TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Category: Political History

  • 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 […]

  • 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 […]

  • A Patriotic Tipple

    Since we are honoring presidents today we might take a moment of two to do it with spirit(s). The two whose birthdays fall near today—George Washington and Abe Lincoln—both liked to imbibe a wee dram now and again. Washington even made it and was by some accounts at one time the largest distiller in the […]

  • William Holden, Second Iowa

    I have some letters from William Holden, a soldier with the Second Iowa. An ardent abolitionist who lived in Ottumwa, the 22-year-old Holden signed up at the beginning of the conflict and stayed on until the end, re-enlisting in December, 1863. Serving in the Western armies, he fought in almost all the major battles of […]

  • 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 […]

  • 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 […]

  • Are We In Rebellion Yet?

    Anyone looking for a laugh today (or an example of hyperbole) should check Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s pronouncements today—that the Republicans are “in rebellion” for not supporting President Obama’s jobs bill, just like the Confederacy. President Obama tends to idealize — and rightfully so  — Abraham Lincoln, who looked at states in rebellion and he […]