TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Category: Military History

  • Take Your Damn Quote Back To Ohio!

    We recently passed the 150th anniversary of the Battle of  Shiloh which prompts me to discuss a quotation which bothers me.  Anyone who has read a modern book on Shiloh has probably seen some variation on “Take your damned regiment back to Ohio.  There is no enemy closer than Corinth.”  Allegedly this statement was the […]

  • Anniversary Post – Two Notes on Chancellorsville

    Bridging Problems Robert E. Lee’s skillful use of Virginia’s rivers made the Chancellorsville Campaign heavily dependent on the Union engineers. Any actions Hooker planned against The Army of Northern Virginia had to be proceeded by the crossing of the Rappahannock River. Because of their prominent role the engineers, like at Fredericksburg, drew the first criticism. […]

  • 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 […]

  • Short Takes

    Did “Angels’ Glow” protect some wounded soldiers at Shiloh? How true were stories of wounds that actually glowed in the dark? More true than you might think. Some of the Shiloh soldiers sat in the mud for two rainy days and nights waiting for the medics to get around to them. As dusk fell the […]

  • Pocket Pistols Then & Now II

    In the last post we looked at an early cartridge pocket revolver, the Otis Smith, and compared it to a modern Kel-Tec pocket pistol. Today let’s take a jump a bit farther back to the 1840s, when Colt’s cap and ball revolvers were just coming into wide use. Much has been written about how Colt’s […]

  • Short Takes

    If you missed Gary Joiner’s interview on C-SPAN on his book One Damn Blunder From Beginning To End: The Red River Campaign of 1864  you can catch it on the web. The book’s on my list to read, based on good reviews and the interview. This campaign ought to get more attention than it does […]

  • Did Lee Tell Ewell To Halt on July 1 at Gettysburg?

    I’ve been spending a lot of time lately looking through old issues of the National Tribune, THE Union veterans’ paper after the Civil War.  My main goal is to find articles pertaining to the Siege of Petersburg, but I’ve found a lot of other fascinating things, and I’ve only reached early 1882.  The paper was […]