Wilson laid out the reasons
necessitating such a request.
First, he cited Germany’s violation of its pledge
to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic and the
Mediterranean. That pledge by Germany was broken many times over and throughout
February and March 1917 German submarines targeted and sunk several American
ships resulting in the loss of many American passengers and seamen.
Secondly, he cited Germany’s
attempts to entice Mexico into an alliance against the United States. These
actions, he stated, brought him to this point and his request that the U.S.
declare war and join other nations already fighting Germany.
On April 4, 1917, the U.S. Senate
voted in support of the measure to declare war. The House concurred two days
later. The official Declaration of War against Germany came April 6, 1917.
President Wilson had long been urged
by supporters of the war to enter the war and help our Allies actively. He had,
until April 1917, resisted that pressure. Why? The theories abound and perhaps
we will never know.
Although he was an educated man, with
many life experiences and with political insight by the time he had to finally
make a decision for his country, one possibility for the lengthy delay might
have been the long reach of memory.
As a young impressionable boy he had
lived through the American Civil War in Augusta, Georgia. He saw enthusiastic
young men marching off to war. He watched his community grieve as many returned
in pine coffins or maimed for life.
He saw wounded and dead soldiers
arrive at his father’s Presbyterian church which had been turned into a
hospital for the Confederate wounded and later as a Prisoner of War Camp for
Union prisoners of war. He watched daily as his mother struggled to adjust to
fears for her community and her Confederate Chaplain husband while living with
the shortages brought by war.
When speaking to his nation in 1917
he recalled his youth during the Civil War. To encourage Americans to accept
shortages, he spoke of his Mother and the many ways she compensated for the
shortages of that earlier war. He vividly remembered the lack of salt and the many times his family ate Cowpea Soup.
The long reach of memory was often
with him.
Read about young Tommy, an impressionable youth watching events swirl around him as the Civil War disrupted his daily life. Along the way you will meet his family, and his boyhood friends who astonishingly all grew up to play important parts in our nation's history. You will learn that this young boy, son of a preacher, and his friends formed a club and met in a horse barn under the emblem of the devil pinned on the wall. You will see the many ways the war affected his town and you will see Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee through his eyes.
The book is appropriate for upper middle grades through old age. There are several pages of family photos in the book. This is a revised version of Tommy: The Civil War Childhood of a President.
https://www.amazon.com/Tommy-Childhood-President-Woodrow-Learning/dp/1544163754/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1491233903&sr=1-1&keywords=Tommy+the+Civil+War+Childhood+of+President+Thomas+Woodrow+Wilson
