Recruitment for the Gray

March 18, 1861

Today Robert E. Lee told me what to look for in a soldier. We had an hour long discussion about what to look for in a soldier. E told me we need some one that is strong, fast, and smart. We need people that are strong so that he can carry around the guns and other supplies. We some that is fast so he can get from one place to another with out being spotted. We need some smart so he will know what to do if there is something important happens.

March 19, 1861

Today I start the recruitment. Robert E. Lee left me in charge of the recruitment. He also reminded me about what to look for in a soldier. He told me in a letter he left for me.

March 20, 1861

I have drafted seven people today. They are exactly what Robert E. Lee is looking for. They are training as well as me. I am still training even though I am a much higher rank than them.

Sincerely, Danny C.

Captured by War

July 16, 1863

I am an inspector for the Confederate War camps, where they keep the Union prisoners.  Right now I am traveling to Andersonville Prison camp in southwestern Georgia.  When we arrived, we saw about 45,000 Union prisoners that would never see the outside world again.  The prison camp was heavily guarded by confederate troops.  I walked in to start inspecting how they were doing.  They were in very poor condition.  But who cares, I mean they want to get rid of slavery!  If they do that, the plantation owners would have nobody to work the farm.  They got what they deserved!  So then I went up to the head tower to go see Henry Wirz, the head officer of the prison camp.  When I got up there, he was sitting in his chair doing some work.  I told him,” Sir I must inspect the prisoners now.”  So he walked me down to the place where they keep the union prisoners.  They were in very poor condition.  There were guys just sitting up against the wall miserably.  He brought me to this one man and I looked at his arms and legs.  They were in pretty good shape but not very muscular.  Then I looked at his stomach and body and he had bullet wounds and was extremely skinny.  So on a scale from one to ten, ten being healthy and everything being good.  Overall I would give him a five because he was in pretty poor shape.  Captain Wirz took me to another group of people sitting up against the wall suffering of heat since it was ninety-eight degrees outside and they were out there all day.  So that was a sign that they weren’t given any shelter.  When we started to look at them, they had several teeth missing, and some were even missing arms and legs.  I checked out this one guy and he only had a couple of teeth, one leg, and one of his arms was as skinny as a twig and was shorter than the other one.  Also he was so skinny you could see his bones and ribs.  He only weighed about eighty pounds.  And all the rest of them looked bad too.  “So”, I told him,” you need to feed them more and provide them with shelter and clothing.”  He said he would provide them with basic supplies, but I bet he wasn’t.  Then I got back on my horse and got ready to go to another prison camp.  I did not like what I saw at Andersonville, but they got what they deserved.

Alex F.

Gettysburg Gone Wild

July 1- July 3, 1863

I, Marissa P., think the Battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. It took place at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle went on for three long and depressing days, July 1 –July 3, 1863. Robert E. Lee was the Confederate general. He commanded about 75,000 troops. The South wasn’t looking for a fight when they entered Gettysburg. We went into Gettysburg looking for shoes. On day one of the battle we followed the Union troops across a stream. We encountered what looked like hundreds of thousands of Union troops. We pushed the Union into Gettysburg. At the end of the first day we got reinforcements. Day two wasn’t much better than day one. As it turns out we wanted to take control of Little Top and Round Top, but we failed to secure those areas, so the North had control of them. The North wanted to hold that ground and we wanted it. At the end of the second day the Union retreated. The North thought they knew where we would strike next. Robert E. Lee has always been an aggressive man and the South like it, but on day three we didn’t. We did exactly what they had expected us to do. Robert E. Lee gave the order to charge at the center of the Union up steep hills. We didn’t know that the North got reinforcements overnight. All of the soldiers hearts were racing. We had fear on our faces. We began to run as fast as we could.  We all were already tired, but halfway up the hill we were exhausted.  Most died just because they stopped in the middle of the hill. We tripped over dead bodies as we ran. I am glad I wasn’t killed.  The only survivors of the charge hurried back to the Confederate line. Robert E. Lee was disappointed in himself that he had given the order. The charge is now called the Pickett’s Charge because George Pickett was one of the Confederate generals. There were 28,063 Confederate casualties. 18,735 of our troops were injured. 3,903 Southern soldiers died during the battle. 5,425 Southern troops went missing sometime during the battle. I think Gettysburg will always be the bloodiest battle in American History.        

                                                            By,

                                                                                                 Marissa P.               

Fallen Richmond

Dear diary,                                                                                                              1865

                                    My name is Julie, I am 25 years old.  I live in the Confederate States of America.  Right now we are in the middle of a war.  My state, Florida, seceded after Abe Lincoln became president.  Yesterday I was reading a newspaper and it said that Jefferson Davis was thinking about moving the capital, which is in Richmond, VA.  I thought that would be a good idea since the capital of the Union is so close.  One of the main focuses of the war is defeating or taking over the enemy’s capital.  Today I bought another newspaper.  It said that Davis did finally decide to move the capital.  I thought “Wait but what about all the supplies?  What will they do with it?”  So I kept reading on. Soon I figured out that they would be setting the supplies on fire! Right away I was mad. I could use those supplies for my family. I knew my family would be mad, too. Not just my family either. Everybody was going to be mad, angry, upset,, and surprised. On March 25^th, 1865 General Robert E. Lee tried to attack General Grants forces near Petersburg, but was terribly defeated. On April 2, 1865, Robert E. Lee evacuated Richmond, the Confederate Capital, and headed west to join the other forces. The next thing I knew it was already time to start the fire. A bunch of people were heading west to get out of the way of the fire. The fire went out of control. It was raging along the waterfront but fortunately stopped just before Thomas Jefferson’s capital. The fire was burning down building and bridges. My family doesn’t have money to move so we are just praying to God that we will be safe. I had to go to bed knowing the fire might come and destroy our house in the middle of the night. I just hoped for the best. I woke up the next morning so I guess nothing bad really happened to me, but I know there was deep devastation that day. I hope something like this will never happen again!

