Soldiers
« Previous EntriesNew Evidence of Lincoln’s Anger?
Monday, October 6th, 2008A new letter written by Abraham Lincoln has surfaced. You can read more about this discovery, as well as the context of the letter, on the Discovery Channel’s website. The reporter seems surprised that Lincoln displays a fair amount of anger in this letter. However, take a moment to read my quick translation. In my view, [...]
Gettysburg: The Superbowl for Civil War Re-Enactors
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008Gettysburg is the World Series and Superbowl rolled into one for Civil War re-enactors. An estimated 15,000 “living historians,” clad in wool uniforms and bearing muskets, will converge on the little town in Pennsylvania throughout the week to mark the 145th anniversary of the battle. Forget high gas prices, rain coulds are the only thing organizers are [...]
Gettysburg: 145 Years Later
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008What do you think about when you hear the word Gettysburg? The word is almost synonymous with the war itself. It represents, at least to many of us, the most important battle, the key moment, or the turning point in the American Civil War. Civil War enthusiasts might debate the validity of such statements; for example, Vicksburg was a [...]
Lincoln on Ebay: Un-Reconstructed Southerner
Friday, June 27th, 2008This week’s edition of Lincoln on Ebay comes to us in the form of a letter, written some eight months after the assassination. D. M. Wharton, a citizen of Huntsville, Alabama, wrote his nephew a letter on November 4, 1865. He begins with the usual pleasantries by thanking his nephew for sending such a nice letter a couple [...]
Walt Whitman in the Classroom
Thursday, June 5th, 2008I am a big fan of the American Experience DVDs by PBS. The program on John Brown is incredibly good, as is the program on Ulysses S. Grant and another on Reconstruction. I’ve used a handful of these American Experience DVDs in the classroom. Whether I play a brief clip at the beginning of a [...]
An Unpleasant Story from New Mexico
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008I really don’t care for stories like this one. I’ll relay the information because I think it is important to be aware of these things, but be warned, this is not a fun story. According to the Associated Press, federal archaeologists in New Mexico have been forced to exhume the graves of 67 Civil War [...]
“The Jewel of Liberty”
Thursday, March 13th, 2008Good news is sweet to hear, especially when recent news has been particularlly sour. Abraham Lincoln had reason to be happy on this date in 1864. The war was still going on, but Louisiana was already on the road toward Reconstruction. On February 22, 1864 the state held an election. The results were encouraging. The [...]
2008 Lincoln Prize…A Split Decision
Friday, February 15th, 2008The results are in. The winner of this year’s coveted Lincoln Prize, the most prestigious (and generous) award in the field of Lincoln Studies, is… Wait a minute…we have a split decision! The award goes to two different books: The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics [...]
Countdown to Sumter–Part 2
Friday, December 14th, 2007Just after the War of 1812, the American military began building a series of forts on the Southern coast of the United States. The plans for Charleston, South Carolina were ambitious. Beginning in 1829, engineers imported 70,000 tons of New England granite to build up a sandbar in the middle of the harbor. They built [...]
Countdown to Sumter–Part 1
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007There were a number of very vocal Americans who were dissatisfied with the result of the Election of 1860. There were many threats, but nothing catastrophic had happened. No state had left the Union yet, but the Buchanan administration was worried. Early in November they sent an inspector to the center of secessionism, Charleston, South [...]
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