An unusually civil armistice in the most punishing conflict ever fought on American soil. One hundred and fifty years ago, on April 9, 1865, a lone Confederate horseman violently waving a white towel as a flag of truce galloped up to the men of the 118th Pennsylvania Infantry near Appomattox Court House and asked for[…]
The loudest booms people had ever heard and the powerful stench of death on a staggering scale. In rhetoric and substance, wars are generally fought for ideals that are noble, dignified, and lofty. Leaders justify waging war—and endeavor to inspire those who fight them—by appealing to powerful abstractions: liberty, self-determination, and national identity. In turn,[…]
The Harriet Lane engaging in a battery at Pig’s Point By Sara Hale My Grandfather’s account of the escape of the Harriet Lane through the Union blockade of Galveston. The letter is addressed to “Friend Phillips” the then editor of the North AdamsTranscript, North Adams, Massachusetts. On board U. S. Steam Sloop “Lackawanna” Off Galveston,[…]
Alena Kuzmina/Shutterstock.com Christmas tends to assume a strong sense of its own significance in times of protracted conflict. By Dr. David Anderson / 12.22.2016 Senior Lecturer in American History Swansea University Shortly before Christmas Day 1864, Abraham Lincoln received an extraordinary Christmas present – Savannah, Georgia. Union General William Sherman presented the captured city to the president[…]
A One Hundred Dollar Confederate States of America banknote dated December 22, 1862. Issued during the American Civil War (1861–1865) / Wikimedia Commons What was the economic impact of the Civil War on American life? By Dr. Burton W. Folsom / 03.23.2011 Senior Fellow in Economic Education Mackinac Center for Public Policy Even after 150[…]
The Hunley submarine / Wikimedia Commons War makes governments willing to try nearly anything, no matter how insane it sounds. By Francis Horton / 05.17.2017 If there is anything that drives innovation in science and technology, it’s a good old-fashioned war. When you need to kill your enemies faster and deader than they kill you,[…]
Looking at at a group of white slaveholders who adopted Southeast Indian boys (Choctaw, Creek, and Chickasaw) into their plantation households in the decades following the US Revolution. By Dr. Dawn Peterson / 09.14.2017 Assistant Professor of Early North American and U.S. History Emory University In 1811 a prominent Choctawwoman named Molly McDonald placed her eleven-year-old son[…]
She took the international abolitionist stage during the Civil War. By Adam McNeil / 07.13.2018 PhD Student in Black Women’s Intellectual and Political History University of Delaware The meaning of the American Civil War has been, and still is, one of the most contentious issues facing the United States today. An aspect of the war that seems[…]
Wedding photograph of Jefferson Davis and Varina Howell, 1845 / New York Public Library By Kimberly J. Largent Editor Charge the Cannons Publishing The Early Years The Briars in Natchez, Mississippi, birthplace of Varina Anne Banks Howell Davis in 1826 / Library of Congress Varina Anne Banks Howell Davis was born to William Burr Howell and[…]
American Civil War Museum By Kimberly J. Largent Editor Charge the Cannons Publishing Growing Up at Arlington Mary Custis Lee, great-granddaughter of First Lady Martha Washington, has been often portrayed in a negative light wherever her name appears in the annals. It is written that her debilitating arthritis turned her into a constant complainer and that[…]
Freedmen voting in New Orleans, 1867 / Library of Congress By Dr. Allen Carl Guelzo / 02.04.2018 Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Director of Civil War Era Studies Gettysburg College There is no Society for Historians of Reconstruction. That should tell you something. There are also no Reconstruction re-enactments, and no museums[…]
The Confederates marched on Gettysburg on account of their need for … shoes. By Dr. Catherine L. Thompson and Declan Cronin / 06.24.2018 Thompson: Visiting Assistant Professor of History Cronin: 4th-Year Student College of the Holy Cross On the eve of the 155th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, does anyone remember why it[…]
A group of Mosby’s Rangers (Mosby center) By Robert Naranjo In the pre-dawn hours of August 13, 1864 part of the 525-wagon convoy carrying supplies to Sheridan’s army stationed near Winchester, Virginia came to a rest stop near Berryville. Unnoticed by the guards, several gray-clad figures converged upon two Union cannons. Moments later Mosby’s Rangers[…]
General Ulysses S. Grant / Library of Congress By Scott Laidig Senior Fellow Potomac Institute for Policy Studies The Civil War has been alternatively described as the last of the Napoleonic Wars or the first of the modern wars.[1] Clearly it was a transitional war and one man, more than any other, can be credited[…]
By Kimberly J. Largent Editor Charge the Cannons Publishing The Early Years Mary Todd Lincoln, the most criticized and misunderstood first lady, experienced more than her share of tragedy during her lifetime. From the time she was six, her life took a melancholy turn from which she never recovered. She suffered from depressive episodes and migraine[…]
Anderson Prison (Camp Sumter) / Wikimedia Commons By Jerry Staub INTRODUCTION General William Tecumseh Sherman as a major general in May 1865. The black ribbon of mourning on his left arm is for U.S. President Lincoln. Portrait by Mathew Brady. / Wikimedia Commons In April 1864, Sherman embarked on his mission to strike at the heart of[…]
Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 03.20.2018 Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief 1 – Breakdown of Sectional Balance 1.1 – The Fugitive Slave Act 1.1.1 – Overview The Fugitive Slave Act was passed by Congress as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave interests and the Northern Free Soil movement. The Fugitive Slave Act was[…]
Compiled by Jenny Goellnitz An Introduction to Civil War Medicine During the 1860s, doctors had yet to develop bacteriology and were generally ignorant of the causes of disease. Generally, Civil War doctors underwent two years of medical school, though some pursued more education. Medicine in the United States was woefully behind Europe. Harvard Medical School[…]
By Dr. Walter G. Moss / 12.11.2016 Professer Emeritus of History Eastern Michigan University A half century after the assassinations of MLK and RFK, we need their visions. In the age of Trump, who offers us no more than his empty “Make America Great Again,” massive tax cuts for corporations and rich people, an Environmental Protection Agency[…]
By Kimberly J. Largent Editor Charge the Cannons Publishing It is reported that upon being introduced to Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862, Abraham Lincoln fondly commented she was “the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.” Although President Lincoln’s comment was certainly made in jest, in truth, Stowe’s novel was indeed instrumental[…]
Martin Luther King in Newcastle, 1967. Newcastle University Special Collections By Dr. Brian Ward / 10.20.2017 Professor in American Studies Northumbria University, Newcastle While controversy about the removal of Confederate memorials in the US rumbles on, in the north-east of England, plans to honour one of the US South’s most famous sons are coming to fruition. Freedom City[…]
A cannon at sunset in Gettysburg / Photo by Nicolas Raymond, Flickr, Creative Commons By Kimberly J. Largent Editor Charge the Cannons Publishing If you recently visited Gettysburg and had a difficult time finding the location of the Gettysburg Shoe Factory on your battlefield map, or you wondered what the Yanks and Rebs talked about[…]