Showing results for "First Manassas"

The Elephant in the Room: Is America Headed toward a second civil war?

It didn’t take long for the media to publish an article inferring a second civil war will pop off if their opponent is elected in Nov. 2024 (See CNN Politics, Jan. 8, 2024: “3 sentences from Abraham Lincoln to explain the Civil War to 2024 GOP candidates.”) A second civil war is not going to […]

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“A Brave and Gallant Officer”: Colonel Thomas M. Griffin of the 18th Mississippi

This past weekend I’ve been doing some extra research and writing about the second battle of Fredericksburg on May 3, 1863. Part of the Chancellorsville campaign, this fight resulted in the capture of Marye’s Heights and the retreat of the relatively small Confederate force, allowing the Union General John Sedgwick to head west and attempt […]

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Book Review: Unhonored Service: The Life of Lee’s Senior Cavalry Commander, Colonel Thomas Taylor Munford, CSA

Unhonored Service: The Life of Lee’s Senior Cavalry Commander, Colonel Thomas Taylor Munford, CSA. By Sheridan R. Barringer. Burlington, NC: Fox Run Publishing, 2022. 409 pp. Softcover, $24.95. Hardcover, $39.95. Reviewed by Sean Michael Chick Thomas Taylor Munford had a frustrating career. He entered the Civil War a lieutenant colonel, and after First Manassas received […]

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April 2023 Maine at War blog posts

In April 2023 my Maine at War blog examined topics ranging from memories of Shiloh to disease creating promotion opportunities to army recruiters falling all over each other while competing for the same warm bodies in autumn 1861. April 5, 2023: Echoes of Shiloh and Maine On the 161st anniversary of the battle of Shiloh, […]

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From Camp Servants to Soldiers – Part I

On July 9, 1861, Lt. Col. Barham Bobo Foster, 3rd South Carolina Infantry, wrote to his daughter in Spartanburg District from Fairfax Court House, Virginia, about how good army life was: “If you all knew how we enjoyed ourselves here you would not be uneasy about us. we live rough but have plenty of it […]

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Book Review: Irish American Civil War Songs: Identity, Loyalty, and Nationhood

Between 1801 and 1921, over eight million people emigrated from Ireland to North America. This phenomenon is known as the Irish Diaspora. As a result, over 10% of Americans in 2020 can claim Irish ancestry. In 1861-1865, over 200,000 of them fought in the American Civil War. Fought and sang, apparently, because the legacy of […]

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Civil War Medicine: John Chase and the Lasting Legacies of Wartime Medicine

Civil War medicine did not exist in a vacuum only on battlefields and in hospitals. It began long before armies met in combat or men became ill; it began in classrooms, books, and lectures as surgeons and doctors learned and improved their skills and disseminated knowledge. Nor did it end on the battlefield, as surgeons […]

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There Stands Jackson Like Stonewalls? A Union Soldier Speculates on Jackson’s Famous Nickname

The story of how Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson received his famous nickname atop Henry Hill on July 21, 1861, is well-known to Civil War enthusiasts today. For Southerners, they knew it too, and quickly after the Battle of First Manassas ended. The story first appeared in the Charleston Mercury on July 25, 1861, and soon […]

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McClellan Addresses the 5th Wisconsin

On May 7, 1862, General George B. McClellan reviewed and spoke to the men of the 5th Wisconsin, who two days before had helped win the Battle of Williamsburg. Since the 2d Wisconsin fought at First Manassas, this was the most prominent Badger action in Virginia, and would not be passed until August 1862. McClellan’s […]

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