November 2011
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The Best Civil War Photos - Photo Gallery - LIFE →
nicosan1:
On October 2, 1862, President Lincoln met with General George McClellan, commander of the Union Army of the Potomac, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, to urge a stepped up attack on Robert E. Lee’s Southern soldiers.
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Frozen in Place: December 1861
President Lincoln addresses the State of the Union and grows impatient with General McClellan.
The month saw few battles, with no decisive advantage gained. A skirmish on Buffalo Mountain in western Virginia was typical. Union troops attacked a Confederate camp but withdrew after a morning’s fight—137 Union casualties, 146 Confederate.
Read more at Smithsonian.com.
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November 1861: Flare Ups in the Chain of Command
As Union generals came and left, personalities clashed and Southern farmers set fire to their fields.
On November 1, George B. McClellan assumed the role of general in chief of the Union armies, a post voluntarily vacated by the ailing 75-year-old Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott, who had been a target of McClellan’s barbs in the press. The promotion inflated McClellan’s already...
October 2011
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Scattered Actions: October 1861
While the generals on both sides deliberated, troops in blue and gray fidgeted.
A greater defeat awaited Union forces on the 21st. At Ball’s Bluff on the Potomac River, Union Col. Edward D. Baker, a friend of the president’s, led his soldiers in a charge up the cliff, only to be pushed back into the river, incurring 921 casualties, including himself, out of 1,700
Read more at...
August 2011
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September 1861: Settling in for a Long War
During September, the civil war expanded to Kentucky and West Virginia, and President Lincoln rejects an attempt at emancipation.
Five months into the Civil War—on September 9—Richmond, Virginia’s Daily Dispatch editorialized that the time for debate had passed. “Words are now of no avail: blood is more potent than rhetoric, more profound than logic.”
Read more at...
July 2011
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Music During the American Civil War
The musicians of the Union and Confederate armies provided strong memories of the homes left behind for the battlefield.
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Fort Monroe's Lasting Place in History
Famous for accepting escaped slaves during the Civil War, the Virginia base also has a history that heralds back to Jamestown.
…since Virginia had voted to secede, the Fugitive Slave Act no longer applied, and the slaves were contraband of war. Once word of Fort Monroe’s willingness to harbor escaped slaves spread, thousands flocked to the safety of its guns.
Read more at...
June 2011
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The Battle of Bull Run: The End of Illusions
Both North and South expected victory to be glorious and quick, but the first major battle signaled the long and deadly war to come.
Bull Run—or Manassas, as Southerners call it, preferring to name Civil War battles for towns instead of watercourses—was a fierce battle, but not huge compared with those to come later. Counts vary, but the Union lost about 460 men killed, 1,125 wounded and 1,310...
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Ask an Expert: What Did Abraham Lincoln's Voice...
Civil War scholar Harold Holzer helps to decode what spectators heard when the 16th president spoke.
“Lincoln’s voice, as far as period descriptions go, was a little shriller, a little high,” says Holzer [leading Lincoln scholar]. It would be a mistake to say that his voice was squeaky though…”
Read more at Smithsonian.com.
May 2011
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Women Spies of the Civil War
Hundreds of women served as spies during the Civil War. Here’s a look at six who risked their lives in daring and unexpected ways.
One of the most famous Confederate spies, Belle Boyd was born to a prominent slaveholding family near Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), in 1843. At the age of 17, she was arrested for shooting a Union soldier who had broken into her family’s...
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Documenting the Death of an Assassin
In 1865, a single photograph was taken during the autopsy of John Wilkes Booth. Where is it now?
The administration, led by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, ordered that a single photograph be taken of Booth’s corpse, says Bob Zeller, president of the Center for Civil War Photography. On April 27, 1865, many experts agree, famed Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner and his assistant...
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Elizabeth Van Lew: An Unlikely Union Spy
A member of the Richmond elite, one woman defied convention and the Confederacy and fed secrets to the Union during the Civil War.
One of the most effective was Union spy Elizabeth Van Lew—a prominent member of Richmond, Virginia, society. The 43-year-old lived with her widowed mother in a three-story mansion in the Confederate capital, but she fervently opposed slavery and secession, writing...
April 2011
7 posts
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The Best Facial Hair in the Civil War
Among the many officers who fought in the U.S. Civil War, who wore their beard, mustache, mutton chops or sideburns the best?
Vote for your favorite at Smithsonian.com.
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How We've Commemorated the Civil War
Take a look back at how Americans have remembered the civil war during significant anniversaries of the past.
By the time of the 25th anniversary of the war, the veterans of blue and gray were beginning the long process of reconciliation. In 1886, survivors of Confederate Maj. George E. Pickett’s division were welcomed to a reunion at Gettysburg with Union veterans of the battle from...
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The Essentials: Six Books on the Civil War
These six histories of the Civil War that are must-reads if you want to better understand the conflict.
