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Team USA 4.5
So a vey close run thing across
the board, militarily John & Mike achieved exactly the same ratings as each
other, both reached Corps Commander level, both demonstrated adept handling of
their troops in the field and despite the greater number of battlefield
victories going to John, Mike’s strategic planning and year on year positioning
kept him at the top of the game. It was Mike’s contribution to the plethora of
(fake & real) news pushed his CP levels forwards. Despite John’s eye for a
glorious victory (or defeat) being the leader of the winning side gave Mike the
extra CP to clinch overall victory in the campaign.
Honourable mentions to Paul, the South’s Press machine, constant input to the campaign in this area pushed up his CP ratings and his tactical insights to John & Dave helped the Rebels make a real fight for the title.
Mark and Dave all contributed to (fake) news and again developed the personality of their characters well adding to their CPS. Militarily all fur reached Divisional Commander level, no mean feat!
Thanks to go o Rupert and Phil for their participation, sadly they maybe did not reach their full potentials due to outside factors – such as finding something better to do!
As a final snippet Postscript to the campaign it might be worth reporting on the fates of the main participants in this terrible brother against brother war. Whist researching for this campaign I came across a document in the Smithsonian Online Museum which detailed the lives of some of the key characters in this campaign, telling the story of their lives after the war and what befell them and their families.
Paul de Krackere was indeed offered and accepted the Military Governorship of Tennessee, a position that he took up in May 1865. De Krakere worked hard to build a fair and honest post bellum society in the state and was recognised by many former adversaries as a true humanitarian and philanthropist.
De Krackere served in this role for a year, helping to steer Tennessee, to a position where it could rejoin the Union with pride, a step that it took in July 1866.
On completing this role, de Krackere resigned his commission and returned to his businesses in Iowa, where he took up the chairmanship of de Krackere Enterprises (known as dKE) and steered the company to further success.
dKE became one of the main suppliers to the US Army during the 1870s & 1880s, as well as pioneering the use of Chinese labour to build the new Railroad lines that radiated out of Iowa to bring dKE markets closed to its manufacturing base.
De Krackere, passed away quietly in his sleep in August 1900, having reached the age of 83. His business empire was left to a nephew who managed the enterprise to a satisfactory level until the outbreak of WWI in 1917 [it America guys!!] when he sold the armaments business to pay off family debts.
Today all that remains of dKE is the small town of Krackereville in south east Iowa.
Gen. John Henry de Lamar Clayton
John Henry returned from the war and took up his role as a lawyer in small town Georgia, however, the hum drum life after the events of the last few years and his notoriety as a famed Confederate leader drove him to move on.
JH began work on his great Autobiography “Me and General Lee” in 1868 and he took nearly three years to complete it, during which time he struggled to document all the events as they happened.
Gen. Lee died in 1870, after which time JH knuckled down to finish his book, detractors say that he was thus freed from the chains of the truth, nevertheless it is clear he was an important part in General Lee’s success on the field of battle…
… JH stood for Governor of Georgia in 1875 and was narrowly voted in, four years later he was re-elected with a much larger majority.
In older years JH suffered from an old war wound which lead to him setting up a comfy cushion business business, some say this was funded by dKE, however funded – it was a success and polite Georgia Society revelled in the use of decorative Scatter cushions throughout the late 1890s.
JH married a number of times, with several children, he died in 1897, and was buried beside his faithful servant Frederick Johnson
Gen Hugh I.E. Green
After his near death experience at
Petersburg, Hugh I.E. Green returned to the church in Virginia and lead an
evangelistic movement to bring the true meaning of love of God to the masses. He
teamed up with his half brother – the Reverend Al – to form the ‘Church of
Brotherly Love’.
Whilst Al took the lead in spiritual and musical matters, Hugh was more concerned with the well being of their flock, setting up a number of homes for orphaned waifs and strays around Richmond.
Ironically for one with such forthright views on the supremacy of the south and the interpretation of the true word of God, his bang on the head at Petersburg seems to have turned his life around.
He died in 1898, leaving all his worldly good to the church and denying to the end the stories that he was the father of a large number of illegitimate children throughout the state…..
