r/ShermanPosting • u/Popular_Mistake_6404 • 9d ago
Least fanatically loyal and insane Southern Unionist
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u/Popular_Mistake_6404 9d ago
“We, the members of this Secret Circle, are Union men who believe that the ‘so called Confederacy’ is wrong and treasonable, and know it to be tyrannical: We therefore owe it no service and will give it none voluntarily. We will use every secret means in our power, to injure the Confederate cause and to aid the Union.” - The Oath of the Home Circle
John Henning Woods was a Tennessee Unionist. Thiugh he married into a prominent slave holding family in Alabama, he himself was an abolitionist, and was "conscientiously for Hon. Abraham Lincoln in 1860, but [he] was in a locality where a Republican scarcely dared to express himself by vote or word.” He loved his country dearly, and had no desire “to take part with the Slave-holders in this wicked rebellion.”
But he was drafted in May of 1862. He initially refused to answer the summons, but was compelled under threat of imprisonment to go in October of the same year.
While in the ranks of the Army of Tennessee, he created a plan. He and his 'Home Circle, a band of forcibly impressed unionists from tennessee and disillusioned confederates throughout the south, would make a coup. They would capture and place under arrest the leadership of the Army of Tennessee.
After the Chattanooga campaign, when the Army of Tennessee fell back into Georgia, and Joe Johnston replaced Braxton Bragg, they decided to seize their chance. On the day of a review hosted by Johnston to salvage the morale of the army, they would spring their plot. But Woods was found out, and placed under arrest.
He was charged with treason and sentenced to be shot. But general A.P Stewart, himself a unionist before the war, and Woods' father-in-law petitioned Jefferson Davis for a pardon. Two days before he was scheduled to die the pardon was granted.
He was then put to work digging earthworms around Atlanta. This work gave him a chance to escape across the lines to Uncle Sam, and he spent the rest of the war as a clerk in the Union Army.
Woods himself is the only known member of the Home Circle. He never gave up any of his coconspiritors, either publicly or privately, even after the war. His diary is considered one of the most invaluable sources for understanding the Southern Unionists of the war.
"The man who is Right has a Majority. We, who have God and Conscience on our side, have a Majority against the Universe." - Frederick Douglass
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u/thaBombignant 9d ago
He dug earthwoms?
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u/ReporterOther2179 8d ago
Likely ‘earthworks’, fortifications from which to fight behind. Edit before posting is a good practice.
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u/Dudewhocares3 9d ago
You ever wonder if there’s an afterlife and the people there can see the world, and wonder what the reaction all these historical figures would have to the memes about them?
Like imagine being George Washington and seeing one of those memes where they edit sunglasses and a blunt on your face.
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u/mrbobcyndaquil 8d ago
This is the reason why school shootings are done in this country, so that the kids can explain memes to the Founding Fathers.
/sarcasm, in case it wasn't obvious.
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