Showing results for "Revolutionary War"

The Cosmopolitanism of the Union Army: What Did It Mean?

I was recently assessing the demographic makeup of Union and Confederate armies in my Civil War and Reconstruction class when one of my students asked a thought-provoking question: “What percentage of the Union Army was northern, white, English-speaking, and native-born?” My impromptu response was to say about half, given that the Union ranks included at […]

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Gone For A Soldier: Journeys of Irish American Music & Patriotism

The journey of Irish songs now woven into the collections of traditional American music represents the journeys of the Irish people and how music and a war intertwined to bring the Irish immigrants into a more positive light in 19th Century America. The war-song Johnny Has Gone For A Soldier is a hallmark of folk […]

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An Honorable Beginning

Today, we are pleased to welcome back guest author Dwight Hughes April 13, 1861—the broad, brown Mississippi flood tugged at United States mail steamer Bienville as she lay alongside a New Orleans levee preparing to sail the next morning with passengers, mail, and cargo for New York. Rumors were flying that fighting had begun somewhere, […]

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The Valley Forge Winter for the Army of the Potomac

To commemorate Washington’s Birthday today, Emerging Civil War is pleased to present an excerpt from the forthcoming book Seizing Destiny: The Army of the Potomac’s ‘Valley Forge’ and the Civil War Winter that Saved the Union by Albert Conner, Jr., with Chris Mackowski, published by Savas Beatie. The book contends that the AoP’s resurgence during […]

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One of America’s First Christmas Trees

ECW is pleased to welcome guest contributor Richard G. Williams, Jr. Earlier this month, I, along with a number of some of my children and grandchildren, embarked on an annual pilgrimage. We made our way down a narrow dirt road here in the Shenandoah Valley to a Christmas tree farm. There, we scattered to scout […]

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Review: “The Lost Gettysburg Address”

The study of history is too often restricted to names, dates, and places. Generations of school kids have suffered through lectures akin to the one given in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. History, however, is not just treaties, generals, and presidents. It is the story of individuals who, though the history books have missed them, still […]

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“With Great Steadiness and Courage:” The 22nd USCT and their Flag

The 22nd United States Colored Troops was organised at Camp William Penn between the 10th and 29th of January, 1864. The narrative of the regiment illustrates the desire of many black troops to shun the tedious manual labour that they often found thrust upon them and to embrace the opportunity to conduct themselves honourably on the battlefield, regardless […]

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Remembering John and Abigail (part two)

Part two of two “Remember the ladies,” Abigail Adams wrote in a letter to her husband during his service in the Continental Congress. And those words are how we now most often remember her: “Remember the ladies.” And John did. He pined for her. His long public career—in the Continental Congress, as a minister in […]

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Do You Know George Wythe?

Down the street from the Governor’s Palace in Colonial Williamsburg sits a two-story brick structure. Living historians, in first-person, debate the road to the American Revolution. But, who was George Wythe? 

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