Showing results for "Chancellorsville"

A New View of the Battle of Fredericksburg

While most visitors to the Fredericksburg battlefield think of the Stone Wall and Sunken Road, or perhaps more recently of the Slaughter Pen Farm saved by the American Battlefields Trust, there’s another feature on the battlefield that’s nearly as familiar by which gets less notoriety: the battle map painting. Tens of thousands of visitors annually […]

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ECW Weekender: Christmas at Ellwood

Raise your hand if you went to Ellwood Manor with us during the Chancellorsville Tour at the 2018 ECW Symposium? Now, imagine that wonderfully restored 19th Century home decked for the holidays and filled with music and laughter. Sound intriguing and festive? Mark your calendars! On December 15 and 16, 2018, Ellwood Manor will throw […]

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From Lee’s Side of Mine Run

The story of Mine Run is generally remembered thus: The Army of the Potomac found themselves facing a strongly fortified Confederate position that was so formidable, George Gordon Meade declined to attack and, instead, retreated back to the far side of the river for the winter. As a broad-brush overview, that’s pretty much true. The […]

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Literature

“The real war will never get in the books.” — Walt Whitman, Specimen Days *     *     * Chris Mackowski: “Gods and Generals: A Conversation with Jeff Shaara“—Web Exclusive Stephen Davis: “The Delicious If: MacKinlay Kantor’s If the South Had Won the Civil War and Alternative History“—Web Exclusive *     *     * ECW […]

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Revisiting “Battlefield Travesty” in Advance of a Clean-Up

A few months ago, I shared the unfortunate story of a Civil War site on the edge of the Chancellorsville battlefield that had fallen victim to vandalism and neglect. I’m pleased to report that local students, in partnership with local preservationists, are stepping up to keep it clean! Anderson Ridge sits on the far eastern […]

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Railroads – “The Seventh Have Come!”: The 7th New York, 8th Massachusetts, and the Rescue of Washington

Emerging Civil War welcomes back guest author Nathan Marzoli Washington was in trouble in the spring of 1861. Secessionist fever had broken into conflict with the attack on Fort Sumter, prompting President Lincoln to issue a call three days later for 75,000 volunteers to help put down the rebellion. Lincoln needed some of these citizen soldiers in […]

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John Henry Myer of Myer’s Hill

We told you in September about a major acquisition the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust was making on the Spotyslvania Court House battlefield: Myer’s Hill, scene of action on May 14, 1864. We’re pleased today to welcome guest historian John F. Cummings III to tell us more about the hill’s namesake, John Henry Myer. John Henry […]

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Railroads – The Virginia Central Railroad: A Target For Union Raids

The Virginia Central Railroad was chartered as the Louisa Railroad in 1836 by the Virginia Board of Public Works. The name was changed to the Virginia Central Railroad in 1850. It ran from westward from Richmond and ended in Gordonsville, where it met the Orange & Alexandria Railroad. No Confederate railroad was targeted more, and […]

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Disaster in the Defenses of Washington: The June 9, 1863 Explosion at Fort Lyon

Emerging Civil War welcomes back guest author Nathan Marzoli Lewis Bissell, a soldier in the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, had spent the better part of a year stationed in the numerous forts and batteries that ringed the nation’s capital. He had grown accustomed to the monotonous routine there, and probably expected June 9 to be another hot, […]

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