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morris crumley
Dunwoody
GA USA
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Posts: 3292
Joined: 2007
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May 17, 1863
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Good call by OP. The local news reporters kept tabs on "the local boys" and their regimental reports. the casualty lists were made available to any inquirers ....unlike today...when a reporter would be told..."not until we notify the next of kin." Newspaper casualty lists became the notification until an officer or fellow noncom might write a letter home as soon as they got the opportunity and could post it.
Respects, Morris
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"You are a $70, red-wool, pure quill military genius, or the biggest damn fool in northern Mexico."
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DT509er
Santa Rosa
CA USA
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Posts: 1449
Joined: 2005
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May 17, 1863
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Quote: "Media liaison" is what we'd call it today.
Is this in response to my question regarding the obtaining of names, units, etc? If so, ok, I get the "media liaison" regarding info passing to journo's but, were the troops carrying identifying information on them such as id cards, dog tags or information sewn into jackets, pants, etc?
Dan
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"American parachutists-devils in baggy pants..." German officer, Italy 1944.
“If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.” Lord Ernest Rutherford
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DT509er
Santa Rosa
CA USA
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Posts: 1449
Joined: 2005
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May 17, 1863
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Quote: Good call by OP. The local news reporters kept tabs on "the local boys" and their regimental reports. the casualty lists were made available to any inquirers ....unlike today...when a reporter would be told..."not until we notify the next of kin." Newspaper casualty lists became the notification until an officer or fellow noncom might write a letter home as soon as they got the opportunity and could post it.
Respects, Morris
So the journo's had listings of the troops names, rank, home town, etc.? If so, that must have been a heck of a long list scattered amongst a boatload of journo's.
Dan
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"American parachutists-devils in baggy pants..." German officer, Italy 1944.
“If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.” Lord Ernest Rutherford
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Phil Andrade
London
UK
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Posts: 6382
Joined: 2004
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May 17, 1863
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The press so closely monitoring the war, even down to the details of every soldier’s wound. If that doesn’t indicate a development of modernity, I don’t know what does.
Old fashioned muzzle loaders and black powder, men being massed to mass firepower: that’s not modern, is it ?
In contrast, we see this medium of the press conveying news with astonishing speed and detail.
An incongruous war, a bewildering array of the old and the new.
Editing : Dan, this doesn’t address your question, I know. Dog tags weren’t distributed. There must have been an intense sense of locality and mutual support among the small townships and communities that characterised American life in those days. Not such a modern attribute, then, but a fierce parochialism.
To have kept such close tabs on the fate of such big numbers of men strikes me as truly remarkable. These were big battles entailing the wounding of so many thousands of soldiers in chaotic and bewildering circumstances. As an aside, but to a degree pertinent, I note that the numbers of wounded Union soldiers in the Chancellorsville fighting was about 9,600 :
almost exactly the same as Fredericksburg ( 9,600), Antietam ( 9,549) and Chickamauga (9,656). I find that uncanny. And these are just the recorded cases. How many more were left abandoned and dying, reported as missing in action ? It is as if the journalists were anxious to help keep loved ones at home informed, and that however big the bloodbath might be, they would do their best to support communities by candid, accurate and immediate reporting. I hesitate to use the word “ incredible “, but somehow it fits here.
Regards, Phil
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"Egad, sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox!"
"That will depend, my Lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
Earl of Sandwich and John Wilkes
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morris crumley
Dunwoody
GA USA
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Posts: 3292
Joined: 2007
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May 17, 1863
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Dan, though the military of both sides had no availability of ID for soldiers, commercial interests did step into the breach. Companies like jewelry makers would engrave a name, company and regiment letter and number on a small plate the size of a large coin...with a hole punched out for a chain. Sutlers, who followed along with the armies would sell similar stamped items.
But not all soldiers availed themselves of the item...or could get them. There is the famous instance of Union soldiers, the night before Grant hurled three corps at Lee at Cold Harbor, being seen writing their names and units on scraps of cloth or paper and pinning them to their frock coats and jackets so that their bodies could be ID`d.
I think I recall that, of the 320,000 Federal soldiers buried in national cemetery`s ....over 120,000 are unknown.
My grt grt grandfather`s brother George was wounded at Cedar Creek, and died some time after his capture, and before arriving at Ft. Delaware prison. His body was chucked in the ground God knows where.
Respects, Morris
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"You are a $70, red-wool, pure quill military genius, or the biggest damn fool in northern Mexico."
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