I opened the doors of the church, the doors creaking as I stepped inside. My dear wife, Hannah, and my three of my four daughters, Ella, Annie, and Nettie, and my only son, Henry, trailed behind my tapping footsteps as I entered hooked arm-in-arm with their husbands and wives and lead their young children by an extended right hand and reminding them to be on their best behavior. The quiet solitude of the outdoors of birds chirping and trees rustling in the afternoon breeze quickly changed to the chatter, bustle of lots of people, and women probably exchanging gossip or just conversing, but it is 1898 after all.

            A particularly cheerful usher scurried over and escorted us quickly to our chairs, but I stayed behind and stood near the rear of the church and waited there, for I had a job to do.

            I took this rare moment to observe the whole family that was mostly all together in this room, and I saw all my side of the family there, and I was sure that my father, Levi Thompson, and mother, Comfort, would have liked to attend to this special event if they were still with us. I looked near the front row and saw my younger sisters, Susan and Rosaria still as happy as ever even with their own children and husbands to care for, and my older sister, Elizabeth, her face almost gleaming as she sat proudly along side her husband, Robert W. Lucy whom was still in the shoe-making business just like I was before I went in the army. Next to Elizabeth and Robert were her three daughters (my nieces): Fanny, and her husband, Fred Davis, and their son Wendell, Lila and her husband Frank Holmes and they were on their way with a second baby, and they said they were going to name him Ray. Lila and Frank’s first baby was a girl, but she died in the womb giving Lila a stillborn child, which gave her nothing but grief. She wasn’t the only one though with a stillborn, though. I heard many talks about more and more children being able to live until they are only five years and die, but that is women’s business, but if you ask my opinion, I think it’s those corsets, those devices that make you look skinny, that are said to crush all the organs for making babies, but I never will know if it is really true.

            Beside Lila and Frank were Elizabeth’s other children, Eudora and her husband Arthur Holmes, and John whom had brought his girlfriend whose curls bounced as she turned her head. I saw from the back of the church my own sons and daughters. My first born child, Nettie, who was were a crème white dressed that Hannah had whore when she was her age to an event such as this, sat beside her husband, Langdon Smith who was an employed farming business and mighty good at it too by the thick and rough calluses on his hand to his tremendous strength when carry and using the farming equipment, or as I have been told.

Next to Nettie sat my only son, Henry and my two other daughters, Ella and Annie, were both dressed up in matching blue dress gowns that had been bought at a low price despite their quality. I was just about to greet my brother, sisters, nieces, nephews, my children, and to thank everyone for coming, but just as I was lifting my right foot forward, I started to hear music.                

            My heart jumped as the bustle of the church went quiet, and I was now to do that job that I would remember for a long time to come.

The piano started playing the wedding march on the organ and my heart raced with excitement and the suspense of the moment. I saw, emerging from behind a door in the church, a white wedding dress, (supposedly a trend brought on from Queen Victoria’s wedding gown of pure white, I thought), orange hair put up into a bun, a veil, a garland of summer lilies and white and daisies in full bloom. I saw pale skin and a set of blue eyes and a smile a mile wide. My second eldest daughter, Mammie walked towards me in her wedding gown that trailed behind her and the flower girls, late on their arrival, hurried down the aisle throwing Rose petals and confetti in front of us and hastily sat down as me and Mammie hooked arms as I started to escort her down the aisle.

            “Ready? I mean, ready to walk down the aisle…” I asked her before she placed her foot on the red carpet leading to matrimony.

            “Readier than I ever could be!” Mammie squealed happily and I chuckled at her forwardness and slight impatience as we majestically glided down the aisle.

            We reached the end of the red carpet in front of the priest and I parted and sat down on one of the many stained oak benches that were lined up on either side of the red carpet that crossed the middle to separate the benches. As the priest started to speak we all kneeled and prayed as the priest read lines from the bible and we rose as he spoke the lines that would combine the Thompson family and the Tuttle family by marriage and soon after by blood, or that is at least what we all hope.

            The priest finally finished his words of binding and finished it off with, ‘now you can kiss your bride.’

