TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Author: Fred Ray

  • Otis Smith Revolvers

    The mystery of the revolver I posted about a couple of days ago has been solved! It was made by Otis A. Smith of Rockfall, CT, presumably sometime in the 1870s to 1880s. I took the gun down to the local range (On Target here in Asheville) and Jeff, the owner, quickly tracked it down […]

  • Identifying an Old Gun

    I have recently come into possession of an old revolver and need some help identifying it. It looks very much like the S&W Model 1½ revolver that was introduced just after the Civil War, but has some significant differences, namely that it does not have the S&W “tip-up” barrel for reloading. Instead, you pull on […]

  • A Patriotic Tipple

    Since we are honoring presidents today we might take a moment of two to do it with spirit(s). The two whose birthdays fall near today—George Washington and Abe Lincoln—both liked to imbibe a wee dram now and again. Washington even made it and was by some accounts at one time the largest distiller in the […]

  • Camp Life and Target Practice in 1862

    Bill Adams sends along a clipping from the Northampton Gazette & Courier, dated February 11, 1862, which gives a very good look a camp life in the Union army just prior to McClellan’s Peninsular campaign. It should also help dispel one of the most persistent CW myths—that many soldiers went into battle without ever even […]

  • William Holden, Second Iowa

    I have some letters from William Holden, a soldier with the Second Iowa. An ardent abolitionist who lived in Ottumwa, the 22-year-old Holden signed up at the beginning of the conflict and stayed on until the end, re-enlisting in December, 1863. Serving in the Western armies, he fought in almost all the major battles of […]

  • The Confederacy on…Mars?

    Yup. John Carter, former Confederate officer, is somehow transported to Barsoom, which we know as Mars. There his muscles, formed in the heavier gravity of Jasoom (Earth) give him an overwhelming advantage given the primitive sword-and-shield technology of the other world. As told by Edgar Rice Burroughs via Disney.

  • Short Takes

    In the early 1860s, a violent fight raged to determine the fate of a vast country. An insurrection had split it in two, leaving much of the southern half governed by men who claimed to be the leaders of a new state but were dismissed by their foes as illegitimate “rebels,” outlaws who had given […]