TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Author: Fred Ray

  • Was General Sherman Smeared?

    This being the 150th anniversary of Sherman’s March to the Sea, the venerable New York times has an article questioning just how bad Uncle Billy really was. Seems we have a new crop of historians who think that the Southern demonization of him was unwarranted, a sour grapes myth by the defeated Confederates perpetuated by […]

  • Sharpshooters on Jackson’s Flank March

    Good article on the Civil War Trust web site on Stonewall Jackson’s flank march at Chancellorsville by Robert K. Krick. Using new information Krick gives full credit to the vital role of Maj. Eugene Blackford’s Alabama sharpshooter battalion, and in general how Jackson and Robert Rodes used these new units. While Fitz Lee and his […]

  • A Look at Some Period Firearms

    Very nice article by Bill Adams, one of the foremost CW-era firearms authorities, on the Kerr (pronounced “Carr”) rifle, second only to the fabled Whitworth as a sharpshooter’s rifle. Also info on modern attempts to make a shootable reproductions. (PDF file) And a compendium of videos from CapAndBall, a Hungarian web site (it’s in English […]

  • Review: Trading With The Enemy: The Covert Economy During the Civil War

    Trading with the Enemy The Covert Economy During the American Civil War Philip Leigh Westholme Publishing 2014 248 pages 6 x 9 hardback 20 b/w illus., map $26.00 My post on “Bagdad, Back Door to the Confederacy” garnered a comment from author Philip Leigh about other trading arrangements, especially those between the United States and […]

  • Bagdad – Back Door to the Confederacy

    In my reply to Spengler I noted the difficulties of making a land link with Mexico to supply the Confederacy. After doing a bit more research I found that there really was a land link, although subject to all the difficulties I mentioned. When the Union blockade went into effect Southern cotton became both scarce […]

  • Sharpshooter Shorts

    Couple of short sharpshooter items. First from Berry Benson, South Carolina sharpshooter and scout; To each brigade in Jackson’s corps, – and also, I believe, in all of the corps of Lee’s army – was attached a body of sharpshooters; men picked from their regiments, not merely for skill in marksmanship, but also as best […]

  • Reply to Spengler

    David P. Goldman is something of a polymath – scholar, investment banker, musicologist, and pundit. In the latter capacity, under the handle Spengler, he has written on a variety of subjects, including the Civil War. There, unfortunately, he comes off as being rather uninformed. Indeed one is tempted to use the characterization of Noam Chomsky […]