            We all stood up and applauded and some women (including my Hannah) even cried. And I have to say that no matter how many times I have done this, it is a thrill every time. Before Mammie exited the church doors so we could all go to the wedding ‘after party’ where we all give gifts and eat dinner together as a combined family, she remember about the garland on her head and on Russell (her groom)’s head and she quickly removed them from her and Russell’s head, her garland of lilies and daisies and his garland of oak leaves and branches. She threw them into the family crowd and despite the entire bride's maid’s attempts to be the next single women to marry; it fell into the hands of one unexpected lady. Guess who it was? None other than Henry’s girlfriend, and I thought to myself, another marriage… I had better keep my tuxedo that I’m renting then.

            We all handed out our gifts to the bride and groom, otherwise my daughter and new son-in-law, and my gift was a washboard (for laundry) for Mammie who thanked me many times, and some farming equipment for Russell. After the new married couple opened all their presents and thanked every last one of us, we all sat down at tables packed with food of chicken, bread, potatoes, and many other delectable items that came directly from all the baking women’s family recipe cards and cookbooks.

            We all were about to dig in, but not without a toast of some fine aged wine from the cellar. And as the father of the bride, I was expected to make a toast to the newlyweds first. I tried to stand, but at my ‘prime age’ of fifty-four, it took quite an effort. After a couple minutes, with help, I managed to stand and hold my glass carefully so I would not fall and make a big mess, and I cleared my throat and started my toast.

            “I’ve known Mammie since she was but a young little girl and she is always a hard worker and a cheer in everyone’s lives. You are lucky to have her as a wife, and I even though the road ahead might be rocky and full of bumps and potholes, I’m sure you’ll drive right through them. I hope luck to you and your family to come. Here’s to the happy couple!” I raised my glass as if towards the sky wishing them great fortune through the generations. Everyone raised there glass in agreement and yelled ‘Aye!’ loud and merrily and some even applauded and some of the bride’s maids were crying because they realized their friend was married now.

            We had so many toasts that we all had to refill our glasses, and Russell and Mammie started to served their small but fancy white frosted cake with frosting flowers that bordered the rim of this sweet delight. We all gobbled up our cake quickly as if to make sure it didn’t run away, so we could all see the bride and groom that were now a couple dance together. They piano played a slow song and Russell and Mammie swayed to the tune as Mammie’s wedding dress swayed to the tune, and as the song ceased we all applauded and started dancing ourselves.

            The flower girls, with more confetti and rose petals, threw them around us as the confetti stuck in our hair and the pink rose petals slowly fell to the ground.

            And through all the laughs, dancing, cake, and confetti and petals raining down on us I realized, this family, through all the generations, will never change.

Author’s Notes

Facts of the family

            Throughout the years the Thompson family name changed into many different last names, since the Thompson family in particular, has many daughters. The Thompson’s last name has changed to many other last names thought the generations (these are not in any specific order): Lucy, Tuttle, Nelson, Holmes, Smith, Fernald, Gero, Davis, Price, Rollins, Harvey, etc.

            Joseph Thompson’s family died mostly from old age, but in the early and late 1800’s and early 1900’s a large amount of children were stillborn for reasons of diseases from immigrants or from corsets crushing the genitals that are use to produce babies. Although none of Joseph Thompson’s relatives died of what he or his wife died from, (which were myocarditis and lobar pneumonia) because they were infectious diseases, although at the time period of when Joseph Thompson and his wife were alive, infectious diseases were common because they didn’t have treatments for them then, although we have them in present day.

              Most of his relatives were either in the shoemaking business or farming but as the decades went on more job opportunities were open, such as a teacher, and being a poultry man. Some of the men probably did go in the army, but the only one I know of is Myron G Holmes, Arthur Holmes and Eudora Lucy’s second child, whom was a private in World War One (WWI) and was born in 1899 and died at the age of sixty-three in 1962. 

            None of his Descendants moved out of New Hampshire that I know of and I am to believe that Cheryl L. Fernald could be living today at the age of forty-nine (Joseph Thompson’s great-great-granddaughter), and Micheal D. Gero (Joseph Thompson’s great-great-grandson) could also be living today at the age of forty-nine, and Donna M. Price and Linda D. Price would be forty-nine and forty-seven but I am unsure. 

