Southern Illinois Farmer Goes to War: Sgt. William S. Bolerjack and the 29th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, July 1861 - January 1863.

This thesis examines Sgt. William S. Bolerjack's Civil War expectation and experiences in the 29th Illinois Volunteer Infantry regiment during the period 1861-1862. William's diary entries and collected letters represent the only documented firsthand accounts of the 29th Illinois's wartime activities and actions penned by a common soldier in that regiment. In this study, therefore, the Bolerjack manuscripts have been supplemented and substantiated by other Illinois soldiers' journals and letters collections, postwar memoirs, and unit histories, as well as by United States and Confederate States government documents and related secondary texts, journals articles, theses, and dissertations. Sergeant Bolerjack's wartime journals and collected letters both confirm and complement historians' understanding of the experiences of ordinary enlisted men in the Civil War. William's narratives not only illuminate the enlistment inspirations of southern Illinoisans, they also provide a chronologically and geographically accurate description of Union movements in the western theater during the first year of the conflict. The Bolerjack manuscripts are among very few primary accounts of the 29th Illinois's wartime actions and encounters, and provide a rare firsthand description of Van Dorn's raid on Holly Springs from a captured federal's perspective. William's manuscripts also provide a uniquely personal examination of the Dix-Hill prisoner exchange system of 1862, as well as the conditions and circumstances in which Union parolees were detained at Benton Barracks. In these and many other respects, Sergeant William S. Bolerjack's diaries and letters collection lend new perspectives and suggest new interpretations regarding the expectations and experiences of Illinois soldiers in the Union Army of the Tennessee during the years 1861-1862.Department of Histor

THE RHETORIC OF DESTRUCTION: RACIAL IDENTITY AND NONCOMBATANT IMMUNITY IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA

This study explores how Americans chose to conduct war in the mid-nineteenth century and the relationship between race and the onset of “total war” policies. It is my argument that enlisted soldiers in the Civil War era selectively waged total war using race and cultural standards as determining factors. A comparative analysis of the treatment of noncombatants throughout the United States between 1861 and 1865 demonstrates that nonwhites invariably suffered greater depredations at the hands of military forces than did whites. Five types of encounters are examined: 1) the treatment of white noncombatants by regular Union and Confederate forces; 2) the fate of noncombatants caught up in the guerrilla wars of the border regions; 3) the relationship between native New Mexicans, Anglo Union troops and Confederate Texans; 4) the relationship between African American noncombatants and Union and Confederate forces; and 5) the conflict between various Indian tribes and Union and Confederate forces apart from the Civil War. By moving away from a narrow focus of white involvement in a single conflict and instead speaking of a “Civil War era,” new comparisons can be drawn that illuminate the multi-faceted nature of American warfare in the mid-nineteenth century. Such a comparison, advances the notion that there has been not one “American way of war,” but two – the first waged against whites, and the second against all others. A thorough study of the language soldiers employed to stereotype explains how the process of dehumanization functioned and why similar groups of men behaved with restraint in one instance and committed atrocity in another. Though the fates of Hispanic, black, and Indian noncombatants have generally been obscured by the “greater” aspects of the Civil War, they are integral to understanding both the capacity of mid-nineteenth century Americans to inflict destruction and the importance of race in shaping military responses. Ultimately, the racialist assumptions of white soldiers served to prevent atrocities against white noncombatants, while the desire to maintain white privilege virtually guaranteed the implementation of harsh tactics against nonwhites

Brass Bands & Cornet Bands of the U.S.A. - a historical directory

Of the many brass bands that have existed in the USA over the last 200 years very few have documented records covering their history. This directory is an attempt to bring together information about some such bands and make it available to all. It is an expanded extraction from my earlier "Brass Bands of the World". Over 8,700 bands are recorded here, with some 560 additional cross references for alternative or previous names. Sadly, for the majority of bands, little is known other than their name and a brief mention in the historical records. This is an unknown, and probably very small, proportion of the cornet/town bands that actually flourished in the USA, particularly in the 19th century. I am sure there are many more still to be unearthed, hiding in newspaper reports or contemporary photographs and documents in museums, archives, the hands of private collectors and the attics of individuals. My own research on a broad scale encompasses US brass bands from the 1840's to the 1920's. More detailed research is ongoing, but I have only reached 1872 so far - and I intend to issue an update when I have proceeded further into the late 1800's! I must pass on my thanks to the historians, researchers and enthusiasts who have helped me with information about bands from their area or in their field of expertise

Engineering Victory: The Ingenuity, Proficiency, and Versatility of Union Citizen Soldiers in Determining the Outcome of the Civil War

My dissertation explores the critical advantage the Union held over the Confederacy in military engineering. The skills Union soldiers displayed during the war at bridge building, railroad repair, and road making demonstrated mechanical ability and often revealed ingenuity and imagination. These skills were developed during the antebellum period when northerners invested in educational systems that served an industrializing economy. Before the war, northern states’ attempt at implementing basic educational reforms, the spread of informal educational practices directed at mechanics and artisans, and the exponential growth in manufacturing all generated a different work related ethos than that of the South. Plantation slavery generated fabulous wealth for a tiny percent of the southern white population. It fostered a particular style of agriculture and scientific farming that limited land use. It curtailed manufacturing opportunities, and it stifled educational opportunities for the middle and lower classes because those in political power feared that an educated yeomanry would be filled with radical ideas such as social equality, and, worst of all, abolition These differences in the North and South produced unique skill sets in both armies, and consequently, resulted in more successful and resourceful Union engineering operations during the war. Between 1861 and 1865 the North engineered victory

