TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Author: Fred Ray

  • Short Takes

    My local Public Radio station, WNCW, has been playing cuts from a Civil War concept album by Russell Johnson and Barney Rogers, When the Bands Played. Since these are Tarheel musicians, it is sung from the Southern viewpoint. My favorite, naturally, was the “Sharpshooter’s Blues.” If you like Bluegrass or Old Time music, WNCW has […]

  • War and Landscape

    I’ve been reading Matthew Spring’s new book on the British Army in the Revolutionary War, With Zeal and Bayonets Only. It’s an excellent look at how the British actually fought during that conflict, and I may do a full review in the future. One thing that Spring does very well is to analyze how the […]

  • Buck & Ball

    Most students of the Civil War are familiar with the term “buck & ball”—a load consisting of a single large ball and three buckshot fired from a .69 caliber smoothbore musket. Now it can be yours! Well, sort of. An Italian ammunition company now makes a 12 gauge shotshell for home defense that sports a […]

  • The Seceded State of Kanawha

    Strange Maps blog posts a period map relating to the secession of western Virginia in 1861. West Virginia is the state that seceded where others failed. When in 1861 the South broke away from the US to form the Confederacy, the Mountain State in its turn left Virginia to remain within the Union. The electoral process […]

  • War, Perception, and Social History

    J. D. Petruzzi has a thoughtful and perceptive post about how historical events are perceived by authors and readers. I would add that it’s all to easy to substitute opinion for fact, and deplore that many modern authors feel the need to put themselves on a higher moral plane so as to pass judgment on […]

  • Review: Fear in North Carolina

    Fear in North Carolina: The Civil War Journals and Letters of the Henry Family by Karen L. Clinard (Compiler), Richard Russell (Compiler) Paperback: 443 pages Publisher: Reminiscing Books; First edition (April 1, 2008) ISBN-10: 0979396131 ISBN-13: 978-0979396137 Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches Price: $29.95 Social history is very much in fashion these […]

  • A Soldier’s Remains

    Some men never came home from the war, and many were simply listed as “missing.” One such unfortunate soul came to light recently at Antietam, where a hiker in the Cornfield found what he thought were human remains. Most of those who died there (and the Cornfield changed hands numerous times) were hastily buried, then […]