25 Lesser-Known Facts About the Civil War

1.

After the Civil War, the pumpkin pie was resisted in southern states as a symbol of Yankee culture imposed on the south, where there was no tradition of eating pumpkin pie.

2.

Prior to the American Civil War, King Rama IV of Siam offered to send war elephants to the Union for their own military and logistical use. Lincoln declined, stating that the American climate would not support the domestication of elephants and that the steam engine would suffice

3.

German-born soldiers made up about 10% of Union forces during the Civil War. Some of them were exiled supporters of the 1848 revolutions that swept Europe. After the war, the Forty-Eighters supported improved labor laws, and also advanced development in education, medicine, and journalism.

4.

The Battle of Honey Springs is the only battle of the American Civil War where whites soldiers were the minority on both sides, with the Union forces being mostly colored troops and the Confederate force being mostly Native American.

5.

The Crittenden Compromise was a proposal to enshrine slavery to the U. S. Constitution and make it unconstitutional for future congresses to end slavery. Opposed by Abraham Lincoln and rejected by the House and Senate, it failed to avert the Civil War.

6.

Tabasco sauce was born from the remnants of a Confederacy salt works shortly after the American Civil War. Avery Island was the site of one of many salt works hastily put together after the Union blockade and was a military target.

7.

During Civil War, the North blockaded salt imports and destroyed salt mines in the South to sabotage food preservation. The food shortages resulted in general unrest and contributed to surrender.

8.

In 1848 Irish Nationalist Thomas Meagher was sentenced to be “hanged, drawn and quartered”. Instead, he was exiled to Tasmania. He escaped, became a Civil War Brigadier General and the Governor of Montana Territory. While Governor, he fell into the Missouri River and his body was never found.

9.

John C. Frémont, the first Republican presidential candidate (1856), and Abraham Lincoln, the second (1860) did not appear on ballots in most states that would form the Confederacy in 1861.

10.

During the American Civil War a Confederate ship harbored in Australia for repairs - 18 Confederates deserted to Australia and 42 Australians joined as stowaways, effectively becoming Confederates until the end of Civil War

11.

After the Civil War, there was a push to move the US Capital to St Louis, including disassembling and moving all government buildings.

12.

Frances Clayton (nee’ Clalin) disguised herself as a man to fight Union side in the Civil War in April 1862. She went by the name Jack Williams. Her husband died fighting next to her in December 1862

13.

The first person to be awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor was the younger brother of General Custer who died alongside his more famous older brother. He was awarded the medals for heroic actions during the Civil War in less than a week.

14.

The last US Civil War Widow died in 2020. The practice of a young woman marrying an older man for his Civil War pension as a dependent was common practice in the early 20th century

15.

Ben-Hur, the book whose movie adaptation won a record 11 Oscars, was written by a Civil War general, Lew Wallace. He also ordered the arrest of Billy the Kid.

16.

The final Confederate surrender of the US Civil War took place on the River Mersey, in Liverpool, England, when a Confederate warship (CSS Shenandoah) learned of the North’s victory while abroad.

17.

Harriet Tubman escaped slavery in the southern states, then returned again and again to rescue 70 more enslaved people. Then later, after the Fugitive Slave Act was passed, she helped guide fugitives farther north into Canada. During the American Civil War, she helped the Union Army.

18.

A single lucky shot from a Confederate battery to the USS Mound City’s steam chest, and several sailors being shot as they jumped overboard, accounted for 7% of the Union Navy’s deaths for the entire American Civil War.

19.

Memorial Day in the U.S. was started to honor Civil War dead. It was originally called Decoration Day, and its purpose was to set aside a day to put decorations on the graves of fallen soldiers. The date was chosen because it was not the date of any particular battle.

20.

It was possible to buy your way out of the Civil War draft, on both the Union and Confederate sides, if you had enough money to pay someone else to sign up in your place.

21.

Richard Rowland Kirkland was a Confederate soldier who risked his life to tend to wounded soldiers from both sides of the Civil War in the middle of the Battle at Fredericksburg. Both sides held their fire as they watched him help every wounded soldier regardless of allegiance.

22.

Civil War General John Sedgwick was killed when he stood up behind Union fortifications and proclaimed “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance!!” and was promptly shot by a Confederate sniper

23.

The only woman to ever receive the Medal of Honor was surgeon, suffragist, and Prisoner-of-War Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, who served during the American Civil War. She routinely crossed battle lines to treat wounded civilians and was arrested as a spy by Confederates during one such occasion

24.

During the American Civil War, several divisions of the confederate army had a large snowball fight. It started when a couple of hundred men from Texas plotted a friendly fight with men from Arkansas, which spiraled into a brawl involving 9,000 soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia.

25.

During the Civil War, an entire regiment of 864 men was accidentally awarded the Medal of Honor as a result of a typographical error