The Civil War Month by Month: March 1861| Gaston-Lincoln Regional Library System

The Civil War Month by Month:
March 1861

3 March. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard receives orders from Jefferson Davis to plan on attacking Fort Sumter which is on an island in the harbor of Charleston. The next day he is made a Confederate brigadier general.

4 March. The Confederate convention at Montgomery adopts an official flag with seven stars and three stripes. However, in the chaos of battle, this flag will be too easily confused with the Stars and Stripes. The Confederate army then adopts a "battle flag" with the Cross of Saint Andrew and stars; this flag is what most people visualize when we hear "Confederate flag".

9 March. The Confederate convention passes a bill authorizing the issuing of currency.

11 March. David Schenck of Lincoln County, North Carolina, soon to be a delegate to the Secession Covention, writes in his diary, "Every hour and day brings some startling news... Men, women and children look anxiously for the mails and fireside conversation is confined to the great issue of the day -- "Will there be Civil War?"" (Schenk's diaries are now in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, Chapel Hill.)

21 March. In Savannah, Alexander Stephens, vice-president of the Confederacy, makes a speech which will become known as the "Cornerstone Speech". He describes aspects of the new Confederate constitution, declaring, "So, taking the whole new constitution, I have no hesitancy in giving it as my judgment that it is decidedly better than the old." On the issue of slavery, he says, "But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. ... Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition."

Adult Nonfiction:

Abraham Lincoln, by George McGovern, pub. 2009, 184 p., call #: 923.173 Lincoln McG. In this compact but convincing portrait, McGovern assesses Lincoln's greatness in terms of his ability to use his humble origins, empathy, keen sense of justice, uncommon skill in seeing the essence of an issue, faith in American democracy, gifts of language, and personal self-confidence-all to become a masterly lawyer, a party leader, commander in chief, and a heroic figure with both the vision and the practicality to realize his purposes. McGovern breaks no new interpretive ground here, but he knows the recent scholarship well enough and kneads it into his book.

Brady's Civil War journal : photographing the war 1861-65, by Theodore P. Savas, pub. 2008, 256 p., call #: 973.7 Sav. During the Civil War, New York-based studio photographer Matthew B. Brady packed up his sizable equipment and a crew and set out to document the events from the outset. The approximately 200 images displayed here, with text by publisher and author Savas, offer modern viewers a quite comprehensive view of the glorious and the graphic to which Brady was witness. Opening with portraits and concluding with a series of ruined towns and forts, the photographs also document the era's artillery, prisoners, hospitals, fighting ships, the lives of African Americans, and wonders of engineering and transportation. Many of these photos have been often reproduced, but these images are notably large and clear.

Reminiscences of peace and war, by Sara Agnes Rice Pryor, pub. 1904, 402 p., call #: 973 P. Sara Pryor was a Virginian. Married to a pre-war Congressman, who left to support the Confederacy, became a brigadier general, and then resigned to become a private (!), she followed her husband throughout the war. Her memories, written when she was in her 70s, describe pre-war Washington, life in the army camps, the hospitals in Richmond, and such incidents as a bread riot in Richmond.

A constitutional view of the late war between the states : its causes, character, conduct and results : Presented in a series of colloquies at Liberty Hall, by Alexander H. Stephens 2 vols., pub. 1868-1870, call #: 973.7 Ste. These two volumes contain Stephens' continued justification of the Confederate cause. Published soon after the war, this title is the first of many books on the contitutional sources of the war and and the source of the popular term "War between the States." Despite its dry contents, the book sold well. The second volume may be of more interest to modern non-specialist readers including as it does more on the actual wartime events.

Children's Nonfiction:

Abraham Lincoln , by Amy L. Cohn and Suzy Schmidt ; pictures by David A. Johnson, pub. 2002, [40 p.], call #: jB Lincoln. From his humble start in a log cabin in Kentucky, this book follows Lincoln through his presidency and finally his untimely death. With lively, stylized illustrations, this unusual biography with a decidedly folkloric flavor is sure to become a perennial classic. Full-color illustrations. Gr. 2-4; suitable for reading aloud.

Adult Fiction:

Abe : a novel, by Richard Slotkin. pub. 2000, 478 p., call #: Fic Slo. Slotkin's young Abe Lincoln may owe something to Twain's Huck Finn and his trip down the great Mississippi, but it owes far more to Slotkin's own fine wit and inventiveness as well as years of research into American frontier life. Novels about revered historical figures are notoriously difficult to bring to life, being chained to plausibility and to a story line already too well known. Slotkin's Lincoln, traced from a toddler of two to a muscular 23 embarking on his first campaign for public office, is funny, robust, a rough and tumble lad of the frontier who longs to live on a greater stage--an idea planted in him by a few treasured books.

White doves at morning : a novel, by James Lee Burke, pub. 2002, 305 p., call #: Fic Bur. In a departure from his mystery novels featuring Dave Robicheaux and Billy Bob Holland, Burke describes New Iberia, LA, during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Young Willie Burke (an ancestor of the author) and two friends join the Confederate army despite their doubts about some aspects of the Cause, while in New Iberia, Abigail Dowling, a nurse from Massachusetts, struggles to act on her abolitionist beliefs. Abigail befriends Flower, a young slave who has been secretly taught to read by Willie, and thus angers plantation owner Ira Jamison (Flower's owner and biological father) and his overseer. In lyrical and evocative prose, Burke depicts both the boredom and horror of army life and the injustices visited upon blacks and poor whites by the "haves" in Southern society. He starkly conveys the desperation felt by those who have no power or voice and vividly creates a sense of place and character.

Children's Fiction:

Lincoln and his boys, by Rosemary Wells, pub. 2009, 96 p., call #: J Wel. Inspired by a 200-word fragment written by one of Lincoln's sons, Wells introduces the legendary president through the perspectives of his youngest children, Willie and Tad. Ages 8-12.