What would you have done...

[khbynum]

I'm going to take a chance on another hypothetical, if only to keep the subforum going. If you had been alive at the outbreak of the Civil War, in your own state, teens or early twenties (or any age), what would you have done?

I would have been in South Carolina, probably a son of a gentleman farmer with no, or a few slaves (I don't know my actual ancestry back that far). I would have aspired to teaching or perhaps medicine, would have felt pressured to join the rebellion and would probably have volunteered for a local company. Been killed at Sharpsburg.

[TheDoctorKing]

I would have been a poor "squatter" farmer in the Blue Ridge mountains of western Virginia. Like my ancestor Jesse Weakley, I would have served in the Union army, in a West Virginia regiment, not because I liked colored folks - heaven forbid! - but because those arrogant rich planters in Richmond (and in the county seat of Luray) were in favor of secession and anything they wanted, I didn't. The story in our family says that Jesse Weakley killed his half-brother, his mother's son with a wealthy farmer down the hollow, who commanded the local patrol and tried to arrest him as a deserter when he came home on leave in 1864. Truly a war of brothers in my family. I don't think the story is true but it makes a heck of a yarn

Jesse Weakley survived the war, came home to own a fairly prosperous farm, built the house I came home to after I was born, and served on the county school board when Page County got public schools in the 1880s some time. He's buried up the hill from our house on land that now belongs to the National Park Service (another story).

[GraniteStater]

I would have been born a slave in 1859 and died of yellow fever in the summer of 1861.

[Gray Fox]

My maternal ancesters were Republicans. They thought it was terribly wrong for African-Americans to be under the control of white Democrats who abused, mistreated and lied to them. Actually, we're still working on that one.

My paternal ancestors owned a few slaves. After the war, those slaves were adopted and given our family name. One great grand-uncle died fighting for the Confederacy and his share of the farm was given to his former slave.

I would have been a volunteer in the Union army from the eastern hills of Kentucky. I would have organized the first daylight balloon bombing of Richmond.

Death from a birthday party ornament!

[Mickey3D]

As a Swiss citizen I first thought I could not participate to this thread but I discovered the following document : It seems a lot of my fellow countrymen fought with the Union. But above all I hope I would not have become like Heinrich Wirz the commander of Andersonville prisonner camp .

Edit : When I write "thought I could note participate" I mean : thought that none of my compatriots were involved in the war.

[khbynum]

Thanks for your reply. I certainly did not mean to exclude citizens of other countries and should have made that plain in the initial post.

So, if you were a recent immigrant to the USA, how would you have dealt with the situation?

[anjou]

Depending on where I was born, either a copperhead or a rebel

[Mickey3D]

I certainly did not mean to exclude citizens of other countries and should have made that plain in the initial post.

Your initial post was clear and I didn't feel excluded, it's just that I did not realized some of the Swiss immigrants were, unfortunately, "famous" as Wirz.

[anjou]

Your initial post was clear and I didn't feel excluded, it's just that I did not realized some of the Swiss immigrants were, unfortunately, so "famous".

Wirz's execution was extremely tragic.

[Mickey3D]

Wirz's execution was extremely tragic.

Well, as commander of Andersonville, I'm not sure he deserved better...even if it is not clear if the starvation and disease among prisoners were only his fault. But I suppose this is the subject of another thread and I don't want to hijack this one.

[Gen.DixonS.Miles]

I would have been a middling sort of farmer making do in the forested hills of northeastern Pennsylvania. Feeling dutiful to my nation and family, who have been settled in our grand old north state since the arrival of William Penn, I would have thrown myself into the cause of the United States and would have applied for enlistment even before the firing on Fort Sumter. If not before, I would have gone with the initial call of 75,000.

[ArmChairGeneral]

I was a mean-spirited agronomist, amateur economist and speculative political-fiction writer from Virginia. Prior to the war I was a well known Fire-Eater and scientist. I was at Ft Sumter, where I fired the first shot of the war (although scurrilous liars would later dispute this). I was too old to fight in the war as a soldier, and committed suicide shortly after Appomattox rather than (re)submit to the rule of those hateful Yankees.

I wrote several papers and books supporting the economics of slavery. These compare poorly, however, to my most important work, An Essay on Calcerous Manures.

(Though I am using my distant ancestor's essay title here as an ironic criticism of his political views, it was actually an important agricultural work in its era, establishing a scientific basis for crop rotation and conclusively proving that manure fertilization increases crop production. Though they are proud of his Civil War notoriety and scientific contributions, family lore holds that Edmund was kind of a jerk.

As a side note, the family connection to the Confederacy is not why I prefer to play as the CSA, I justlike to play wargames from the losing side.)

