Adjutant’s Call - April 2023
Link to Original PDF of April 2023 Newsletter
Circular Memorandum #545 -February 2023
“The Howling Storm: Weather, Climate, and the Civil War” Presented by Kenneth Noe
Kenneth Noe is a native of Virginia, and a graduate of Emory and Henry College. He earned master’s degrees in history at both Virginia Tech and the University of Kentucky, and he received his doctorate from the University of Illinois. After teaching at the University of West Georgia for ten years, Dr. Noe taught at Auburn University from 2000 to 2021.
Dr. Noe has received numerous teaching awards and is the author of eight books, including The Howling Storm: Weather, Climate, and the American Civil War, published by LSU Press in 2020, a finalist for the Lincoln Prize. Twice a Pulitzer Prize entrant, Dr. Noe received the 2002 Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War History for Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle, and the 1997 Tennessee History Book Award for A Southern Boy in Blue: The Memoirs of Marcus Woodcock, 9th Kentucky Infantry, U.S. He is currently reconsidering Abraham Lincoln as commander-in-chief.
“The Howling Storm”
Traditional histories of the Civil War describe the conflict as a war between North and South. Kenneth W. Noe suggests it should instead be understood as a war between the North, the South, and the weather. In The Howling Storm, Noe retells the history of the conflagration with a focus on the ways in which weather and climate shaped the outcomes of battles and campaigns. He further contends that events such as floods and droughts affecting the Confederate home front constricted soldiers’ food supply, lowered morale, and undercut the government’s efforts to boost nationalist sentiment. By contrast, the superior The Adjutant’s Call 2 April 2023 equipment and open supply lines enjoyed by Union soldiers enabled them to cope successfully with the South’s extreme conditions and, ultimately, secure victory in 1865. Climate conditions during the war proved unusual, as irregular phenomena such as El Niño, La Niña, and similar oscillations in the Atlantic Ocean disrupted weather patterns across southern states. Taking into account these meteorological events, Noe rethinks conventional explanations of battlefield victories and losses, compelling historians to reconsider long-held conclusions about the war. Unlike past studies that fault inflation, taxation, and logistical problems for the Confederate defeat, his work considers how soldiers and civilians dealt with floods and droughts that beset areas of the South in 1862, 1863, and 1864. In doing so, he addresses the foundational causes that forced Richmond to make difficult and sometimes disastrous decisions when prioritizing the feeding of the home front or the front lines. The Howling Storm stands as the first comprehensive examination of weather and climate during the Civil War. Its approach, coverage, and conclusions are certain to reshape the field of Civil War studies.
American Battlefield Trust Launches Campaign to Save 343 Acres of 5 Western Theater Battlefields
This is a great opportunity to save hallowed ground in the Wester theater where Kentucky soldiers both Union and Confederate fought. As a Double Bonus! Your gift will be matched $18-to-$1 and you can receive a copy of Battle Maps of the Civil War: The Western Theater.
The Opportunity
The transaction value for these hallowed acres is a staggering $2.5 million. With government grants, donors, and other partners in multiple states who will hopefully provide more than $2.3 million to this effort. We need to raise the final $140,732 to seal the deal and acquire these multiple key tracts. Your gift will be multiplied by an impressive ratio of $18-to-$1!
These are five battlefields in four states without which the full story of the Civil War cannot be told. And we cannot allow them to be destroyed or developed!
FIVE BATTLEFIELDS IN FOUR STATES 343 ACRES
• Bentonville Battlefield
• Brice's Cross Roads Battlefield
• Chickamauga Battlefield
• Shiloh Battlefield
• Wyse Fork Battlefield
DONATION MATCH $18-to-$1
The History
It’s impossible to tell the full story of the Civil War without knowing the importance of the Western Theater — including battlefields like Chickamauga, Bentonville, and Shiloh. From 1862 to 1865, these were places where some of the fiercest fighting raged and thousands of soldiers lost their lives. And where some of the final battles of the Civil War were fought, including the very last Confederate victories.
As Civil War historian Steven A. Woodworth has noted: “The Virginia front was by far the more prestigious theater ... Yet the war’s outcome was decided not there but in the vast expanse that stretched west from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi and beyond. Here, in the West, the truly decisive battles were fought.”
While the properties we are trying to preserve span four different years and four states, they are all connected by the ebb and flow of the War. And, by connecting the dots between these battles, each plays a crucial part in the story of the Civil War.
We are facing critical deadlines...
Please make your gift of $54 or more in the next month and you will receive your personal copy of Battle Maps of the Civil War: The Western Theater.
It’s a dazzling collection of the Trust’s full-color battle maps, with scholarly commentary on troop movements provided by our team of historians — an invaluable resource for students of history like you!
Now, we must fight on multiple fronts to hold and preserve crucial battlefield tracts spanning 343 acres at Chickamauga, Brice’s Cross Roads, Wyse Fork, Bentonville, and Shiloh.
Donate Now by clicking on this link to the American Battlefield Trust Website. You can also mail your check to the American Battlefield Trust, P.O. Box 1751, Merrifield VA 22166.
“It can take years of work, and sometimes years of waiting, for key tracts to come onto the market. When they do, we often find ourselves competing with developers. If we can’t come up with the funds at these critical moments, we risk losing out. And that often means that part of our nation’s hallowed ground is lost forever.” David N. Duncan, President
To learn more about this opportunity and to make a donation, you can logon to Battlefields.org/save343.
The Emerging Civil War
Our March speaker, Chris Mackowski, is the managing editor of the Emerging Civil War Series which serves as a public history-oriented platform for sharing original scholarship related to the American Civil War.
The primary audience is the general public, so scholarship is defined broadly: historical research, memory studies, travelogues, personal narratives, essays, book reviews, and photography. Journalistic-style coverage of current Civil War-related events and the Civil War in pop culture are also included. Furthermore, ECW encourages respectful discussion about that material. ECW does not publish fiction or poetry.
Our Mission
ECW seeks to encourage a diversity of perspectives in the scholarship it presents. We do that, in part, by identifying and spotlighting the next generation of Civil War historians and the fresh ideas they bring to the historical conversation.
As a collective, the individuals who comprise ECW are encouraged to share their own unique interests and approaches. The combined collection of material—and the respectful discussions that surround it—forward ECW’s overall effort to promote a general awareness of the Civil War as America’s defining event. This is a link to their website emergingcivilwar.com. You can subscribe and receive daily emails that will contain a variety of articles by historians that will be of interest to you.
MARCH 2023 QUIZ
1. Just weeks after President Lincoln’s assassination, Mrs. Mary Lincoln received a personal letter of condolences from a world leader. Who was this letter from?
On April 29, 1865, Mary Lincoln received the condolence letter from Queen Victoria offering her sympathy from one widow to another.
2. How old was General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865?
He was 42; just shy of his 43rd birthday on April 27.
3. What was the Confederacy’s first invasion of the North?
It was the Maryland Campaign from September 4-20, 1862, which included the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg), Maryland on September 17, 1862.
4. On what date did Richmond, Virginia fall to Union troops?
That happened on April 3, 2865.
5. The 8th Wisconsin Regiment had a unique mascot. What was it?
The mascot was Old Abe, an eagle.
APRIL 2023 QUIZ
1. What were the chances of surviving a wound in the Civil War?
2. What was the name of the creek that ran through the Confederate Andersonville prison?
3. What gift of sympathy did Pope Pious IX send to Jefferson Davis?
4. Who were General William T. Sherman’s “bummers”?
5. Who commanded General Sherman’s XIV Corps in the March to the Sea Campaign?