"But then, how many of them boys in blue even had a clue what they were fighting for"
Kieth,
In some respects you have a point here. Many of them signed up for the three year hitch just to get the bounty. It got so bad that they had to resort to caging them after they signed up to make sure that they got into the army and did not skip out. The other side of that coin is that many were eager to join after Ft. Sumter and Lincolns call for troops. I remember reading in the archives of the State Register, the Democrat paper here in Springfield how so many turned out after the call that they were lined up around the block of the State Capitol building to join. My Great Grandfather Alex who I have mentioned in posts before joined for three years but only took $25.00 of his $100.00 bounty because he had a wife and three kids at home and needed money for groceries for them. He did not think he would be gone that long. Was he surprised when he did not get back home for almost three and a half years. To touch on the thread that is going on this page about Ft. Moultrie, it is to bad that the attack on Sumter took place. I think up north there were as many folks who felt that we should let the South go their own way as did not want them to until that attack took place and that galvanized many in the north that this could not go unresponded to and after that, Lincoln had no trouble recruiting troops. Lincoln's hands were tied until that happened, in my opinion. FC