[ArmChairGeneral]

Oops, now that I re-read, you wanted 20 years old. I probably would have gotten swept up in the Army of whichever place I had been born in. Twenty year olds tend to do that sort of thing, can't fight a war without them. Hopefully I survived.

[Aktivist]

Guess, I would've 'fights mit Sigel'. Or later with Howard. Point is, there is no doubt about who's the evil side and who's on the good side for the majority of my kin.

[tripax]

Hmm, I love strategy and leadership, numbers, statistics, and tables. Also, I like digging. So at age 20 in 1861, I'd have likely been a farm hand in the west with an eye towards a future in land speculation. I like mountains/hills and water, so would probably be living in upstate New York or near my parents (my ancestors who fought lived in Iowa and Illinois). After volunteering early in the war (I have to believe I would be an abolitionist), I would eventually find my way to commissary or quartermaster units - or possibly simply a shovel. I'm a bit ambitious so I might try to become an officer. My guess, then, is that I would join company K of the 1st New York Volunteer Engineer Regiment. I don't know much about Lower Seaboard theater (in game, as well), but it sure would have been scary.

[Ol' Choctaw]

You know, my family was in the south but didn’t take a whole lot of interest in the war. Some joined home guard units when bushwhackers showed up. One cousin joined the regulars. Fought through most of the war. Was wounded and crippled up, sent home. Never regained his health and was shot in bed when Union troops took over the area.

I think I would just become a speculator. Head for Mexico. Export cotton and import machinery from Boston or New York. Of course it was a rather crowded field.

[Calvin809]

As a Swiss citizen I first thought I could not participate to this thread but I discovered the following document : It seems a lot of my fellow countrymen fought with the Union. But above all I hope I would not have become like Heinrich Wirz the commander of Andersonville prisonner camp .

Edit : When I write "thought I could note participate" I mean : thought that none of my compatriots were involved in the war.

My wife's side of the family came from Switzerland and fought for the Union in the 1st MN Regiment.
http://www.1stminnesota.net/1st.php?ID=0010

Also my moms great great grandfather was at least a captain in a WV regiment for the Union also. That's all I could find out about him.

As for me if I was alive in MN at the time I would have been a farmer or lumberjack and joined the war on the Union side.

[Le Ricain]

My family's experience during the War show just how difficult the decision of what to do could be. Although, I live in Scotland, my family is from New England going back to the earliest English migration. The only ACW experience that I know of comes from a branch of the family, that for reasons unknown today, decided to move before war from NE to Rome, GA. The family consisted of father, Stephen, and his two sons, OJ and Benjamin. OJ, the eldest son, served in the Mexican War and afterwards settled in New Orleans.

When war broke out, OJ enlisted in the 3rd LA Inf Rgt and because of his earlier military experience, was elected as a 2nd Lt. He was captured at Vicksburg and after being exchanged, served as a Major in Price's Trans-Mississippi Campaign of 1864. He died of illness during the campaign.

The younger brother, my ancestor Benjamin, returned to Maine when the war broke out. He travelled by train and that must have been a fascinating trip. He enlisted in the 1st Maine Hvy Art in 1862, but was not actually called up until 1863. He served in Sheridan's Valley Campaign of 1864. He also fell ill, but survived.

The father, Stephen, at age 65 joined Floyd's Legion in Rome in response to Streight's 'Lightning Mule' Raid of 1863. I would like to think that Stephen got to see Forrest, who commanded the CSA force. After Streight's surrender, Stephen was released from service. In 1864, he joined the Home Guard in response to Sherman's March to the Sea. Stephen survived the war. There is no evidence that Stephen and Benjamin ever saw each other again.

As for me, I would like to think that I would have joined the Union Army, but looking at my family's response, I can not be sure.

[havi]

I would probably been living in Minnesota or Wisconsin because there where the large Scandinavian population and maybe been working in small shop there. I would been drafted to the union army some Minnesotan company served in west got wounded couple of time and been mentally destroyed by end of the war and become the village idiot.

[GraniteStater]

I would probably been living in Minnesota or Wisconsin because there where the large Scandinavian population and maybe been working in small shop there. I would been drafted to the union army some Minnesotan company served in west got wounded couple of time and been mentally destroyed by end of the war and become the village idiot.

Hey! You can't take my job!

[havi]

U.S.A big country many villages and cities lots of village idiots and GS you were slave and dead in year 1861 don't u remember?

[Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne]

I would have been on a Pittsburgh to New Orleans river boat to start with. Running whiskey and gambling all my money on the way down and improvising my way back to to the north depending on how successful I was. With the rivers closed, and no strong loyalties, I would set up business in the remote Appalachian mountains. My closest brush with the war would be local political jockeying, and writing my stupid brother in law to resign his commission in the CSA before he gets his legs blown off. 150 years later my stupid grandkid would be glossing over my life on something called an internet forum...