                                                                                                Julie N.                                                                                                                                    

                                                                                                                                                                             

                                                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                             

Uniforms of Honor

August 15, 1864

            All of the nurses had to look like conservative, non-flashy women.  Nurses had to wear practical clothing to be able to work out in the battlefield for days.  If I wanted to be eligible to be a nurse, I had to wear a brown or black dress with no jewelry.  Most of my friends learned how to pattern their dresses so that some stains wouldn’t show.  If I got a blood stain on my dress, I was likely not to get it out!  If the person’s blood that got on his shirt and my dress tested positive for a sickness, I could get really sick if I wasn’t really careful.  If I were a nurse for the Union, I was given a traditional jacket and a skirt like I was going somewhere fancy.  Since I am a nurse for the Confederate Army, I have to wear my plain boring uniform.  I was very upset about that because I had to make my own uniform and it was very boring to me. And the Union nurses were given theirs to wear and they looked really nice. 

            Today, I was making a new dress for myself because my old one ripped while I was helping a soldier, Sam Smith, with his injuries.  He was in a lot of pain and grabbed my dress to help relieve some of the pain.  I didn’t mind that my dress ripped, I was glad to be able to help him.  While I was bandaging Sam’s leg in the battlefield, I saw Clara Barton helping another wounded soldier in the battlefield.   I really felt honored to be working in her company and proud that I could help the wounded soldiers like she was. 

                                                                                    Sincerely,

                                                                                    Allyssa D.

Civil War Photographer

            My job as a photographer is good and bad. You have to get up at whatever time that gets you up in time to get to wherever your going and you have to be there early in the morning and you have to stay until late at night but you also get to go to exciting places. So one time I went to one of the war grounds and when I got there I was astonished. The reason I was astonished was because I saw a lot of dead bodies and that scared me. So at 5:00am my partner Rick and I walked to the field next to it and when we got there it was about 6:00am. When Rick checked his watch and he said”Holy cow its already 6:00" and I said “So why is that so surprising to you? Oh, I didn’t know it was just 5:00 an hour ago! Oh I see now. Hey Rick look at one of my pictures that I took! Isn’t that a cool picture?” Rick said “Yeah, so where did you get that?” I said “I got it at field one.” Rick said ”So I take it that it’s the first field.” I said “ Yes it is.“ Rick asked “So why didn’t you show me when you took it?” I said  “Because I forgot that I took it.“ Rick asked “Well then how did you find it?” I said “I was looking through my pictures and that’s how I found it.” Rick said “Oh okay. So do you have any other cool pictures?” I said “I don’t know.” Rick said “Well don’t just stand there. Start looking!” I said “Okay! Gosh don’t be impatient!”  Then Rick said “So, have you found anything yet?” I said “No, not yet.” Rick asked “How many pictures did you take?” I said “I think I took 500 pictures!” Rick said “Wow! That’s a lot! Hey Lucas, guess what time it is.” I said “I don’t know. What time is it?” He answered “Its 7:00pm.” I said “Wow! So I take it that we’ve been here for 13 hours. So I guess we should get going.” Rick asked “Why?” I said “Why? Are you so crazy?” Rick said “No, I’m not.” I said “Yes you must be, because it is 7:00 and we live 4 hours away from our homes! We’re stuck all the way out here and if we don’t get going it will be past 11:00 when we get home. When did you want to leave?”  Rick said “I was thinking about leaving at 8:00.” I said “Dude that means that we’ll get home at mid-night and we have to wake up and go to work at 1:00!” Rick said “So, I’m leaving later. I found a really cool necklace that I’d like to photograph.” I said “Okay, well bye.” Rick said “Okay, see you tomorrow!” So I went home and got an hours sleep. Its now 1:00 in the morning and I’m really tired and hungry and there’s no time to even get something to eat before going back to the fields.

Once I got to the field I saw Rick right away. “Hey Rick! We need to go to Field Seven today, but I’m going to go Field Six first because I think that I forgot to check the upper part.” Rick said “ Okay, whatever. Works for me.”

When I got to Field Six I saw a dead body with his insides out. “ Yucky! I think that I’m going to be sick.” So I guess I wont be taking any pictures of that! Its sad that I have to take these pictures and I think that it is really sad that I have to send these pictures to the families and the loved ones. Some days I wish that I had another job.

  

Journal of an American Soldier During the Civil War

                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Dear Journal,                                                                                                           July 18^th, 1863

                  What most people misunderstand is that we do enjoy having extra time to do things other than fight. Sometimes we only have 30 minutes; sometimes we have weeks in between battles. Some of the men drink a lot, some smoked and chewed tobacco when we have it.  Artsy men sculpt boxes, figurines, and pictures. Almost all of us keep a diary or journal, and write lots of letters. Not a lot of people read, but if they can they mostly read the Bible. We do gamble a lot. We once invited Robert. E. Lee and Ulysses S Grant (at different times of course) and both denied, sadly. I’ve had a couple Church services between the battles, too. I love listening to other soldiers’ stories. They always seem to excite me. Songs are pretty nice, too. I am very tired now. Good Night.

                                       

                                                                       Sincerely,

                                                                                Loved Soldier