On our trip to the Homestead earlier this year, we saw the memorial to Confederate soldiers on the courthouse lawn in Warm Springs, Virginia. Yesterday, in Blue Hill, Maine, we saw a strikingly similar memorial to his Union counterpart located near the entrance to the Seaside Cemetery. Soldiers from Maine played a crucial role in the eventual Union victory, as any student of the Battle of Gettysburg will recall.
Interesting, isn’t it, how the statues of the Yankee and the Rebel feature nearly identical poses, with stolid soldiers standing erect, the butts of their rifles on the ground and the soldiers’ hands resting on the muzzle? No depictions of shooting or bayoneting or heroic charges; just silent soldiers standing guard. It’s as if, with the Civil War ended, neither side wanted a stone reminder of the violent reality of the bloodiest conflict in American history.
The Hunley was supposed to be one of the Confederacy’s secret weapons, and a way to break the strangling blockade Union warships placed around Confederate ports. It was a 42-foot-long, cast iron cylinder that was powered by a hand-cranked propeller. Built in Mobile, Alabama in 1863, it was transported to Charleston, South Carolina, where it was supposed to move underwater and attach explosive torpedos to the hulls of Union ships.
Team of Rivals is Goodwin’s treatment of Abraham Lincoln and his relationship with the men who were competitors for the Republican nomination for President in 1860 and then became members of Lincoln’s cabinet. I’ve been looking forward to it because I love reading about Lincoln and revisiting, again, the distant world of our 16th President, with its scourge of slavery and awesome challenge of secession, with huge armies marching across the land and the blood of brothers spilled, with telegraphs and smoking locomotives and political figures on horseback.
Fort Sumter, located in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina — the epicenter of the rebellion — became one of Lincoln’s first challenges. The day after his inauguration, Lincoln received a message from Major Robert Anderson, the commander of the fort’s garrison of less than 100 men, announcing that Fort Sumter was equipped with only six weeks’ supply of food. Anderson’s message presented the new President with an impossible choice. At the time, many southern states — including important border states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee — had not yet formally decided whether to secede. If Lincoln withdrew the garrison, wouldn’t that constitute a recognition that the Confederate States were no longer part of the Union and encourage the rebels? And if Lincoln tried to aid the garrison, wouldn’t the confrontation that was likely to result inflame the passions of the citizens of the uncommitted states and throw them over to the Confederate cause?
At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, the Confederate batteries opened fire. Some citizens of Charleston cheered, others wept and prayed. A few hours later, the Union forces returned fire. The battle continued for more than 30 hours, until buildings inside the fort were aflame and it became clear that restocking the fort would not be permitted. On April 13, Anderson surrendered the fort, and 
