Civil War The Color Bearer Tra
The War Between the States was the heyday of American battleflags and their bearers. With unusualhistorical accuracy, many stirring battle paintings show the colors and their intrepid bearers in the forefront of the fray or as a rallying point in a retreat. The colors of a Civil War regiment embodied its honor, and the men chosen to bear them made up an elite. Tall, muscular men were preferred, because holding aloft a large, heavy banner, to keep it visible through battle smoke and at a distance, demanded physical strength. Courage was likewise required to carry a flag into combat, as the colors "drew lead like a magnet." South Carolina's Palmetto Sharpshooters, for example, lost 10 out of ...
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in all. Young Charles' roots ran deep into the soil of the lowcountry. His Whilden ancestors had settled in the Charleston area in the 1690's, and an ancestor on his mother's side, the Rev. William Screven, had arrived in South Carolina even earlier, establishing the First Baptist Church of Charleston in 1683, today the oldest church in the Southern Baptist Convention. Like many Southerners who came of age in the late antebellum period, Charles Whilden took pride in his ancestors' role in the American Revolution, especially his grandfather, Joseph Whilden, who, at 18, had run away from his family's plantation in Christ Church Parish to join the forces under Brigadier General Francis "Swamp Fox" Marion fighting the British. At the time of Charles' birth, the family of Joseph and Elizabeth Whilden lived comfortably in their home on Magazine Street, attended by their devoted slave, Juno Waller Seymour, a diminutive, energetic black woman known as "Maumer Juno" to four generations of the ...
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after a brief attempt to establish a law practice in Charleston, Attorney Whilden chose to seek his fortune outside his home town. But the practice of law in the upcountry town of Pendleton also failed to pan out for Whilden. Confronted with a major career decision, Whilden elected not only to leave the law but also to leave the Palmetto State for the north. The 1850 federal censustakers found Charles Whilden living in a boarding house in Detroit, Michigan, where he worked as a clerk, probably in a newspaper office. Speculation in copper stocks and land on Lake Superior soon left Charles deeply in debt to his youngest brother, William, who had built up a successful merchandising ...
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Civil War The Color Bearer Tra. (2006, September 20). Retrieved November 30, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Civil-War-The-Color-Bearer-Tra/52656
"Civil War The Color Bearer Tra." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 20 Sep. 2006. Web. 30 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Civil-War-The-Color-Bearer-Tra/52656>
"Civil War The Color Bearer Tra." Essayworld.com. September 20, 2006. Accessed November 30, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Civil-War-The-Color-Bearer-Tra/52656.
"Civil War The Color Bearer Tra." Essayworld.com. September 20, 2006. Accessed November 30, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Civil-War-The-Color-Bearer-Tra/52656.
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