There was not a sick or wounded man left by the Confederates, nor stores of any kind. Some ammuniion had been blown up -- not removed -- but the trophies of war were a few Quaker guns, logs of about the diameter of ordinary cannon, mounted on wheels of wagons and pointed in the most threatening manner towards us.
Ulysses S. Grant, from his memoirs
Indeed. Here's an explanation:
http://www.picturehistory.com/find/p/8599/mcms.htmlP.S.--On the off chance that we have some readers who don't know this, Quakers are steadfastly peaceable. Thus the irony of the term.
and another picture:
http://www.civil-war.net/cw_images/files/images/059.jpgpictures from the Civil War just seem so alien.
Well, relatively modern. Interesting to think that WW II is almost as far away from us as the Civil War was to people at the start of WW II.
Anyway! The English had entire fake airfields that were used to draw enemy bombs away from the better-camouflaged real aerodromes., NOt an exact analogy of course since the Quaker guns were to deter attach.
The use of decoy munitions must be common in war; what interested me especially was the term, which sounds so much of those times: religious sects sprang up in 19th C. US like watermelon in the summertime.
[edit: someone is bound to write that the Quakers predate the 19th C., and if they do, I'll have to give it to them, as I don't know, myself. I vouch only for the accuracy of the account of my experience reading the term.]
Forgot to say, yesterday, insel--it's lovely to see you back here. [hug]
Just a "friendly" word on Quakers (har har): they were founded in England in the mid 1600s by George Fox.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REquakers.htm
Alex,
Thanks.
Then the question is when the movement took hold in the US (probably early on, I suspect) and what sort of Quaker 'activism' there may have been with respect to the Civil War. Also, presuming that: a) they were against hostilities, and b) they were abolishonists, how they reconciled these positions. All such questions arise from speculation, on my part. Civil War studies is a whole new world to me, and, at the moment, a quick foray from other pursuits. But the fact that decoys were named fo them suggests they were a movement with some heft to it. I guess I'll see if I can find a 'etymology' for the term when I get home tonight.
Jackie:
Hugs back, sweetness.
Then the question is when the movement took hold in the US (probably early on, I suspect) and what sort of Quaker 'activism' there may have been with respect to the Civil War. I'm not sure that you would describe the movement as "catching on in the U.S." since the state of Pennsylvania was founded by (and named after) the Quaker William Penn. So in that respect the nation was born with a very large Quaker constituency. Quakers were and are opposed to violence and the term "Quaker guns" no doubt was used as a bit of irony. You are correct that their opposition to slavery put the Quakers into a delimma when it came to taking up arms against slavery. Many of them were conscientious objectors. President Lincoln wrote a Quaker in 1863
"Your people—the Friends—have had and are having a very great trial. On principle, and faith, opposed to both war and oppression, they can only practically oppose oppression by war. In this hard dilemma some have chosen one horn and some the other. For those appealing to me on conscientious grounds, I have done, and shall do, the best I could and can, in my own conscience, under my oath to the law. That you believe this, I doubt not; and, believing it, I shall still receive, for our country and myself, your earnest prayers to our Father in Heaven.see
http://www2.gol.com/users/quakers/abraham_lincoln.htm
Thanks for the info, Alex. Very interesting. Sweet Quakers.
Welcome back, Rock Island.
how they reconciled these positions
One shouldn't have to kill people to convince them they're wrong.
>One shouldn't have to kill people to convince them they're wrong.
On the other hand the recidivism rate drops immediately to zero.
Quakers got a bad name not so long ago: Richard Nixon was one.
Funnily enough, I first heard of Quaker guns when Sandra and I were doing a tour of several Civil War battlefields in 2001.
They used Quaker guns at Sharpsburg/Antietam. The Japanese-American ranger there showed us where the Confederates positioned them to deter a flank attack. They were, apparently, made on the spot and were really crude. It's not in any of the official histories and he got the information from some source he was holding close to his chest! He was doing his PhD on the battle.
Sharpsburg is the spookiest of the Civil War battlefields that we went to. It was, hands down, the bloodiest single day's action in the war.
It's one of the easiest on which to visualise the action. It may have been because we had such a good guide, but.
How many fell at Sharpsburg as compared with the number who fell at Pickett's charge? I don't have either of these figures at hand at the moment. Just curious, really.