OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Ohio in the Civil War Pt 3 *********************************************************************** OHGENWEB NOTICE: All distribution rights to this electronic data are reserved by the submitter. Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted material will require the permission of the copyright owner. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. *********************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 October 13, 1999 *********************************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio Diaries of S. J. Kelly Plains Dealer Know Your Ohio by Darlene E. Kelley *********************************************************************** Ohio In the Civil War -- part 3 Newspapers, Politics. and etc. How the newspapers gathered news played an important role in the north and the south. Not much had been written about the southern press. In many ways editorial reactions were the same in both the north and the south. For example, southern editors were highly critical of military strategies, and journelists such as Robert Barnell, editor of the Charleston Mercury, attacked the Confederate administration just as violently as Lincoln was being attacked in the north. War aims were not as much an issue as they were in the North, however, nor was there anything quite corresponding to the Copperhead press. When the war began, the south had no system for preparing or transmitting news of public interest to replace the severed connection with the New York Associated Press. An Augusta editor began sending out a brief daily summary to be telegraphed to a few newspapers willing to pay for the service, but this was never widely used. In 1862, the papers of Richmond tried to establish a more effective organization. Publishers realized that to meet the expense of covering the war, they all would have to work together. They also saw that in order to place correspondants where they would be needed, they would have to pool resources. It was evident that the Richmond papers could not achive these results by themselves. Following a series of conferences, Joseph Clisby of the Macon Telegraph summoned the editor of every daily in the south to attend a meeting in Augusta on Feb 4,1862. The Association of the Richmond Press had just been organized, and the plan was to expand the idea by organizing a National Press Association. On the whole, the Press Association served its clients well. When Gen P.G.T. Beauregard began to hold up dispatches, the press association approached him and presented that the association's aim was to obtain accurate reports for the good of the public, consistent with military security, the Gen was impressed but somewhai concerned. As a result, a compromise was worked out-- reporters were instructed NOT to send opinions or comments on events. They were furthur warned to sift rumors and to offer no information that would aid the enemy. The objectivity of the Press Association stories has been regarded as constituting a complete revolution in journalistic writing. Newspapers that seldom had sucess to regular wire news budgets were now able to keep readers up to date on the war. Short, but complete, reports supplanted the rambling, confused accounts of prewar days. The development of the Press Association was a big step in both the north and the south journalism. Dispatches were transmitted over Military Telegraph lines, the Army system, at half the price. There was also a satisfactory arrangement with the private Telegraph systems. Many reports now could come in from New York and visa versa. Ohio also relied on the outside news as their military units could count on reliable telegraph messages especially from the larger newspapers. Railroads-- The civil war is renowned for the introduction and employment of many new weapons, including rifled artillery, and machine guns and submarines. To the list should be railroad weapons, which were the predecessors of modern armored fighting vehicles. During the war, railroads were second only to waterways in providing logistical support for the armies. They were also vital to the economies of the divided nation. Large military forces were, of course, the worst danger to railroads, because they supplied the units that were on the campaign. Railroads were often major objectives-- an army without supplies cannot operate for long. Since the only sure way to deal with large scale threats was with a force of simular size, armies often stayed near the railroad tracks. While armies campaigned, locomotives and rolling stock provided logistical support, and some also performed tactical missions. These missions included close combat, especially when the situation was fluid or when the railroad provided a convenient avenue of approach to an opponent. In such situations, commanders sometimes sent locomotives to reconnoiter the terrain and gain information on enemy troop dispositions. While this may seem like a risky venture, gathering information was often worth the risk, and lone locomotives could quickly reverse direction and move as fast as 60 mph, far faster than pursuing cavalry. With such great mobility, locomotives were useful as