TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

  • Cotton Pickin’ and Black Geography

    Two recent articles are worth a look, one on the changing geography of Black America and another on how mechanization took over cotton farming. Mona Chalabi maps black populations in the US for the last 118 years, but unfortunately does not go back to the 1850s. However, the distribution in 1900 was probably not that […]

  • Short Takes

    What is old is new again. Who would have thought that John C. Calhoun, in spite of having his named purged from a school, would be the most influential thinker in the liberal West? Yet nullification (okay, they call it resistance) and even secession (Calexit) are the issues of the day. It even extends to […]

  • Finding the Clotilda, America’s Last Slave Ship

    Led by a local reporter, archeologists think they may have found the wreck of the Clotilda, the last ship reasonably documented as transporting slaves to North America. What’s left of the ship lies partially buried in mud alongside an island in the lower Mobile-Tensaw Delta, a few miles north of the city of Mobile. The […]

  • Shooting the Sharps Rifle

    The breech-loading Sharps rifle was one of the most advanced firearms used in the war. Although used by infantry and sharpshooters, it was used most extensively by Federal cavalry as a carbine, and was an important factor in their superiority in the second half of the war. Three models figured in the fracas, the 1852 […]

  • Historical Cleansing Update

    Dollywood has renamed the Dixie Stampede. Now it’s just a Stampede. Dolly says it “streamlines the name of the show, will remove any confusion or concern about it, and will help efforts to bring the show into new cities.” I agree with Knox County mayor Tim Burchell. Well, like everybody else, I love Dolly, and […]

  • Some Fun With An Original P56 Enfield

    Wonder why the Confederate sharpshooters (and I mean here the light infantry battalions) were so feared? Cap and Ball will show you with an original P56 two-band Enfield rifle, which shoots very well indeed. And, he’s in the correct uniform.

  • The 1854 Lorenz Jaegerstutzen rifle

    Most students of Civil War weapons have heard of the Austrian Lorenz rifle. Sometimes called the “Austrian Enfield,” it ranked third in numbers issued to troops on both sides during the conflict, and was the second most common imported rifle after the British Enfield. The biggest users seem to have been the Army of Tennessee […]

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