Showing results for "Chancellorsville"
“The” Turning Point of the War: The Wilderness, not Gettysburg
I was working at the Wilderness today, and I couldn’t think of a better place to be sitting in the wake of the Gettysburg sesquicentennial. Why? Well, while throngs of people stare at the bronze tablet by the copse of trees along Gettysburg’s Cemetery Ridge, I’m hanging out on the battlefield where the war’s most […]
Read more...A Surfeit of Heroes: Custer At Gettysburg, July 3, 1863 / Part 2
The term invincible is often found in accounts of Gettysburg. Lee referred to the soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia as invincible, and so they seemed after Chancellorsville. On May 15, when called to Richmond by Confederate President Jefferson Davis for a strategy meeting with the Cabinet, Lee presented his plan to deal the […]
Read more...The Year of Grant
In my last post on ECW, I noted some generals who rose to prominence and took senior roles in 1863. At the top of the list was Major General Ulysses S. Grant, which may have seemed a surprising choice. Yet upon further examination, the year 1863 emerges as the most important in Grant’s military career. […]
Read more...My Life as a Black Civil War Living Historian—conclusion
final part in a series Going forward, I know that I have two more years of many events to go before the end of the Sesquicentennial. I have two main objectives that I want to accomplish:
Read more...My Life as a Black Civil War Living Historian—part six
part six in a series As I continue in my tale, I must tell you what two moments that gave me the most pride and what event gave me the most excitement. At the first Gettysburg Remembrance Day programs that I attended on November 19, 2011, I experienced my first moment of great pride.
Read more...A Nature Trail Through a History Park
Although I’ve done a fair amount of hiking in the past few months, I haven’t had my hiking shoes out of their box since I wore them to Uganda back in January. Flecks of Uganda’s rust-colored clay still line the crevices of the shoes’ treads. The shoebox I pull them from says “Keen,” a reminder […]
Read more...My Life as a Black Civil War Living Historian—part two
Part two in a series As a Park Service historian, I give tours on all four of the Park’s battlefields: Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House. I loved talking about the military history but never said much about the civilians until I started to work with the Chief Historian of the park, John Hennessy. […]
Read more...My Life as a Black Civil War Living Historian—part one
part one in a series As a young boy, I was always been fascinated by military history. I had toy soldiers of all kinds: Civil War, World War II, Revolutionary War, and even the Knights of the Round Table. I used to buy the toy soldiers from the Marvel Comic books that I read as […]
Read more...Prelude to a Star: The Urbanna Raid
part two in a series The Army of the Potomac was in disarray when George Custer returned from Washington on May 5, 1863. Early that morning, the army began their retreat to the north bank of the Rappahannock River. This maneuver effectively brought an end to the Chancellorsville campaign and notched another defeat in the […]
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