courier vehicles when commanders had to rush vital intellience to headquarters. This communications service was an important advantage in a war where raiders frequently cut or tapped telegraph lines. They also transported to the newspapers pertinent information when telegraph lines were down. Useful as they were for tactical and logistical support, locomotives were vulnerable to derailments and sharpshooters, who might perforate a boiler or a crewman. Federal officers accordingly inspected rails and armored some of their engines against small-arms fire. Unforunately, their crews found that the armor trapped too much heat inside the cabs and limited egress if there was an accident. This was an important considertion, since a ruptured boiler could scald a crew in their iron cab like lobsters in a pot. This grisly prospect encouraged many crewmen to take chances by jumping from the cab in the event of a derailment. An eventful compromise included applying armor to some parts of the cab and installing small oval windows, thus reducing the chances of a sharpshooter's bullet penetrating the glass, while still affording adequate visibility for the crew. In special situations, locomotives served as rams. Troops might start a locomotive down a track with a full head of steam to damage an enemy train or facilities, or to attack troops. On one occasion, Confederate soldiers lurking near a burned bridge suddenly saw a burning ammunition train hurtling straight toward them, forcing them to retreat. Troops sometimes launched individal cars, also set ablaze, against opponents, or used them to burn bridges. The potential for such railborne threats prompted commanders to build obstructions on the tracks. Frieght trains might also deceive an enemy. A train might run back and forth into an area, tricking scouts into reporting that the enemy was reinforcing his position, when in fact he was leaving. One Federal ruse involved sending a deserted train down the tracks to entice Confederate artillery into firing, thereby revealing their location to counterfire. While the trains might serve as artilery bait, they could also transport heavy guns to the battlefield. Commanders took this idea a step further during the war by mounting heavy artillery pieces, which were very cumbersome to maeuver in the field, on flatcars for combat operations. Locomotives or manpower propelled these railroad batteries, dispensing with the horses that normally were the prime movers for the guns and eliminating the need to hitch and unhitch the gun from the horse team. This enabled a battery to fire on the move, a significant advantage over its horse-drawen counterparts. To protect railroad batteries against counterfire, builders mounted thick iron and wooden shields on the flatcars at a 45-degree angle to deflect enemy projectiles. Batteries fired through the shields' embrasures and then recoiled along the length of the cars, arrested by ropes. The crews then reloaded the weapons and pushed them back into battery position. Not all railroad batteries had armored potection. Some relied on mobility, covered firing positions, and firing during low visibility to limit their exposure to enemy artillery. Other railroad batteries relied on their superior range to batter opposing forces from afar. With such capabilities, railroad artillery was appropriate for seige and harrassment operations as well as head-to-head encounters between armies. As an Army advanced. it often had to rebuild railroads that the fleeing enemy had destroyed. Construction trains, forerunners of modern engineer corps vehicles, thus became indispensible to military operations. These trains required armed protection, and infantrymen and cavalrymen often accompanied them. Also useful in railroad warfare were armed trains, which, as their name implies, carried combat-ready troops and, at times, artillery. Their march order, or sequence of cars, is noteworthy. The locomotive was placed in the train's center, where it received some protection from the train's cars and its own tender. Generally speaking, flatcars--sometimes laden with troops and artillery-- rode at the train's ends to provide the best fields of fire. Passenger or boxcars might ride between the flatcars and the locomotive. Armored trains performed several missions. In some instances they doubled as construction trains. They also patrolled tracks, conducted reconnaissance missions, and escorted supply trains. Individual armed cars also accompanied supply trains, usually coupled to the front of a locomotive. On one occasion, armed Federals stole a Confederate train and wreaked havoc on the line. Meanwhile, another Federal armed train, only recently commandeered from the Confederates, carried a conventional force through Confederate territory to rendezvous with the renegade train. Some armed trains carried sandbags or another form of shielding for the troops on board, but this was not always the case. In the first few months of the Civil War, troops disdained cover, since they were accustomed to tactics best suited for the smoothbore musket. They considered cowering behind cover during combat to be less than manly. ********************************************* to be continued in part 4.