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The order was obeyed and the first two shots directed at the Confederate gathering were misses, but near enough to start a rush to safety by all save Polk. Refusing to allow his dignity to be stampeded, Polk clasped his hands together behind his back, and slowly strolled after the others. The thrid shot fired pierced him through his left arm, left rib cage and exited out the right rib cage and through his right arm. He was killed instantly. Shelby Foote described it as a "cannon sniping."
I believe the gun that killed Polk was personally layed by Hubert "leatherbreeches" Dilger, one of the finest gunners of the war.
Given Polk's laziness, insubordination and penchant for foolish decisions it probably would've been better for the Federal cause had Dilger missed.
The Battle of Monitor and Merrimack (Battle of Hampton Roads)—a skirmish involving two inronclad ships and a handful of supporting vessels—was one of the most influential naval battles of the nineteenth century. After accounts of the battle between the new ironclad warships reached Europe, preeminent naval powers Great Britain and France both halted further construction of wooden-hulled ships. Virtually all new naval warship construction from that time on incorporated features of the U.S. ironclad warships.
The Monitor and Merrimack are both named by their Union names. The Confederate ship was rechristened the CSS Virginia. Similiarly, there were battles referred to differently by Union and Confederate troops. Bull Run vs. Manasass. (I'm pretty sure that's the proper spelling--spell check doesn't like any of them.)
Also, General Lee placed first in his graduating class at West Point, but was defeated by a general who finished much lower, if not dead last.
The French and British had already built ironclad warships a couple of years before the American Civil War, indeed HMS Warrior was the first warship with an iron hull, the earlier French LaGloire being iron armor over a wood hull.
The Monitor and Merrimack are both named by their Union names. The Confederate ship was rechristened the CSS Virginia. Similiarly, there were battles referred to differently by Union and Confederate troops. Bull Run vs. Manasass. (I'm pretty sure that's the proper spelling--spell check doesn't like any of them.)
Also, General Lee placed first in his graduating class at West Point, but was defeated by a general who finished much lower, if not dead last.
Nearly every battle has different names from the two sides because the Union tended to name them after some local natural landmark, while the Confederates preferred something man-made.
That's how you got Bull Run/Mannassas (a railroad junction); Shiloh/Pittsburgh Landing; Stones River/Murfreesboro; Pea Ridge/Elkhorn Tavern, etc.
The history myth-buster, James Loewen, stubbed his toe on West Virginia. In "Lies Across America" he was complaining about the UDC putting up inappropriate Confederate memorials. He wrote "The Daughters are still at it; the only memory of Civil War soldiers at the Charles Town, West Virginia, courthouse is a pro-Confederate plaque the UDC affixed in 1986." The only problem though was that there was not a single company of Union soldiers from Jefferson County.
Here's an unusual fact about the Civil War: it was cotton that actually prevented the Confederacy from gaining international diplomatic recognition as a sovereign state (which would have elevated the conflict into something more like a world war, given the continual maneuverings between Great Britain and France)...
The British government actually leaned in favor of the Confederacy (Abraham Lincoln was not their favorite head of state!), and besides, CSA could make things very uncomfortable in London by playing the cotton card. Coincidentally, in 1862 Egypt produced a bumper crop of cotton and Britain found itself in a position where reliance on Southern cotton wasn't an issue.
And so Britain never extended formal diplomatic recognition to CSA, which would likely have caused France to enter the conflict on the American side and turn the civil war international. Napoleon III didn't especially love us, but he certainly hated Britain more. He had a problem with President Lincoln opposing France's colonial incursions in Mexico--which Lincoln couldn't do much about, since he had problems of his own!
John Wayles Jefferson, likely a grandson of President (and Virginian) Thomas Jefferson by his slave Sally Hemings (who was 3/4 white), served in the Union Army out of Wisconsin.
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