Bibliography

Websites

“NH Families”,http://nhfamilies.com/familyfiles/aqwg1665.htm , 02/10 /05

 

“NH Families”, http://nhfamilies/familyfiles/aqwn2041.htm#50924

“Weddings”, http://www.prodj.com/wedding_history.htm  02/20/05

 

“Marriage and Wedding Details”, http://www.wedding details.com/lore/English.cfm

  02/20/05

 

“Wedding Traditions”, http://hec.osu.edu/people/ebradshaw/wedding-traditions.htm   02/20/05

 

“Women’s Roles in the late 19^th Century”, http://www.connerprairie.org/historyonline/1880wom.html  02/18/05

Books

            Clayton L. Thomas, Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, 1973, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Bibliography

       We were the first to attack that morning. Other regiments followed, but we went first, up over our entrenchments and out of the woods. Up the hill that was strewn with blue-uniformed bodies as a riverbed is strewn with stones.  Up through the patch of brushy marsh that slowed us to a crawl. Up through the lead hail that torn through men’s bodies. Up to the Confederate line, where we fired into their faces and filled their stomachs with our bayonets. And they gave it back almost as good as they got it.

     We had been trying to break their line for four days. The afternoon before, a good number of union boys charged the way we did, but the Johnnies sent rapid, powerful volleys into them, and they were slaughtered by the thousands.

      Charge after charge was made, and regiment after regiment had been torn to bloody shreds. Commanders refused to send their men into that field of pointless death.

     And then, not more than ten hours later, we were charging up the same hill, across the same marsh, to the same line. But we were successful.

     We fought for three hours, face to face, bayonet to bayonet, hand to hand, firing into each other at the closest imaginable range. Those three hours were at the same time three seconds and three lifetimes. I felt detached from everything around me, going through the motions of firing and reloading. Firing and reloading.

     It didn’t feel like we were pushing the Confederates back, but we must have, because suddenly I found myself shooting a man behind a cannon, and my next bullet went into a horse. The cannon fired one more time, tearing a great gash through the sea of blue uniforms to my right. Then, we were all around it, firing inward at the last soldiers manning it, and killing most of the horses in the confusion and chaos.

     One of the horses stood looking at me, suddenly very calm, and before it fell screaming to the blood-soaked ground, I remember wondering what it thought of men and killing and war. Then it disappeared beneath us, and we kept on fighting.

     We just kept pushing and firing and yelling and stabbing and killing. We slaughtered the Johnnies who hid in farm buildings and out houses. We used their cover as ours, and swept up through their defenses to kill those who would kill us. Where there must have been confidence on the Johnnies’ faces the day before, now there was fear and desperation. They looked as if they were on the verge of retreat, and we kept pushing them back and shooting them and stabbing them and yelling in their faces...

     Then, suddenly, we were pulling back, retreating. We were so close; we had broken their line, why were we running away?

     I don’t know why, but, when we were running back down the hill, back into the forest, I could hear the cannons and the gunshots. When we had been fighting, it was silent, calm, almost dreamlike. Now, as we ran, the sounds behind us were terrifying. It felt as if, suddenly, we had lost, and we were running for our lives, after having the upper hand for so long.

     I was relieved when I jumped back into our trench. Back where it was safe. I looked down at myself. There was blood on my uniform, a lot of it. I hoped none of it was mine, but I wasn’t sure, I felt completely num.

     And when I was calm again, calm like I was when I was fighting, detached in silence, killing effortlessly and not caring that I was killing, I went to go find out why we had retreated at all. I found a soldier who told me that Meade wanted us down to our left, where our boys were spread thin and were greatly in danger of being broken. He told me that we weren’t supposed to beat the Johnnies up here, just to tie them up so that they couldn’t go help their side down on the far left end of our line, where the “real battle” was taking place. It was strange; I thought that fighting hand-to-hand and firing into your enemies’ faces at close range was a real battle. I’m sure the men who died running up the hill or breaking that line would agree.

       The next day, we marched through a swamp well behind our own lines, down to where Meade wanted us. It was less than a quarter of a mile, but the mud slowed us down, so that it was mid-morning when we came back out of the forest.

     We had been able to hear what was going on in this section of the line, but now we saw it. And the sounds hadn’t prepared us.

