Category: Social History
-
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 […]
-
C.S.S. Jack Daniels
Not really, but this Prohibition-era whiskey-running submarine, preserved at the Grand Gulf battlefield, is still pretty cool. Other than the lack of a spar torpedo and of course considering that it was powered by an automobile engine (from a Model T) it is strikingly similar in appearance to the H. L. Hunley. This isn’t really […]
-
Indian Sharpshooters at Olustee?
Fought just west of Jacksonville on February 20, 1864, Olustee was another one of those pull-it-out-by-the-skin-of-the-teeth Confederate victories that staved off defeat just a little longer. I recently came into possession of a letter by a member of a New York regiment about the battle, where he describes Confederate Indians shooting white officers leading back […]
-
Requiem For A Black Confederate
William Alexander Smith was a private soldier in Co. C, 14th North Carolina. He was gravely wounded at Malvern Hill in 1862, which disqualified him for further service, but he kept in touch with his surviving mates in his old company, the Anson Guards, and eventually wrote its history. Smith became a successful businessman and […]
-
Short Takes
I was fortunate to do some research at the Rubenstein Rare Books and Manuscript Library at Duke recently. Nice place, friendly and knowledgeable staff. They have a huge collection of Civil War primary sources and manuscripts, including supposedly the largest collection of unpublished Confederate manuscripts in the world. Well worth visiting (certainly was for me). […]
-
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 […]