TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Author: Fred Ray

  • Stonewall Jackson Anecdote

    I was reading the Richmond Daily Dispatch the other night looking for something else when I came across this amusing anecdote of Stonewall Jackson at Fredericksburg. It certainly reinforces his reputation for both eccentricity and asceticism. The Daily Dispatch: January 3, 1863. Anecdote of Stonewall. The Richmond correspondent of the Charleston Mercury gives the following […]

  • Weapons of the Second Iowa?

    Frequent blog readers probably know that I and a couple of others like Joe Bilby are always trying to confirm CW battle ranges. I recently came across an account of the battle of Corinth (Oct. 3-4, 1862) that talks about it. A soldier in the 2nd Iowa wrote: The Rebel batteries silenced ours, and about […]

  • Lincoln Robbed, O’Reilly Banned

    Truly nothing is sacred to metal thieves, not even Abe Lincoln. Thieves have nabbed a 3-foot-long copper sword atop Lincoln’s Tomb in what is believed to be the first theft at the site in more than a century. An employee noticed last week that the sword was cut from a statue of a Civil War […]

  • Auction News and Other Takes

    The venerable Scientific American magazine has its archives on line now, all the way back to the first issue in 1845. Normally it would cost you money to look, but for November only they have the 1845-1908 archives available for free. Unfortunately there is no universal search for these early issues altho you can search […]

  • Short Takes

    They still probably won’t take your Confederate money, but Richmond seems to be on the rise again, this time as “Startup South” and perhaps the next silicon valley. In hearing from dozens of Richmond startups, two institutions stick out as important nodes in the local innovation system. The first is Virginia Commonwealth University. As Richard […]

  • Lincoln’s Bullet, Sickles’ Leg

    And many other “morbid” things, are going to a new home. The $12 million relocation established a permanent home for an institution that has had 10 addresses since 1862. That’s when Surgeon General William Hammond directed medical officers in the field to collect “specimens of morbid anatomy” for study at the newly founded museum along […]

  • Review: An Iowa Soldier Writes Home

    An Iowa Soldier Writes Home: The Civil War Letters of Union Private Daniel J. Parvin Edited by: Phillip A. Hubbart Carolina Academic Press 2011 Paper 196 pages $25.00 ISBN: 978-1-59460-978-7 • LCCN 2011002478 Phillip Hubbart, a retired Florida appellate judge, transcribed 117 letters of his great-great-grandfather Daniel J. Parvin, an infantryman who fought with the […]