Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia: A Statistical Portrait of the Troops Who Served
Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia: A Statistical Portrait of the Troops Who Served Under Robert E. Lee by Joseph T. Glatthaar. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011. ISBN: 0807834920. $50.00. Glatthaar tells us in the Preface to Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia that he believes that “Civil War scholarship that focuses on soldiers is stuck.” Continuing he states that as historians we have focused…
Read more...The Future of Civil War History and Soldier Studies
Just this past week historians (academic, digital, amateur) and educators gathered to discuss the future of Civil War history, here during our sesquicentennial celebration and moving forward. The depth and width of exploration during the conference (according to the program) is impressive. Topics included: Civil War memory, teaching the war, gender, race, religion, battlefields, generals, leadership, and others. All wrapped up with a final day Panel that considered the central…
Read more...Trees Tell Lost Tales of US Civil War Soldiers
LEESBURG, VIRGINIA — The U.S. Civil War was the bloodiest war in American history. From 1861 to 1865, at least 620,000 soldiers died in the fighting. The war was fought between the states of the North – the Union, and the South – the Confederacy, which were divided over states’ rights, including slavery. Now 150 years later, the soldiers who died are being memorialized through a tree planting project that…
Read more...The Valiant Soldier: The Civil War & Frontier Diary of W. Henry Oettiker
This book reveals W. Henry Oettiker a young Wisconsin farmer who left the wheat fields of the Wisconsin frontier and traveled 10,000 miles all through his Civil War journey. The diary takes up Oettiker’s experiences during the last stages of the Civil War to his enlistment and service on the Great Plains and western frontier. From 1865 to 1866 Oettiker traveled another 2,000 miles west; a journey that was full…
Read more...Civil War Soldier’s Letter Auction to Fetch Thousands
Why is a Civil War soldier’s letter describing a bloody battle and his vision of free blacks potentially worth thousands of dollars when it goes up for auction later this month? The letter by the son of John Carter, an African-American grocery store owner in Madison who helped move slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad, has long been in the hands of private collectors. It will be included in…
Read more...The Religious World of Civil War Soldiers
Unfortunately, the spiritual world of the Civil War soldier with regard to his religious beliefs has not often been the focus of historians. This is for various reasons and unfortunately many of them political; which I will not get into. But for a few exceptions before 2001 [Charles Reagan Wilson’s Baptized in Blood (1980); Randall Miller, Harry Stout, and Wilson’s Religion and the American Civil War (1998); for example] few modern…
Read more...Disease & Sickness Ravaged Civil War America
During the American Civil War over 620,000 people were casualties (and probably a lot more) with 504 dying every day. For the soldier, two out of every three would die of disease. The average soldier quickly discovered that one of the worst places to be sent were the field hospitals. William C. Haynes of the 11th Kansas wrote in February of 1863 wrote about the toll of war with regard…
Read more...Civil War Soldiers: William Beynon Phillips
The William Beynon Phillips Collection is one of the better ones in the Soldier Studies database for its historical value. Phillips joined the Union cause in August, 1862, near Scranton, Pennsylvania to fill the ranks of Schooley’s Battery; which shortly later became attached to the 2nd Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery as Company M. [to the right is a drawing by Phillips found in the collection of writings.] Phillips was an educated…
Read more...Civil War Soldier Valor the Story of Sam Davis
Sam Davis was captured by Federal cavalry 15 miles outside Pulaski, Tennessee. He was captured wearing a “Federal soldier’s coat” and was a suspected spy and would therefore, per military law, be hanged. Brig. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge was in charge and when Davis was brought to him, he reportedly implored the young man to tell him who he was a spy for (Confederate outlaw “Coleman” led the network of…
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