TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Category: Economic History

  • Moore’s Patent Revolver

    UPDATE: Welcome to all of the readers at SayUncle!  For informaton on Civil War and other arms and armament, check out some other posts in our Arms and Armament category. I seem to be on a roll with CW-period revolvers. Came across another one the other day, the Moore’s Patent Revolver. The gun’s owner, who […]

  • Steamboats on the Tombigbee

    While visiting relatives in LA (Lower Alabama) I came across a copy of Rufus Ward’s book The Tombigbee River Steamboats: Rollodores, Dead Heads, and Side-Wheelers. Ward takes a look at Alabama’s almost forgotten steamboat era from the 1840s to the 1880s, in which the steamboats plying the Mobile, Alabama, Warrior and Tombigbee rivers dominated the […]

  • 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 […]

  • The Long Recall

    In honor of the upcoming Civil War sesquicentennial The American Interest has begun The Long Recall: An Aggregator of the Civil War. Walter Russell Mead explains: We will use a modern form to present the daily news: our Civil War aggregator that combines a short daily summary of the news along with links to articles […]

  • Short Takes

    The Wisconsin Historical Society looks at election chicanery in 1864 when the Republicans, like the Democrats today, faced a stunning defeat. They did, however, have an ace to play, the military vote. Since they controlled the Legislature, Republicans passed a bill in September that enabled soldiers to vote while serving in the field, and authorized […]

  • Short Takes

    Earlier I did a couple of posts on Tom Dooley and his defense counsel Zeb Vance. Now Dooley has come to the stage here in Burnsville, NC, in a locally-produced musical, Tom Dooley. The Kingston Trio gave this tale national, if not global, visibility, but the story of Tom Dooley is based on historical events […]

  • Short Takes

    Confederate general Ambrose Powell Hill, a man controversial enough in life, continues to cause problems 145 years after his death—or at least his portrait does. Nine years ago, amid considerable controversy, Hill’s portrait was removed from the county courthouse and put on display at the Museum of Culpeper History. During all that time, further controversy […]