in two brutal wars: the Civil War and World War I. Millions of Americans served in these conflicts, yet many of their stories are lost. These two conflicts shaped our nation in ways that still affect us today. In looking into Matthew's story, we found a few lesser-known facts worth passing along.
Did you know?
- Largely influenced by rising religious sentiments following years of internal conflict, the words "In God We Trust" first appeared on a U.S. coin in 1864.
- The Civil War began when the Confederates under General Pierre Beauregard opened fire with 50 cannons upon Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. However, no one was killed in this initial attack.
- More than three million men fought in the war and more than 620,000 died, with disease killing twice as many as those lost in battle.
- The Battle of Shiloh was the bloodiest battle of the war (more Americans died there than in any previous American war combined). Ironically, Shiloh was the name of a small whitewashed church where most of the fighting began. It is a Hebrew word meaning "place of peace."
- Ulysses S. Grant was not fond of ceremonies or military music, but it had been said that he only recognized two tunes, "One was Yankee Doodle," and "the other one wasn't." He led 533,000 men of the Union Army and three years later was elected President. It is reputed that Grant detested the sight of blood and that even a serving of rare meat could make him queasy.
- On July 4th, 1863 and after 48 days of siege, Confederate General John C. Pemberton surrendered the city of Vicksburg to Ulysses S. Grant. The 4th of July was not celebrated in Vicksburg for another 81 years.
- Although African Americans made up less than one percent of the Northern population, by the Civil War's end they made up more than 10 percent of the Union's Army. A total of 180,000 black men (more than 85 percent of those eligible) enlisted.
- The Civil War was fought in 10,000 cities and towns across the country from Valverde, New Mexico, to Tullahoma, Tennessee, to St. Albans, Vermont, to Fernandina on the Florida Coast. Americans slaughtered one another in their own peach orchards and cornfields, and homes became headquarters while churches and schools sheltered the dying.
- During the Battle of Antietam, Clara Barton (a nurse from Massachusetts and known as "the angel of the battlefield") was so close to the fighting that a bullet went through her sleeve and killed the man she was treating. Years later she founded the American Red Cross.
- Jefferson Davis, the first and only President of the Confederacy, was imprisoned for two years after the war, but never tried.
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