Gen. John
Holt-Oglethorpe
Having
served in European Armies prior to the outbreak of war in America, John
Holt-Oglethorpe returned to military service in the service of the Austrian
Empire, capitalising on his now near fluent grasp of the German language in the
military context.
1866 saw him participating in the Austro-Prussia War, leading a Brigade of Austrian Landwehr in the famous defence of the village of Sadowa, during the Battle of Königgrätz. Three years later he was serving n Krivošije before leaving Austrian employment and joining their erstwhile allies in the Bavarian Army.
It was whilst in the Bavarian Army, that Holt-Ogle-Thorpe once again attained Divisional rank, fighting against the French in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/1.
He finally saw out his years in military serve in Spain, serving in the tail end of the Third Carlist War, after being force to leave Bavarian service when their Prussian overlords realised that he’d served for the Austrians against them in earlier years.
In his retirement Holt-Oglethorpe, lived with his Austrian wife in his home state of Vermont, providing military consultancy to those who were willing to pay and as the years passed he spent more and more time re-enacting his earlier exploits to his bemused family. He died in 1900, after falling from a horse dressed as a Bavarian Ulhan.
Gen. Roscoe P. Coltrane
Following the end of the war,
Roscoe P. Coltrane returned to his native Mississippi and the small town that
he’d left behind four years previously. He was soon a big fish in a small pond
and found himself elected to be Town Mayor and Head of Police.
Roscoe struggled with the complexities of post bellum southern politics and the rise of pro Confederacy vigilante gangs, as Town Mayor he was reporting to the Federal Military Governor of Mississippi Adelbert Ames, a young 30 year old war Yankee war hero, that Coltrane despised for his good looks and youth.
At the first chance he stepped aside form the town Mayor role and concentrated on his first love – wearing a ridiculously fancy uniform and parading himself as head of the Police Department. He then spent three years ignoring the rise of the Confederate vigilantes until Mississippi was restored to the Union and he relaunched his political career.
Coltrane was elected to the State Senate in 1870 but his political career never went any further. He settled back to his role as Police Chief in a small Mississippi town and spent the rest of his days fishing and ignoring as much local crime as possible and avoiding his wife Lulu Belle Coltrane even more effectively..
Gen. Nathaniel
Starbuck
Following
the cessation of hostilities, Nathaniel Starbuck returned to New York, he spent
a number of years flitting from job to job before taking up a role as a Coffee
purchaser for a large Department Store.
In the late 1870s he travelled extensively in South America building u business contacts and relationships with Coffee Suppliers and establishing himself as the leading authority on Coffee in New York.
After falling out with his employees, Starbuck set-up his own Coffee House in lower Manhattan and using his knowledge of and contacts within the business developed a successful Coffee House franchise business that runs to this day, some of you may even have heard of them…
Gen. Nathaniel
Banks
On his
return to Massachusetts, Banks immediately ran for Congress, where he prevailed
easily at the state convention and in the general election, partially by wooing
Radical voters by proclaiming support for Negro suffrage. He served from 1865
to 1873, loosing his seat after falling out of favour with the party.
Seeking a revival of his political fortunes, in 1873 Banks ran successfully for the Massachusetts Senate, supported by a coalition of Liberal Republicans, Democrats, and Labour Reform groups. He again fell out of favour due to financial irregularities but in 1888, he once again won a seat in Congress. Sadly Banks did not have much influence, because his mental health was failing.
After one term he was not renominated, and retired to Waltham, Massachusetts. His health continued to deteriorate, and he was briefly sent to McLean Hospital shortly before his death, aged 78 years, in Waltham in1894. His death made nationwide headlines.
Gen Ronald ‘Trump’
Clayton
When General ‘Trump’ Clayton was
shot in the head at Petersburg in February 1865, his life changed forever. In
the heat if battle he had been left for dead and missed by his comrades in the
advance on and retreat from Fort Gregg.
It was two days later that his limp but still clearly life filled body was found by a Union Burial Party, he was taken to a field hospital and treated once there was no-one else left to treat.
He was make of strong stock, the doctors were stunned to find that the bullet had passed through his forehead and exited to the rear of his skull and missed all vital organs!
