Showing results for "Chancellorsville"
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...Pick #3 in my Top 10 List: A set of maps
Part of a Series: Books Every Civil War Buff Ought to Own The third book, or books, every Civil War buff needs on the bookshelf is a good set of maps. These are invaluable–nothing less. They give form to the function of a campaign or battle and, depending on your choices, can put you virtually […]
Read more...Telling History vs. Making Art: Fictions and Histories
Final part of a series “[H]istory and historical fiction,” says historian Paul Ashdown, “are alternate ways of telling stories about the past.”[1] In that context, Ulysses S. Grant spoke more truth than he realized when he said “Wars produce many stories of fiction.” Aside from yarn-spun anecdotes about apple-tree surrenders and lemon-sucking generals, war also […]
Read more...Telling History vs. Making Art: The ways we remember the war
Part two in a series “We may say that only at the moment when Lee handed Grant his sword was the Confederacy born,” wrote Robert Penn Warren during the Civil War’s centennial; “or to state matters another way, in the moment of death the Confederacy entered upon its immortality.”[1] Writer/activist Albion W. Tourgee, however, considered […]
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...Site Update
We all wanted to keep everyone in the loop. We have been working hard on some great new research, as well as some upcoming posts. As the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Fredericksburg approaches, our authors have been putting together some great in-depth posts covering the campaign. We will have some great in-depth posts […]
Read more...Chinn Ridge-What Could Have Been?
Patchan, Scott C. Second Manassas, Longstreet’s Attack and the Struggle for Chinn Ridge. Potomac Books,Washington D.C; 2011. Pp. IX, 185. ISBN 978-1597976879. Hardcover. $26.95. Just because the 150th anniversary of the Second Battle of Manassas comes to an end does not mean the learning of what unfolded at the railroad cut, ridges, and fields of […]
Read more...Middle Child and Second Fiddle: The Sad Fate of Second Manassas
Try as I might, I can’t persuade my daughter to explore anything to do with Second Manassas. It’s July 29, 2000. Steph is six but already the veteran of several battlefielding campaigns, and she’s particularly a fan of First Manassas because that’s where her hero, Stonewall Jackson, got his nickname. She’s been eagerly urging us […]
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