Showing results for "Wilderness"
More property along Jackson’s Flank Attack gets preserved
More of the land west of Chancellorsville—scene of Stonewall Jackson’s flank attack—is now being preserved thanks to the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust (CVBT). The Trust has just signed a contract to purchase 9.2 acres on the southern shoulder of the Orange Turnpike (modern Route 3), with more than 350 feet of frontage on that crucial […]
Read more...“Confederates in Vermont!”
When Confederate raiders materialized in St. Albans, Vermont, Principal Dorsey Taylor watched in dismay from a high-windowed perch in the brick schoolhouse. Taylor did his best to keep his students safely in their classrooms, but dozens of them congregated in the stairwells to look out the windows, noses pressed against the glass, to watch the […]
Read more...Telling History vs. Making Art: “a tension between Art and Science”
Part one in a series As a battlefield guide at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park (FSNMP), I frequently speak with folks who’ve come to the battlefields because they’ve read The Killer Angels, which in turn inspired them to come see a Civil War battlefield. Michael Shaara’s novel is about the battle of Gettysburg and […]
Read more...A War to Remember: How I found the Civil War where I least expected
After two years of living in the heart of Civil War country (aka central Virginia) and playing park ranger, I was done with the Civil War. I had studied history in college and really became fascinated by 19th century American History. When I was offered a job for two years at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania […]
Read more...From Iron for Granite: The Army Career of John Gibbon
On August 28, 1862, a Brigadier General would lead his novice brigade of Mid-Westerners against Stonewall Jackson’s hardened Veterans. The Battle of Brawner Farm saw the ascendency of one of the best known and hardest fighting units in the Army of the Potomac. There have been volumes written about this brigade, from memoirs to modern […]
Read more...Pick #1 on My Top Ten List–The Army of the Potomac, a Three-Volume set by Bruce Catton.
Part of a Series: Books Every Civil War Buff Ought to Own My #1 pick for Civil War books we should all have on our bookshelves is Bruce Catton’s trilogy The Army of the Potomac. This classic, first published in 1953, contains the books Mr. Lincoln’s Army, Glory Road, and A Stillness At Appomattox. It […]
Read more...“Greatest” of the Greatest?
As part of the research I’m doing on the Chancellorsville battlefield, I’m giving thought tonight about the 149-year-old characterization of Chancellorsville as “Lee’s greatest victory.” I suspect, statistically and situationally, a case could be made for several of Lee’s victories as “the greatest.”
Read more...Mapping Out Chancellorsville 149 Years Later
Today marks the 149th anniversary of the opening of the battle of Chancellorsville. Supremely confident “Fighting Joe” Hooker rocked back on his heels after an unexpected punch on the nose by Stonewall Jackson, withdrawing into a defensive position around the Chancellorsville intersection. Giving up the high ground to the east of the intersection was the […]
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