TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Category: Civil War Individuals

  • Who Was C[harles] C. Ackels?: Help Needed!

    Recently Kathryn Lerch (who so generously donated a large number of items from her 8th New York Heavy Artillery collection to me for use on my Siege of Petersburg site) contacted me via email with a mystery: Brett, I decided I have exhausted my usual search lines on Ancestry and Fold3, and still keep coming […]

  • The Claims of the Negro (September 5, 1864 Richmond Examiner)

    As I was copying newspaper articles from the Richmond Examiner from September 1864 for my Siege of Petersburg site, I came across the following interesting article in the September 5, 1864 Richmond Examiner: The Claims of the Negro.–One Benjamin Ruff, claiming to be a member of the Sixth Virginia cavalry, was committed to the Castle […]

  • Take Your Choice: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

    Take Your Choice By Jack McGuire   When I think of Assassin’s the name John Wilkes Booth heads the list.  A first rate actor according to all accounts of his life, someone who characteristically often played the villain.   Booth was arrested and taken before a Provost Marshal in 1862 for saying “So help me holy […]

  • Civil War Book Preview: New Siege of Petersburg Diary from the 36th Wisconsin

    Editor’s Note: This preview has been cross-posted at The Siege of Petersburg Online.  Also be sure to check out the book’s permanent bibliography page. Taylor, Guy C. & Alderson, Kevin (ed) & Alderson, Patsy (ed). Letters Home to Sarah: The Civil War Letters of Guy C. Taylor, Thirty-Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers. (University of Wisconsin Press: November […]

  • “You have let me sleep in peace for the first time.”

    Recently the NY Times had a blog post by Richard Slotkin titled Washington in Disarray the focus of which was on the crisis in Washington at the beginning of September 1862 and President Lincoln’s decision to keep Gen. George McClellan in charge of the army.  There is an element to the story that I feel […]

  • Book Review: The Diary of Cyrus Comstock

    Book Review: The Diary of Cyrus B. Comstock; compiled and edited by Merlin E. Sumner, Morningside House Inc., 1987 My original interest in this book was spurred by my never ending search for information on engineer operations during the Civil War. Cyrus Comstock was a very influential staff engineer and aide for U.S. Grant during […]

  • DE ARAGON, The Chronicle of a Confederate Surgeon – Epilogue

    Author’s note: This is the last installment of the story of Major Ramon T. de Aragon. It deals with events after the war ended and he returned to his home in Moscow, Tennessee. Epilogue   By May 13, the men of Taylor’s army had completed the task of turning in their arms and the last […]