After months of careful treatment ‘Trump’ Clayton was discharged form hospital and sent home to Georgia. On the down side ‘Trump’ had no idea of who he was, why he was in Georgia or who the man that kept telling him he was his brother.
Eventually ‘Trump’ was provided with a pension and a small farm to live out the rest of his life, he died in 1879 but not after raising a young family with a former slave girl named Sally.
He never remembered who he really was, calling himself Ronnie Sallyman until his dying day.
Gen Jack D. Ripper
After the defeat at Petersburg and
the surrender at Appomattox, General Ripper disappeared from view. None of his
former comrades in arms had any insights as to what his post bellum activities involved.
In early 1885, there were reports from two former troopers in O’Shea’s brigade that they had seen him in a seedy bar in New York City, he stood out in the crowd due to his fine closes, top hat and fashionable cloak.
There was another alleged sighting of him in July 1888, again in New York, where this time a former New York Infantryman who’d seen him during the war as he lead a raid on supply depots, swore on oath that he’d recognised him as a man boarding a passenger vessel heading for London, England.
Again the description was that of a well dressed and fashionable gentleman in top hat and cloak to protect him from the inclement weather.
Maybe no-one will ever know what became of Jack D. Ripper once he reached London.
Huw
Carnaby Wright.
Huw Carbaby Wright returned to the United Kingdom at took up a post as Senior Foreign Editor with the Times newspaper. From there he went on to report on Royal and Court matters where he became involved in a scandle in 1886.
Huw had been reporting on Queen Victoria’s visit to Balmoral that summer when he became involved in a liaison with one of the Queen’s Ladies in Waiting – Lady Florence Westgate – their trysts were discovered and Huw was banished from court.
Huw lost his position at the Times and fell into the depths of despair, luckily for him, his wife Matilda, stood by him and she developed her seamstress skills to an extent that they were able to set-up a small cloths shop off Oxford Street in London.
Huw’s flair for fashion helped the business succeed and this attracted other cloths makers to the area to capitalise on their success. Huw & Matilda died in 1893 in a shop fire, as a mark of respect the road in which their shop stood was renamed after them
Hardy
Kenwright
Hardy Kenwright stayed in the United States after the war, his name had become synonymous with accurate, hard hitting reporting.
He accepted a job with William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper organisation first at the San Franciso Examiner and later at the New York Morning Journal.
Hardy well out with Hearst in the 1880s when Hearst’s politics transformed him from a Democrat to a Republican, Kenwright maintained his Democrat credentials and moved to a small regional paper in Chicago, Illinois where he saw out his career.
He married later in life and had twelve children before passing away at a grand old age in 1915.
Hugh R.
Lying.
The story of Hugh R. Lying is a sad tale, having been captured by rebel horsemen during the way he was subjected to poor treatment by his captors.
On the night of his detainment he was beaten and blindfolded by swarthy rebel troopers, after being thrown into a communal pen without food or water, it seems that after some days his captors realised he was a journalist and changed their approach.
He then endured weeks of being plied with whiskey and what passed for good food in the resource stared South, and being pressed to write pro Southern articles for his northern paymasters. Hugh steadfastly refused to collaborate with the Southerners so he was ‘given’ to General Coltrane – a Mississippi hothead, to keep securely detained.
It seems that whilst under Coltrane’s watch, Hugh was tortured and subjected to untold horrors during nightly visit’s by one of the Rebel’s most notorious jailers – one Lulu ‘Trixie’ Belle.
After the war High was released but could not hold down a steady job, suffering from ‘night sweats’ and ‘fevers’. He withdrew into a word of alcohol and depression and disappeared at the age of 31 years in 1871, having booked into a seedy hotel room in Abeline, Texas.
Robert Hope
Robert ‘Bob’ Hope was one of the most notorious Southern leaning journalists of eth whole war period, with his articles adorning the ‘Banner of the South’ paper on numerous occasions.
Unable, or unwilling to continue in journalism, Hope started writing short novels and contributing to the famous ‘Dime Novels’ of eth 1870s and 1880s.
He had a number of successful titles published, including ‘Danny Northfield’, ‘The Pittsburg Papers’ and ‘Our favourite Friend’. All of these were written under a pseudonym.
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