TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Category: Eastern Theater

  • Civil War Book Review: Dear Friend Amelia: The Civil War Letters of Private John Tidd

    Editor’s Note: This review originally appeared at The Siege of Petersburg Online: Beyond the Crater earlier today. Jordan, Mary & Hatch, Joyce. Dear Friend Amelia: The Civil War Letters of Private John Tidd. Six Mile Creek Press (January 2011). 176 pp., 100+ illustrations, notes. ISBN: 978-1-57003-922-5 $34.95 (Cloth). Reading a collection of wartime soldier letters […]

  • The Battle for the Bliss Farm at Gettysburg: July 3, 1863

    The Battle for The Bliss Farm: July 3, 1863 at the Battle of Gettysburg by James W. Durney Gettysburg is the most studied battle in American History, Noah Andre Trudeau in “Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage” apologized for adding to the weight of books on the battle and called writing about Gettysburg a cottage industry.  […]

  • Army of the Potomac Morale at the Siege of Petersburg

    Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared at The Siege of Petersburg Online: Beyond the Crater on Monday, January 17, 2011.  Bryce Suderow is an author, researcher, and Siege of Petersburg specialist. “The Troops Did Not Meet the Attack with Vigor and Courage and Determination”: Union Army Morale at the Siege of Petersburg by Bryce Suderow […]

  • Citadel Cadets Fire on Star of the West

    Not really, although they did 150 years ago. CHARLESTON, S.C. – Gray-clad cadets from South Carolina’s historic military college fired cannons Saturday on a barren, wind-swept island on Charleston Harbor to re-enact the 150th anniversary of a key episode leading up to the Civil War. The event recalled what some consider the first shots of […]

  • Finding Fort Owen

    Believe it or not there are still “lost” Civil War forts that occasionally come to light. One such was Fort Owen, which played a brief but pivotal role in the events of April 2, 1865 at Petersburg. Named after Louisiana artillery officer Col. William Miller Owen, the fort had a short life, being constructed in […]

  • John Buford’s Readiness

    If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Hamlet, Act V, Scene ii As the sun broke over McPherson’s Ridge on the morning of July 1, 1863, John Buford and the men […]

  • Short Takes

    Relatives, friends and re-enactors re-dedicated a memorial to Col. George Wesley Clayton, who saved Asheville from the Yankee hordes in the Battle of Asheville on April 6, 1865. Historian Jeff Lovelace believes that without Clayton’s successful defense of the town of 1,200 in the Battle of Asheville, the consequences would have been dire. “The town […]