     Most of the Union soldiers who we expected to be in the trenches were being torn apart on the side of the hill and on the edge of another forest to our left by almost continuous fire. We must have come at the end, because soon there was only a handful left. Half of them threw themselves to the ground and hid behind the bodies. A few tried to get up to the Confederate line to surrender, but sudden shots came from our own line and they fell to the ground. Those who tried to run back to our trenches were shot in the back multiple times.

     It was silent. Nothing moved behind either line. Nothing moved in the open space between them. There were only the groans of men dying beneath each other, which was silenced by a spatter of shots into the piles of bodies.

     A couple of more times, the slightest twitch or weight shift or sound brought the fire of a hundred rifles. The dead were re-killed over and over as the Johnnies fired round after round into the still mass of blue clothed men who lay with their lives flowing out of them and staining the grass. Next to me, another soldier, probably only sixteen, was vomiting onto the ground. Others were standing in disbelief. Many must have spotted friends in that bleeding mass. I knew that none of mine were there. All of mine were already dead.

         We heard that the whole army was being withdrawn, to go threaten Petersburg, which supposedly was now undefended, since most of the Johnnies were here, and two days later, we began moving down the line towards the James River. As we went, the Confederates charged and badly shelled us, and we had to stop and fight them off before slowly continuing.

     Throughout the sixth night of our retreat, our trenches were being hit constantly with bullets and shells. The setting of the sun had not lessened the assault, as it usually would. The Confederate guns kept hammering at the long line of piled dirt we hid behind, and none of the night sounds could be heard. I felt as if I hadn’t heard those kinds of sounds, like crickets and tree frogs and owls, for months.

         I thought about how hard we had fought to get here, to take Old Cold Harbor. On the twenty-seventh of May, sixteen days before, the Johnnies had skirmished with us constantly. We had always won, and they had always pulled back, but we had had to drop to the ground and duck behind cover every time. If we had not outnumbered them by so many, we would never have gotten within five miles of their lines.

     We had fought our way up to Old Cold Harbor for the next three days. Every night we stopped and dug in, every morning we woke to the sound of the Confederates charging us again.

     On the twenty-ninth and thirtieth, we took two lines of their works, charging up and driving them back, forcing them to abandon their cannons, and the day after that we charged up to them, then they charged us. Lines changed and rifle-pits moved back and forth. Charges and countercharges were made the whole day, and the next two days, we fought our way up close to their lines and dug in. We stayed in those trenches for the rest of the battle, even when, on June second, the Johnnies charged our regiment from behind.

     It was sudden, and at first we didn’t hear the shots because of the thunderstorm that day, and we found ourselves in the worst skirmish any of us had ever been in. We fought desperately, trying to hold this line that we had so recently taken. We didn’t let them move us, and we stood planted behind our pickets as they ran at us, firing and yelling. We took a large number of them prisoner, and finally we were able to get them to retreat.

     We spent that night throwing up fortifications, preparing for the main battle. But now, that battle was over. We were pulling away, giving up what many of us had died to take. Given up now for strategic purposes. Given up now because suddenly Grant didn’t want Cold Harbor anymore.

     I understood why we were withdrawing. It did make some sense. Petersburg was more important than Cold Harbor. But we had fought for it as hard as if it were the Johnnies’ capital. We died for it. And it was being thrown away.

         I realized that I had been sleeping, something I hadn’t done for days. Our fortifications were still being shelled, but behind them, we were moving.

     It was still very dark, but I could see that we were moving away from the front, away from Cold Harbor. Toward Petersburg. Toward another battle. How many more battles would we fight?  How many more men’s lives would be spilled from them onto the ground? How many more times would all of us kill?

     Behind me, the Confederates fired at our empty trenches. Ahead of me, in the dark woods, an owl hooted.     

      

    

Afterward

     Aside from the owl, the horse, Joseph Thompson’s actual thoughts, and the vomiting soldier, everything in this story is real, including terrain, dates, engagements, and the other events.

Bibliography

Information:

 

 

www.sonofthesouth.net

The Information Among Us!

