During Emerging Civil War’s Fifth Annual Symposium this past August, we teased our keynote speaker for the 2019 Symposium. Today, we wanted to give you a little bit more information about this amazing opportunity to hear A. Wilson Greene on August 2, 2019 at the Sixth Annual Emerging Civil War Symposium.
When he served as the U.S. Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis had the grand idea of importing camels. The camels, Davis reasoned, would be perfect animals to use in fighting among the far western reaches of America’s deserts, and thus he acted to bring shipments of the unusual animal in 1856 and 1857. While the proposed Camel Corps of the U.S. Army never took off, one of those camels did see extensive service in the Civil War. Named Old Douglas, the camel became the mascot of the 43rd Mississippi Regiment until its death during the Siege of Vicksburg. The Mississippians’ association with Old Douglas earned them the nickname of the “Camel Regiment,” and that unit’s story is the focus of a newly published regimental history.
It’s now becoming a tradition to share additional resources from our blog archives that relate to the most recent ECW Podcast. Did you catch last week’s discussion with Chris Mackowski and Sarah Kay Bierle about Gettysburg Civilians?
This week we’ve collected a few blog posts on the subject; some of them are written by Sarah Kay Bierle and explore in-depth details about the topic discussed in the podcast. Continue reading
Two years ago I took advantage of a roundtable talk in Ohio to visit the Clark County Historical Society in Springfield. I found some fantastic material on the 110th Ohio Infantry, one of the units who made the Breakthrough attack at Petersburg, particularly among the papers of Joseph Warren Keifer, who served as the regiment’s original commander and led its brigade in the last year of the war. After the Civil War Keifer served in the U.S. House of Representatives, including a term as Speaker of the House. He rejoined the army for the Spanish-American War and commanded the 7th Army Corps. Keifer made the acquaintance of John Pershing and the two remained friends until Keifer’s death in 1932.
In the spirit of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, in which Pershing commanded the American Expeditionary Force, I want to share this clipping I found in a Springfield newspaper showing the pair of prominent Americans together.
John J. Pershing and J. Warren Keifer in 1923 (unidentified newspaper, Clark County Historical Society)
An unidentified Civil War Veteran
In the words of a modern American president, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
While thinking about the American Civil War and World War I during the anniversary of the ending of the later conflict, I realized that many of the “Doughboys” of World War I were the sons or grandsons of Civil War veterans. North and South, Union and Confederate. Undoubtedly, the boys who went to war in 1917 and 1918 knew about the Civil War. Their history books taught it, and many probably knew about their relatives’ military service in the 1860’s. Continue reading
Let’s talk about archaeology studies on Civil War battlefields… Do you have a favorite artifact, story, or experience?
Please note: Always know the rules and have proper authorization/permission before searching for artifacts! ECW does not encourage or condone illegal searching or activities.
One hundred years ago today, at 11 AM local time, the guns on the Western Front fell silent as World War I’s armistice took effect.
World War I remade the world and set the course for the 20th Century. Its aftershocks are still visible today. For Americans, this was the largest overseas force yet deployed and the largest U.S. Army fielded since the Civil War. It confirmed the United States as a key player on the world stage. Continue reading
This week offered more blog posts about Civil War Railroads as we concluded that special series, a new podcast, 2019 Symposium announcements, and more. Check out the complete list below.
It’s Veterans Day today, and the authors and editors at Emerging Civil War send a hearty and sincere “thank you” to all our readers and fans who have or are serving in the U.S. military. Continue reading
The Red “Remembrance Poppy” was inspired by the WWI poem “In Flanders Fields.”
ECW welcomes back guest author Rob Wilson
A recent New Yorker story I read about the hundredth anniversary of Armistice Day – November 11 – reminded me of the human cost of World War I: the lost lives of 9.7 million military personnel and about 10 million civilians.
The very next day I happened to open the latest issue of America’s Civil War to an article about Union Major John Mead Gould and his 1874 book, History of the First-Tenth-Twenty-ninth Maine Regiment. I saw a connection between the New Yorker’s examination of the horror of World War I’s final days— along with the emotional and physical impact the fighting had on many soldiers from both sides— and ACW author Nicholas Picerno’s excerpt of Gould’s unvarnished reflections on the realities of the Civil War. Continue reading
We’ve all heard the phrase “a gentleman and a scholar,” and some of us are privileged to even know a few. That’s how I’ve always thought of Kenny Rowlette, who until recently served as the director of the National Civil War Chaplains Museum in Lynchburg, Virginia—a museum he co-founded and tirelessly championed. Kenny passed away in late October at the age of 67. Continue reading
