So many times, we want to see the War as a conflict pitting a unified North against a unified South. Nothing could be further from the truth. In a previous post, we discussed the way in which Northern famers produced foodstuffs that were sold to brokers, transported through Northern ports, then loaded onto ships that made their way to the Bahamas, and were then sold to Southerners and transported into Southern ports on blockade runners. You can check out the post here.
 |
| John Pelham (Digital Archives Alabama) |
Recently, while reading Sarah Kay Bierle’s new Emerging
Civil War biography on John Pelham, I came across another example of the
blurring of those lines between what we
think we know and the reality of this situation. A native of Alabama, Pelham
was trying to finish his senior (fifth) year at West Point when the war erupted
at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Pelham promptly submitted his resignation and
returned to Alabama.
A host of Pelham’s fellow West Point cadets became common
names in Civil War historiography. They include Wesley Merritt, Horace Porter,
Stephen D. Ramseur, Joseph Wheeler, George A. Custer, and James Dearing. One of
Pelham’s classmates was future Union artillery commander and Medal of Honor
winner Henry DuPont. From Delaware, DuPont provides a differing perspective on
both the struggles that Southern cadets endured and the thoughts of some of
those who stayed with the Union.
You do not understand the position that Rosser and Pelham
are in. They are not in the service of the Southern confederacy now, as they
have not accepted the appointments; in fact, they know nothing more about it
that you or I do, only having seen them in the paper. Take Pelham, for
instance, and a man of nicer and more honorable feelings never lived. Some
months ago the Governor of his state wrote to him offering him a high rank in
the state forces if he would resign and come home. He would have nothing to do
with it & did not even answer the letter and had not applied for any
position in the confederate troops. But, like many others, they have appointed
him a first lieutenant, that is, have published in the newspapers his
appointment, there having been no application made for the place. He does not
intend to serve in the [United States] army but will resign as soon as he
graduates, which is quite right under the circumstances, as he cannot be
expected to fight against his home and friends. He will, though, as an
honorable man, never accept a commission from the Confederate States until he
has resigned the one he holds in that of the United States. He thought that,
painful as it would be to give up his diploma after having undergone so much to
obtain it & the many advantages which the possession gives, that,
nevertheless, if he receives an official notification that his services were
solicited in the defense of his home, that it would be his duty to give up his
own inclinations & interest and tender his resignation & go home and
accept the position offered to him, and was very glad that they did not send
him any official information consequently. (24-25)
After commanding a battery at First Manassas, Pelham became
JEB Stuart’s Chief of Artillery. It was Pelham who flanked the advancing Federal
infantry at Fredericksburg in December 1862. At the battle of Kelly’s Ford on
March 17, 1862, Pelham was struck in the head by shell fragments. He died at
Culpeper Courthouse the following morning. Pelham was posthumously promoted to
lieutenant colonel and is buried in Jacksonville, Alabama.
