Showing results for "Mexican American War"
The Aftermath of Port Hudson and Nathaniel Banks’s Return to Bayou Teche
The fall of both Vicksburg and Port Hudson was trumpeted throughout the North. However, Ulysses Grant took the greater prize, accepted the surrender of more men, and suffered fewer losses than Banks. His campaign, then and now, is considered among the most brilliant of the war. Banks by contrast oversaw a longer siege and lost more […]
Read more...ECW Weekender: History Colorado Center
The History Colorado Center in downtown Denver isn’t exactly a Civil War museum, but it is a museum largely about history that’s inextricably linked to the Civil War. The most prominent piece of Civil War history in the museum is On Guard, a monument to the Colorado Volunteers who served during the war. Today it’s […]
Read more...Commanding The Regiment: Colonel Richard Coulter, 11th Pennsylvania
Born in Greensburg in 1827, just east of Pittsburgh PA, Richard Coulter attended Jefferson College in the town of Washington, PA. Following that he worked in the law office of a relative. He became a lawyer, was active in the local militia, and married Emmy Welty. The couple had six children. Coulter was also a […]
Read more...Commanding The Regiment: Major Roberdeau Wheat, 1st Louisiana Special Battalion
He sometimes was called Rob, Bob, or Roberdeau, but his actually first name was Chatham. At six feet, four inches and weighing about 240 pounds, Chatham Roberdeau Wheat was a giant of a man. Legends about him loom larger than life as well. But who was the real person? Born in Alexandria, Virginia, his father […]
Read more...The Fight at Picacho Peak
ECW is pleased to welcome back Gregory L. Wade. Tourists often visit the Phoenix area for its near-perfect winter climate, the incredible desert scenery, or to learn about Mexican or Native American history. Not many people realize that the Civil War touched this scorched ground just a few miles north of Tucson in a fight […]
Read more...Daniel Webster & the Devil
Today is March 7, the 173rd anniversary of Daniel Webster’s speech in support of Henry Clay’s final proposal to keep the states of America united, known as the Compromise of 1850. Lately, we think of such a compromise as a terrible idea because it allowed slavery to continue, but on January 21, 1850, the two […]
Read more...A Different Fight: The Insurance Writings of General Gustavus Woodson Smith
ECW welcomes guest author Karl Miller It seems incongruous that a former Confederate general would go on to become a significant business reformer, yet that is exactly the story of Gustavus Woodson Smith. While numerous military leaders of the Civil War such as John Bell Hood and Joseph E. Johnston went into the burgeoning life […]
Read more...“This Unparalleled Outrage…”: An Antebellum Raid on a Federal Arsenal, Part 2
See Part I… For Captain Luther Leonard, an assignment as military storekeeper at the Liberty Arsenal was likely envisioned as a means of easing into retirement. A West Point graduate (Class of 1808), Leonard had already seen nearly forty years of continuous service. As captain of a light artillery battery, he was present for the […]
Read more...BookChat: Rose Greenhow’s “My Imprisonment,” edited by Emily Lapisardi
I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with a new annotated edition of Rose Greenhow’s famous Civil War diary, Rose Greenhow’s My Imprisonment (Winston Lewis Publishing, 2021). The edition comes courtesy of editor Emily Lapisardi, a living historian who portrays Greenhow. I had the opportunity to chat with Emily about her new edition. […]
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