The Most Insane Facts About The American Civil War That You May Not Know

The school history books that you learned for over a decade may not contain most of the interesting facts of the American Civil War. Gertrude Stein said it best: "There will never be anything more interesting in America than Civil War." The renewed interest in celebrating anniversaries of the war's key events, which attract people from far away destinations, would go a long way in unveiling at least some of the most insane facts about the civil war.

Here are some other noteworthy facts and people of the civil war.

• In the 1^st Civil War, one-third of the soldiers in the Union Army were immigrants, including African American, Germans, Irish, Scottish and English. One in four army regiments had a majority of foreigners and some scholars believe that the induction of these soldiers had a role in changing the fate of the war.
• Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate general was thought to be a hypochondriac. Even when his hand got wounded by a bullet during the First Battle of Bull Run, he kept his arm raised so that the blood might flow into his body. He avoided pepper in his food as he had a strange notion that it made his left leg weak. He was most comfortable in an upright standing posture so that all of his organs were aligned "naturally." He tried to cure his poor eyesight by keeping his head dipped into a basin of cold water with eyes open!
• Lincoln was shot at nearly two years before he was assassinated in Aug.1863 when he was riding a horse alone to his family's summer residence. The gunshot, which had gone off at the foot of the hill, scared the horse, which galloped so fast that it knocked off Lincoln's hat, which took the gun shot right through it. The president asked the guards to keep it a secret as he didn't want to upset his family.