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"A fire, supposed to be occasioned by the enemy's shells": Curious reporting about the Christmas Day bombardment

“A fire, supposed to be occasioned by the enemy’s shells”: Curious reporting about the Christmas Day bombardment

In a report dated January 1, 1864, Colonel Alfred Rhett, 1st South Carolina Artillery and commander of the 5th Military District of South Carolina (basically, the city of Charleston itself, minus the harbor and coast defenses), reported:

On the morning of the 25th [of December], at 12.30 a.m., the enemy commenced to shell the city, firing briskly.  This shelling continued up to 1 p.m. of the same…

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J'ai réalisé une étude du visage de PGT Beauregard. En effet, je dessine des portraits de certaines personnes historiques pour ensuite mémoriser les traits de leur visage et les dessiner de mémoire et comme je le souhaite !

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The nineteenth century was wild! I can't imagine what it must have been like, living before modern sanitation and health care.

An Example:

This rakish mf'er is General Charles Ferguson Smith (1807-1862). He graduated from West Point in 1825, and thirteen years later came back to serve as Commandant of Cadets, a post he held from 1838-1843. Officers he taught at West Point included:

Three Generals in Chief of all Union armies (U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, and Henry W. Halleck), two Union Chiefs of Artillery (William F. Barry and Henry Hunt), and the Union's Chief Engineer (Joh Newton)

The commanding generals on both sides of the First Battle of Bull Run (PGT Beauregard and Irvin Mcdowell), five other Union army commanders (George Thomas, Don Carlos Buell, John Pope, William Rosecrans, and Edward Canby), and one Confederate army commander (Earl Van Dorn)

The Confederacy's Chief Engineer (Jeremy Gilmer), Quartermaster General (Alexander Lawton), and Chief of Ordnance (Josiah Gorgas)

Eight Confederate corps commanders (James Longstreet, Richard S. Ewell, Gustavus W. Smith, A. P. Stewart, "Fighting Dick" Anderson, William Hardee, who also wrote the book on infantry tactics that both armies used to train during the first few years of the war, Edward "Allegheny" Johnson, and Carter L. Stevenson)

Seven Union corps commanders (Horatio Wright, James Ricketts, William B. Franklin, John Reynolds, George Sykes, Nathaniel Lyons, and the mathematical prodigy EOC Ord who, before the War also surveyed Los Angeles and Sacramento)

Eleven Union division commanders (Isaac Stevens, William Hays, Albion P. Howe, Israel "Fighting Dick" Richardson [yes, there were two "fighting Dicks" in the Civil war and one wasn't even named Dick] Abner Doubleday, Christopher Augur, Isaac Quinby, William T. H. Brooks, John Peck, George Getty, and the amazingly named Zealous B. Tower)

Eight Confederate division commanders (Lafayette McLaws, Franklin Gardner, John P. McCown, D. H. Hill, James Martin, Abraham Buford, Mansfield Lovell, and Bushrod Johnson)

He then served in the Mexican-American war as commander of an artillery battalion, and was placed in charge of policing Mexico City during the occupation.

When the Civil War came around, he was one of the four officers who Winfield Scott suggested would be suitable to command all Union Armies - and the only one who stayed loyal to the flag. The other three were Albert Sidney Johnston (who died commanding the Confederate Army at Shiloh), Joseph E. Johnston (who commanded several armies for the Confederacy) and a dude named Robert E. Lee.

He wasn't offered overall command, but instead was sent out west to command a division in the army of his former student, U.S. Grant. During the battle of Fort Donelson, Smith led a countercharge against a Confederate attack, screaming at his troops: "Come on, you damned volunteers, come on. You volunteered to be killed for love of country, and now you can be. You are only damned volunteers. I'm a soldier, and so don't want to be killed, but you all came to be killed and now you can be!"

All of that to say: this was a serious badass. So it was extra ridiculous when he died shortly before the battle of Shiloh: two weeks earlier he had skinned his shin jumping out of a boat. The scratch got infected and killed him. Nothing anyone could do.

Meanwhile several of his students got shot multiple times and lived. James Longstreet got shot in the fucking throat and lived. Richard Ewell lost a leg and then returned to duty and got shot again! James Ricketts got shot twice and had his horse fall on him.

Absolutely fucking wild.

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Wreck of CSS Hunley, a Civil War submarine, 1863

The CSS Hunley, also known as H. L. Hunley, was one of several submarines built by the Southern Navy during the American Civil War. She in particular was launched in 1863 and was the first submersible in wartime history to succeed in sinking an enemy ship.

On 17 February 1864, the Hunley attacked the USS Housatonic, which was part of a blockading fleet of the Northern Navy to seal off Fort Sumter and the port city of Charleston in South Carolina. The warship was sunk, but the Hunley did not return to its base either. It could not be raised until 136 years after its disappearance in 2000. The boat probably sank due to the shock wave caused by the explosion of its own torpedo.

The submarine was first named H. L. Hunley, but when it was raised for the fourth time, it was given the name CSS Hunley in honour of the inventor.

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assorted doodles and sketches i've accumulated over a little bit that i thought were worth posting... last slide is some redraws (which aren't rly my fav but meh) of old art

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À Saumur septembre 2024, France

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Nosferatu 2024 dir. Robert Eggers

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Artwork by Anato Finnstark.

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Voici quelques dessins à la con de moi-même en dragon, que j'ai retrouvé quelque part... dessins au digital et au crayon papier

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Au château de Pierrefonds

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first views inside notre dame

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I love vampires

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, 2012, dir. Timur Bekmambetov

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Sharon Tate in Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers

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Wounds of the Earth

— by xis.lanyx

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French 6th Dragoon Regiment, Crimean War 1854-1856