Bulletin 257 - Coles County in the Civil War 1861-1865

Each of the 102 counties in Illinois made its own contribution to the enviable war record of the state. Coles County ranked near the top of the 102 names. Her population in 1860 was 14,174. Her total troop quota for the entire war was 2,728, and she furnished 2,741 in all, or 13 men in excess of the quota. In the final analysis, not more than 3 counties furnished more troops in proportion to the population than did Coles. Volunteering in Coles did not lag until the latter part of the war. On July 1, 1864, Coles led all other counties in total number of men furnished in excess of the quota. At that time, Coles was 843 men in excess. This indicates that Coles had supplied almost all the available manpower in the county by that time, for if the total of that date (2,636) is subtracted from the total furnished in the entire war (2,741) it can be seen that only 105 men were supplied after July 1, 1864.https://thekeep.eiu.edu/eiu_bulletin/1236/thumbnail.jp

Bulletin 257 - Coles County in the Civil War 1861-1865

Each of the 102 counties in Illinois made its own contribution to the enviable war record of the state. Coles County ranked near the top of the 102 names. Her population in 1860 was 14,174. Her total troop quota for the entire war was 2,728, and she furnished 2,741 in all, or 13 men in excess of the quota. In the final analysis, not more than 3 counties furnished more troops in proportion to the population than did Coles. Volunteering in Coles did not lag until the latter part of the war. On July 1, 1864, Coles led all other counties in total number of men furnished in excess of the quota. At that time, Coles was 843 men in excess. This indicates that Coles had supplied almost all the available manpower in the county by that time, for if the total of that date (2,636) is subtracted from the total furnished in the entire war (2,741) it can be seen that only 105 men were supplied after July 1, 1864.https://thekeep.eiu.edu/eiu_bulletin/1236/thumbnail.jp

Bulletin 234 - Coles County in the Civil War 1861-1865

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/eiu_bulletin/1074/thumbnail.jp

Bulletin 234 - Coles County in the Civil War 1861-1865

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/eiu_bulletin/1074/thumbnail.jp

Disunion in the Ranks: Soldiers, Citizenship, and Mutiny in the Union Army

This dissertation is the first scholarly study to comparatively analyze the mutinies of Anglo, immigrant and African American soldiers in the Union Army. Those collective and individual military protest actions were part of the war’s capacity, in the words of historian David Blight, to “unleash, reinforce, and reshape nineteenth century values and attitudes.” I contend that mutinies reveal Civil War volunteers who possessed a conception of soldier rights derived from membership in free associations and the citizenry’s long history of local control. While republicanism and the market contributed a language and ethos, it was native-born Anglo soldiers’ real practice of self-government in peacetime that led them to demand its continuation in the interstices of military law during wartime. At the same time, though hardly acknowledged by Anglos, northern free blacks took part in the associational and print culture of their day and conceived of themselves as active citizens. Their military protest actions continued their practice of self-government even as it risked being labeled as disloyalty. European immigrants who volunteered to prove their allegiance to the republic could resort to mutiny if they detected a violation of their soldier rights. Yet, these moments actually served to prove the very fitness for citizenship originally questioned by nativist opponents before the war. Most surprisingly, the mutinies by emancipated Southern blacks drew on their culture of confrontation and resistance during bondage to assert their new rights under the rule of law as soldiers of the United States. When they protested unequal treatment while in uniform they took their first steps in using the war to achieve political and civil equality in American society. My project analyzes the proceedings of general courts martial as well as relevant manuscript collections, regimental histories, and newspapers to construct a web of popular constitutional citizen action both at home and in the military against perceived violations of Americans’ right to rule themselves in association with one another. Regardless of ethnic origin, citizen-soldiers’ mutinies are a window on their campgrounds and drill fields as another theater of the war where they debated its grand questions of loyalty, self-government, Union, and freedom

A History of Blacks in Kentucky: From Slavery to Segregation, 1760-1891

A History of Blacks in Kentucky traces the role of blacks from the early exploration and settlement of Kentucky to 1891, when African Americans gained freedom only to be faced with a segregated society. Making extensive use of numerous primary sources such as slave diaries, Freedmen’s Bureau records, church minutes, and collections of personal papers, the book tells the stories of individuals, their triumphs and tragedies, and their accomplishments in the face of adversity. Marion B. Lucas, professor of history at Western Kentucky University, is the author of Sherman and the Burning of Columbia. A panoramic view of the black experience in Kentucky. The result is a fine piece of scholarship that will entertain and edify scholars and general readers alike. —Register of the Kentucky Historical Society Paints a vivid picture of the tragedy and triumphs of slaves and free blacks under the peculiar institution. —Filson Club History Quarterly A major contribution to the people of the state. —John B. Boles, Rice Universityhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_african_american_studies/1026/thumbnail.jp