TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Category: Civil War Research

  • Short Takes

    I was fortunate to do some research at the Rubenstein Rare Books and Manuscript Library at Duke recently. Nice place, friendly and knowledgeable staff. They have a huge collection of Civil War primary sources and manuscripts, including supposedly the largest collection of unpublished Confederate manuscripts in the world. Well worth visiting (certainly was for me). […]

  • Short Takes

    Professor J. David Hacker takes and new look at Civil War dead and concludes there was a major undercount, especially in the South. Even as Civil War history has gone through several cycles of revision, one thing has remained fixed: the number of dead. Since about 1900, historians and the general public have assumed that […]

  • Great Resource for New York Regiments

    My Siege of Petersburg web site research leads me to all kinds of interesting places online.  Because there were so many New York units at the Siege of Petersburg, one place I end up finding myself back at time after time is the New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center web site, specifically […]

  • New Union Ordnance Returns for 3rd Quarter 1864: US Regulars, Connecticut, Delaware

    After working on some Confederate Inspection reports prior to Christmas, I’ve switched gears and started transcribing National Archives Microfilm M1281, Roll 7 containing the weapons carried by Union regiments on September 30, 1864, or 3rd Quarter 1864 (July-September). These are officially known as Union Ordnance returns, and I now have available the weapons carried by […]

  • 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 […]

  • “Page Perfect” OR Available

    The Historical Archive has what they are calling a “page perfect” version of the Official Record, which comes on two DVDs. The gold standard reference series for Civil War enthusiasts is the 128 volume The War of the Rebellion a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. It is the most […]

  • Cherokees, Slavery, and Masters

    There’s a legal battle brewing in Oklahoma about the tribal status of the descendants of the former slaves of the Cherokee. As it stands now they are getting the boot and Great White Father is not happy about it. The dispute stems from the fact that some wealthy Cherokee owned black slaves who worked on […]