The Civil War battle of 1864
by Ashley M.
Vol. I, Issue I
Friday, March, 1865

PostScript:

By the end of the Battle, the Union lost 8,150 men and the Confederates lost over 3,200 men. We are all happy now that our loved ones have returned home. The State Government of New Hampshire has set a date to honor those who were in the War - December 5 - for all of the people who had loved ones in the War who have unfortunately not made it back. This day of honor is not only for those people who have lost someone, but it is also for the people who want to come, whether they had any loved ones in the War or not. This day of honor will be held in northern New Hampshire at 10 a.m. Anyone who would like to come and talk about this issue should come on this day and listen to what some of the people who have lost their loved ones have to say. Many people will be grateful for this day and while there, you should be able to understand that you are loved by just being there and knowing what some people are going through right now.

July 30, 1864

  

           Dear Marie,

            I am writing to tell you about some of the hellish stuff I have seen lately. We have just retreated out of the mine, after the   confederates reversed our plans and shot a lot of us while we were in the hole. Here’s what happened.

General Burnside was discussing some plans to blow up the fort holding the confederate’s troops he said it was called the battle of the crater.

 First we called in the Pennsylvania miners to dig us a tunnel under the confederate’s lines. After four grueling days of digging and fighting, we were done. It was a five hundred foot tunnel that was directly below the confederate fort. After that we hauled in four hundred tons of gunpowder. We filled the tunnel right up full. So full that no one could get into the tunnel even if they needed to, (which they did).

Last Tuesday we all were scrambling to get the mine ready. We all went down to the mine. That’s when I met a man from the 11^th regiment division of New Hampshire his name was Joseph Thompson. At first he seemed very snobby, but then he started to reveal that he was just scared. And hell, he had every right to be, but anyway we all scattered and Joseph and I went down behind the ditch about 100 yards from the mine. We lit the fuse but one of the men from a Massachusetts Regiment went down into the mine because he forgot his hat. As he was coming back he didn’t make it before the mine blew. As everything went up in a cloud of smoke, body parts came down in a bloody mess.  We watched the smoke clear and tried gathering his body parts, but there was just too many. We had a proper burial for him.

After that our men charged into the crater. As we reached the bottom, we were swarmed by confederates who charged into the hole yelling, “Take the white man, kill the nigger.” It was the most horrid of sights. The black troops were just mutilated and the troops like me that didn’t go in were just in complete awe of the situation.

            When every thing was done Joseph and I went through and helped collect the bodies. We would tag them and stick a stake next to them to mark where a body was so the priest could go through and bless each body and hang a cross on every stick. To say the least, there was a lot of crying from everyone but no one really said much of anything, except for a couple of grumbles and a couple of sniffles but that was it. Then it was quiet. It was finally night. Then we all went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night. I stumbled to the edge of the crater and right before my eyes I felt like I was right there and the battle unfolded right before my eyes again. I saw some men screaming as the swords entered their bodies like knives cutting through butter. I also saw some black troops cowering on the ground begging for mercy and just being ignored and decapitated with the blood stained swords. I shuddered and I felt a warm hand. I spun around and it was Joseph. I know it sounds like something you would read in Poe but it wasn’t. It was real. I hope you don’t think I am crazy. But anyway I felt Joseph’s hand on my shoulder. He knew what I was feeling. He said he saw the same thing. We walked back to the tent and crawled into bed. All I could hear were the cries of soldiers. Finally I fell asleep. 

The next morning was the same. We gathered dead bodies and tagged them. Some of us stayed in tents writing letters home to the deceased soldiers families. I gathered bodies. Then all of a sudden we heard a loud bang as if a gun going off. We went into the tent where the letters were being written, and saw one of the officers slumped over the table. We looked at the letter he had been writing. It had been to his own wife reading that he didn’t make it out of battle, but that was a lie, apparently he couldn’t take anymore of the war and gave up on life in general, Gen. Burnside said it was natural for things like that to happen during a war. So we sent the letter out and buried his body. When it came to the night, we all passed a bottle of gin and by midnight we were all drunk. And we all went to bed happy.

When we awoke in the morning we found that all the bodies had been scattered. It appeared that the coyotes had a feast while everyone had been sleeping. So instead of just sitting around we gathered the bodies that were mutilated and built a fence around them. At about noon we all took a break and grabbed a bite to eat( which consisted of Grits and toast). Then we went back out to the fence and bodies. We went to bed around 9:00. That night we had guards around the bodies so nothing could get into them. We awoke the next morning Joseph and I met the next morning and had a big breakfast made by slaves. Then we saw a group of men riding towards the camps they delivered letters to everyone that was able to go home on leave and to go home permanently the ones that couldn’t go home got nothing.  Joseph and I were some of the few chosen to go home I am coming home to Maine permanently to you. Joseph is only home for a little while. He has a girlfriend at home in Nottingham, New Hampshire named Hannah. My love I shall return to you soon.