The literature on the war is so vast you could spend a lifetime reading really good books about it. Here are five excellent ones:
Battle Cry of Freedom (1988), by James McPherson: Widely regarded as the most authoritative one-volume history of the war.
The Fiery Trial (2010), by Eric...
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Was Mary Surratt a Lincoln Conspirator?
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The American Civil War in 3D
The Library of Congress has published a special collection of 3D photographs commemorating the Civil War.
Read more at the Flickr blog.
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The Women Who Fought in the Civil War
Hundreds of women concealed their identities so they could battle alongside their Union and Confederate counterparts.
I think by all accounts, the women seemed honestly to want to fight in the war for the same reasons as men, so that would range from patriotism, to supporting their respective causes, for adventure, to be able to leave home, and to earn money. Some of the personal writings ...
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The Death of Colonel Ellsworth
The first Union officer killed in the Civil War was a friend of President Lincoln’s.
Ellsworth was a man with large military ambitions, but his meteoric fame came in a way he could not have hoped for: posthumously. At the age of 24, as commander of the 11th New York Volunteers, also known as the First Fire Zouaves, Ellsworth became the first Union officer killed in the war.
Read more...
March 2011
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Atlanta History Center: AHC Acquires Rare Civil... →
atlantahistorycenter:
A lot of people ask us why we don’t have more artifacts used by African American soldiers in our Civil War exhibit, Turning Point: The American Civil War. Well, the truth is that African American troops used the same equipment as white troops, and we can’t really tell the difference unless a…
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Fort Sumter: The Civil War Begins
Nearly a century of discord between North and South finally exploded in April 1861 with the bombardment of Fort Sumter.
On the afternoon of April 11, 1861, a small open boat flying a white flag pushed off from the tip of the narrow peninsula surrounding the city of Charleston. The vessel carried three envoys representing the Confederate States government, established in Montgomery, Alabama,...
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Civil War Artifacts in the Smithsonian
Patriotic Union Cover National Postal Museum
In philately, “cover” is a term used to describe an item—usually an envelope with postage—that has passed through the mail system and bears the postmarks and stamps that attest to its travels. Some covers bear elaborate decorations that reflect contemporary social and political events. The artwork emblazoned on this cover proclaims the sender’s ...
February 2011
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Raising the USS Monitor
Raised from the deep, the Monitor’s turret reveals a bounty of new details about the ship’s violent end.
Read more at Smithsonian.com.
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Abraham Lincoln's Whistle-Stop Trip to Washington
“In February, 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln traveled from Springfield to Washington, visiting his supporters and finding his voice on his way to taking the oath of office on March 4.”
Read more about Lincoln’s trip to Washington.
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Odd and Interesting Facts About the American Civil...
“Approximately 3,530 Native Americans fought for the Union. 1,018 were killed.”
More interesting facts about the Civil War can be found here.
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January 2011
7 posts
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How Arlington National Cemetery Came to Be
“The fight over Robert E. Lee’s Beloved home—seized by the U.S. government during the Civil War—went on for decades.”
Continue reading at Smithsonian.com.
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The Object at Hand: Sheridan's Horse
“A Young war-horse helped Phil Sheridan win the day in the Shenandoah Valley and, made famous by a poem, helped Abraham Lincoln win re-election.”
Read more at Smithsonian.com
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Five Myths About Why the South Seceded
“One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War began, we’re still fighting it — or at least fighting over its history. I’ve polled thousands of high school history teachers and spoken about the war to audiences across the country, and there is little agreement even on why the South seceded. Was it over slavery? States’ rights? Tariffs and taxes?”
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Walking Through Civil War History
Edwin Bearss lends a dynamic personality and a booming voice to teaching the history of the Civil War in northern Virginia.
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Covert Force: Women in the Civil War
“When Federal troops realized that they had a woman on their hands, they moved quickly to release her—as long as she swore to return to the life of a proper lady.”
Continue reading at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Covert_Force.html.
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The Raid on Harpers Ferry
In one fateful night, John Brown brought the country closer to Civil War.
Read about an indelible photo of John Brown and more on his day of reckoning.
December 2010
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A Map of American Slavery →
bigchiefblog:
One of the most important maps of the Civil War was also one of the most visually striking: the United States Coast Survey’s map of the slaveholding states, which clearly illustrates the varying concentrations of slaves across the South. Abraham Lincoln loved the map and consulted it often; it even appears in a famous 1864 painting of the president and his cabinet.
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New US Quarter to Feature Civil War-Era Gunboat
“The USS Cairo, a Civil War-era Union gunboat now preserved at the Vicksburg National Military Park, will be featured on the U.S. Mint’s new “America the Beautiful” quarters arriving in 2011.”
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Secession Defended on Civil War Anniversary -... →
“These battles of memory are not only academic,” said Mark Potok, the director of intelligence at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “They are really about present-day attitudes.”