Gods and Generals
STORY PREFACE
On April 14, 1861, men of the 18th South Carolina regiment replaced the United States flag that flew at Ft. Sumter with a Palmetto flag. An unwanted war between the states, feared as a potential, had become reality. The next day, Abraham Lincoln (inaugurated as America’s 16th president the prior month), called on the Union to send 75,000 “militia of the several States of the Union” who could fight in the coming land battles. The number of men required per state was determined by quota. Governors of states like Kentucky (the place of Lincoln’s birth) and Tennessee refused. Beriah Magoffin, of Kentucky, sent the War Department a pointed reply: Your dispatch [ordering Kentucky to send 3,123 men] is received. In answer I say emphatically Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States. Tennessee was even more blunt in rejecting the President’s order. Isham Harris (scroll to the bottom of this page of the official record) wrote: Tennessee will not furnish a single man for purpose of coercion, but 50,000, if necessary, for the defense of our rights and those of our Southern brethren. Shortly after Harris replied, Tennessee joined the Confederate States of America (CSA).
Original Release Date: February, 2003 To cite this story, using MLA Guidelines: Bos, Carole D. "Gods and Generals" AwesomeStories.com. Date of access IN OTHER WORDS: Author. Title of story. Name of web site. Date of access <URL>.
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Table of Contents
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Biographies
History
- American Colonies
- American Revolution - Highlights
- Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
- Assassination of John F. Kennedy
- Auschwitz: Place of Horrors
- Book Burning and Censorship
Disasters
- America Attacked: 9/11
- Black Death
- Challenger Disaster
- Columbia Space Shuttle Explosion
- Deepwater Horizon: Disaster in the Gulf
- Fatal Voyage: The Titanic