 

 Private First Class  Jonathan Lavaser

P.S. I shall bring: gifts home for the boys, and my love for you. 

www.cr.nps.gov/hps/abpp/battles/va070.htm - 6k-

www.ehistory.com/world/BattleView.cfm?BID=155 - 13k –

home.earthlink.net/~gwboller/batpetersburg.html - 47k -

  Regimental History of the 11^th Infantry Division of New Hampshire (book)

Over time,  transportation has changed. It used to be horseback, wagons and carts, but now  we have cars, trucks, and airplanes. Before everything was invented though,  everyone had access to the most basic mode of transportation- our feet. The  first settlers learned from the Indians how to run far distances without tiring  fast, but it wasn’t the best way to get around.

People would use rivers to get to places and to trade goods. It was more  preferred than foot travel and horseback. The lakes around Winnipasaukee and the  six rivers that emptied into the lake were well-traveled waterways. Some towns  like Manchester, Nashua, Exeter, Dover, Lebanon, and Portsmouth grew bigger
 because that’s where the goods went out and came in, making it easier for people  to trade. When the first settlers arrived, small boats traveled through the  Merrimack, the Connecticut, the Saco, and the Androscoggin Rivers.        
When settlers looked for new  places to live they moved away from the rivers. This brought the need for new  roads, places where carriages, horses, wagons, and carts could travel. By the  1820s, a good amount of “turnpikes”, or toll roads, had been built allowing  easier passage for lighter and faster carriages. 

There were many different  types of carriages used for a variety of reasons. There was the Brougham, which  was a closed carriage, used mainly for carrying passengers. At first this  carriage had two-wheels, then, later in the 19th
century, they added  two more wheels for a smoother, more comfortable ride.

Another type of carriage  was the Hackney. This was mainly used as a taxi. It was also the “disposable”  carriage of wealthy families. The Hansom was made in the 1830s and also mainly  used for passenger travel. The driver sat in the back so the passengers would be  better able see where they were going. During the 1890s, the Hackney’s tires  were made of rubber, which made the ride smoother. The Stagecoach quickly became  an early form of public transportation. It stopped at many various places to  pick up and drop off passengers much like today’s buses. This was one of the  main ways to get somewhere that wasn’t along the well-traveled mail routes.



The  wagon and the wagonette are in a way opposite of each other. The Wagonette is a  lightweight carriage led by two horses. It was useful in the country because it  could carry large amounts of passengers with little effort to the horses. The  Waggon was a heavier carriage. It was used in the countryside for carrying heavy  loads of goods and people who didn’t have the money to travel fast and  luxurious. The van was a lot like the Wagonette and the Waggon because it was a  smaller and lighter version of them. It was covered over and used mostly for  moving goods and once in a while people. The Rockaway, yet another passenger  carriage, could be either closed or open. It was mostly used in the country  because of the difficulty for the low sitting coachman to drive in the crowded  streets of the city. In 1826, the Abbott and Downing Company, located in  Concord, N.H. invented the
Concord Coach. This coach became the most popular  carriage made in that time period. The speed limit for carriages and wagons was  8 miles an hour.



The railroads were also a big part of transportation back then. Even  though Deerfield did not have a railroad line, people still took the train. The  station closest to Deerfield was 8-10 miles away, located in either Candia or  
Raymond. Trains were the easier, faster, and more comfortable way of getting  places. People often used trains when they were traveling long distances, only  because instead of sitting on the hard wooden bench of a wagon, you got to sit  on a soft comfortable seat of a train. Some of the main railroads stations were  in Manchester, Nashua, Exeter, Dover, and Portsmouth.  By the late 1890s, transportation was becoming more modern. Horsedrawn  carriages, or streetcars, were being replaced by electric trolley cars. The  first automobiles came shortly after, but were having a hard time traveling on  roads built for horsedrawn carriages. As the automobile became more popular, the  roads improved and the highway system was expanded.  The first airplane flew over New Hampshire skies in 1911 on a nonstop  flight from Waltham Mass. to Laconia. The first airport was built in 1927 in  Manchester with passenger flights becoming more in demand around 1933.  

