Category: Controversies of a Campaign
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Review: Like a Meteor Blazing Brightly: The Short but Controversial Life of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren
Like a Meteor Blazing Brightly: The Short but Controversial Life of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren by Eric Wittenberg Edinborough Press, Roseville, MN ISBN-10: 1889020338 ISBN-13: 978-1889020334 August 1, 2009 Hardcover, 6×9”, 288 pages, $29.95 The Kilpatrick-Dahlgren cavalry raid, aimed at Richmond in the early months of 1864, continues to fascinate historians and provoke controversy. Although ostensibly […]
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Short Takes
Real world has been intruding again, leaving little time for blogging. Nevertheless… A group of academics, some of them historians, urged President Obama not to lay a wreath at the Confederate memorial in Arlington on Memorial Day. One of them was James McPherson. Now my opinion of McP has been declining for a while, as […]
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Bull of the West Wood
Thanks to Brett for his pointer to Jim Buchanan’s Walking in the West Woods. And thanks to Jim for the pointer to Gen. Sumner’s papers at the Archives and for publishing his post-battle letter. Sumner’s letter would seem to support those of us who criticize his performance in the West Wood by showing pretty conclusively […]
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Lincoln and the Laws of War
John Fabian Witt, a professor of legal history at Columbia University, pens an article in Slate about Lincoln’s Laws of War, and how the Bush administration supposedly attempted to destroy them. This is amusing, since when it comes to prosecuting a war George Bush is a pantywaist compared to the Great Emancipator. Witt wraps the […]
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Short Takes
What exactly happened to the CSS Hunley? Its fate has been the subject of almost 150 years of conjecture and almost a decade of scientific research since the Hunley was raised back in 2000. But the submarine has been agonizingly slow surrendering her secrets. “She was a mystery when she was built. She was a […]
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Review: The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat
Update: Welcome to TOCWOC for those of you who have found this page through a Google Search! If you enjoy what you’re about to read below, feel free to Subscribe to TOCWOC’s RSS feed. Be sure to check out the Civil War Book Reviews which have been posted here and browse through TOCWOC founder Brett […]
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Chivalry and Sharpshooting
Various commentators have mentioned that the ethos of the 18th and 19th Centuries disapproved of sharpshooters, who were seen as acting in a cowardly manner. Some even considered it unchivalrous to take aim at an individual foeman. Here’s an example in an editorial that appeared in the Missouri Democrat in December, 1862. Major-General Hindman, it […]