Julia Ward Howe, the daughter of a well to do New York banker and the mother of six children, is credited with penning the immensely popular and stirring rendition of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.     Julia was married to Samuel G. Howe and together they published an abolitionist journal called Commonwealth.      
She was an advocate for women's rights, for abolition and wrote several articles and books.  The story goes that in 1861, she visited the Army of the Potomac while camped in Massachusetts.  Troops marched past her singing the John Brown song.  Back in her hotel room, she wrote down the words to the battle hymn using the tune from John Brown, saying that these were more fitting.  The words were first printed in February of 1862 in an issue of Atlantic Monthly.  It gained popularity and soon became the most enduring song of the Civil War and can still stir the soul today.

yelling at Jeopardy

We watch Jeopardy almost every weeknight, playing against one another and testing our knowledge.  The History categories are usually flipped to my daughter Stephanie or myself.  The other night I entertained the crew by yelling at Alex Trebek.  One of the questions was roughly asking where the Confederate Army marched looking for shoes.  The answer given was Gettysburg.  Now there are several reasons why Lee marched his Army of Virginia all the way to Pennsylvania but rest assured, not one of them involved shoes.  Yes they needed supplies, as all armies crossing the country on foot needed.  Robert E. Lee made to marches into northern states to attempt to relieve the suffering of the people of Virginia where the bulk of battles had been fought.  He wanted a victory on Union soil to push the northern people to seek a peace with  the south and to rally the people of the south.  He planned to strike at Harrisburg, to destroy bridges and communication and to force the Union army to attack him, giving him the defensive position.
When Lee finds out their are five Union Corps moving towards him under the direction of the new commander of Union forces, General George Meade, he consolidates his forces around Cashtown PA.  He is unfamiliar with the terrain, his cavalry is suspiciously absent and as such decides to stand and fight.  This is the setup for the Battle of Gettysburg

Gettysburg

July 1, 2 and 3 of 2013 is the 150th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg.  I've been there a couple of times and took the kids along, but they were small.  We are taking another trip there the end of July.  I have two great-great uncles who fought for the 140th regiment of Pennsylvania volunteers, company F.  John Sunderland Bell was 21 and his brother George was all of 18 yrs old.  John was killed today, July 2nd, 150 years ago.  George was captured and spent a year in the horrible Confederate prison called Andersonville.  Their names are supposed to be inscribed on the Pennsylvania monument on the battlefield.  I am looking forward to sharing this experience about the Civil War with my children when they are now old enough to remember the trip.

I have been doing some background research on some influential women in Cleveland for the Woodland Cemetery Association.  Very interesting work.  Many of these women were wealthy and had homes on the famous Millionaires Row on Euclid Avenue.  Many were of New England backgrounds and puritan ethics.   they put their efforts, influence and money toward social improvements.  They built schools for women, they campaigned against alcohol, child labor and for women's suffrage.  They created orphanges for those whose parents were taken from them in cholera epidemics.  they left their carriages and drivers and walked the poor neighborhoods offering food and bible readings.  They convinced their husbands and his business partners to donated land and money to build structures like the Salvation Army hospital,  The Western Reserve school for Women, Friendly Inns settlement house; institutions which still serve the citizens of Cleveland to this day.  They were positive forces for change.  Bravo ladies.

As a history lover I often think about what it would be like to have lived in one of these eras.  How different my life would have been.  In the 1850's and 1860's just the amount of clothing would seriously have made me nuts.  chemise and bloomers, stockings and petticoats under a dress made of yards of material and possible a corset and hoop.  Just think of the way we cook and clean and travel and then think of how things were done in the 1800's.  So maybe I don't have so much to complain about after all.  Part of the fun for me of studying people's history is this...and trying to picture myself there, would I have been able to weather the war with as much grace and determination that many of the did ? So here is a picture of a lovely lady of the Civil War time, dressed in her hoop dress for a photo, maybe to send to her soldier ?

Many women during the Civil War worked on the battlefields and in hospitals to nurse wounded soldiers. Condidtions were crude at best.  Our idea of cleanliness, wound care and hospital conditions are a far cry from what medicine was in the 1860's.  But determined women forged their way into the military hospitals and brought with them orderliness and cleanliness.  Women like Mary Ann Bickerdyke "mother Bickerdyke" who when the war began took supplies collected by the town of Galesburg to the wounded.  She stayed after seeing what horrible conditions the men were trying to recuperate in.  She organized laundries ,kitchens and went wherever she was needed.  She was well respected by the troops and accompanied Sherman on his Atlanta campaign as his sanitation officer.
Clara Barton, a native of Massachusetts volunteered to treat casualties on the battlefield and frequently was working during the battle itself.  She soon created a network of volunteers who ministered to the wounded.  By the end of the war she was superentendant of nurses to the Army of the Cumberland.  She helped compile listes of missing troops and helped identify the unknown dead and after the was was responsible for organizing the American Red Cross.

I started this as a journal of sorts but now i feel like using this as an outlet for my interest in american history. Oneof the time periods I find so intrigueing is the Civil War, especially the changes for the women on both sides. Maybe like the woman in the photo here, many women were what was called "vivandieres".  A rather unusual aspect of the war, they were camp followers who were actually on the rolls of the regiments.  They were usually a wife or daughter of a member of the regiment and served as nurse, mascot and surrogate mother but with ultimate respectability.  Many served right on the front lines.  They served in the early years of the war in regiments with a heavy foreign population and were modeled after the French army practice, hence the french name.