Today’s transportation would have been easier for Joseph H. Thompson to  get around. Due to his injuries from the war, driving a wagon and keeping the  horses in control would have been tough to do with one hand and a lame hip. Just  trying to climb up on a horse let alone a carriage would have been difficult  enough. With the invention of automatic transmissions, only one hand is needed  to drive and no hips.  

In conclusion, while our means of transportation have changed  drastically, our needs haven’t changed that much from what they used to be in  the late 1800s. We still have needs of traveling long distances quickly and  transporting goods and products safely and efficiently. Public transportation  today is more available then it used to be, but still it is mostly used in the  cities. As our population grows, more efficient and quicker ways of travel will  be needed and developed.

http://www.literary-liaisons.com/article033.html_
  
http://www.nhptv.org/kn/itv/ournh/ournhtg9.htm_
  
http://www.littletongov.org/history/othertopics/transportation.asp_
  
Stories of Old Deerfield  by Ruth Tilton Houghton

The Book of Knowledge :  Deluxe Home Edition Encyclopedia 1992

            Have you ever heard the saying “if you don’t eat your fruits and vegetables you won’t grow up to be big and strong”? Well as hard to believe as it is, it’s actually true! And I will tell you more about it if you read further in my essay. In This essay I will answer many questions including, why where men so short in the 1860’s? What is malnutrition? And what was a general diet of a man in the civil war back in the 1860’s? The answer to these questions and more information about the topics appear in the order they are listed. I hope you enjoy my essay!  

            Now to answer the question why were men so short in the 1860’s. It’s actually a fairly simple answer, PEM or Protein Energy Malnutrition, and it wasn’t just men who where short, it was women too. The reason they were short was because when they were infants or young children they didn’t get the right vitamins or minerals that they needed so they got PEM (malnutrition). There are different types of malnutrition, for example Scurvy. Scurvy is a type of malnutrition that is caused by lack of vitamin C. It makes your hair very brittle and gives you soars all over your body. It can be fatal. But that is just one example of a type of Malnutrition, there are many types.

             What exactly is Malnutrition you ask? Well I’ll tell you. PEM was first discovered in the 1920’s. There are two different forms of PEM, they include kwashiorkor and Marasmus. Children affected by PEM have an effect on growth and development. The most common micro nutrition and clinically significant deficiencies in children and childbearing women throughout the world include deficiencies of iron, iodine, folate, vitamin D, and Vitamin A. These deficiencies remain a significant cause of morbidity in developing countries. PEM affects almost every organ system in the body. Micronutrients are essential in many metabolic functions in the body as components and confactors in enzymatic processes. Besides impairment of growth and cognitive and other physiologic functions, immune response changes occur early in the course of PEM in children. These changes mimic changes in children with AIDS.  

             In the United States less than one percent of children have chronic Malnutrition, but studies show that poor growth occurs in as many as ten percent of children in rural areas. One forth of hospitalized children have some form of PEM and twenty seven percent have chronic PEM.             

            The adverse effects of Malnutrition include Physical and developmental manifestation, bad weight gain, and slowing of linear growth occur. Behavior changes include, irritability, apathy decreased social responsiveness, anxiety and attention deficits. Infants demonstrate developmental delay and deficit depends on the severity and duration of nutritional compromise and the age at which Malnutrition occurs.  

            Deaths from PEM in the United States are rare, but in developing countries approximately fifty percent of the ten million deaths each year are secondary to malnutrition in children younger than five. Children are most vulnerable to the effects of malnutrition in infancy and early childhood. Physical findings associated with PEM include decreased tissue, the most affected areas are the legs, the arms, the buttocks, and the face. Skin changes include dry peeling skin with exposed areas, hyper pigmented plaques over areas of trauma. It also causes hair changes that include thin brittle hair that is easily pulled out, and hair turns a reddish color. The most common cause of Malnutrition is inadequate food intake.  

            Now to answer the question, what was a general diet of a man during the Civil War in the 1860&#