Berry Benson was born on February 9th, 1843 in Hamburg, South Carolina, just across the Savannah River from Augusta, Georgia. In 1860 Berry Benson enlisted with his brother in a local militia unit aged 17 and 15 respectively. The next spring they witnessed the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. After the surrender…
The National Archives and Records Administration has a substantial, though scattered, set of records for “Black Confederates.” Thousands of body servants, laborers, cooks, musicians, teamsters, etc., encamped with and served the Confederate Army.
I’ll describe some actual, real-life black Confederates. In 1891, Tennessee began granting pensions to Confederate veterans. The Board of Pension Examiners was established to determine if those applying for pensions were eligible. Eligibility requirements included an inability to support oneself, honorable separation from the service and residence in the state for one year prior to…
The Corwin Amendment, also called the “Slavery Amendment,” was a constitutional amendment passed by Congress in 1861 but never ratified by the states that would have banned the federal government from abolishing the institution of slavery in the states where it existed at the time. Considering it a last-ditch effort to prevent the looming Civil…
Despite being the Confederate high-water mark of the Western Theater and one of the most important battles of the American Civil War, most people, including many Civil War buffs, know little about the Battle of Perryville. Consider these 10 facts about this watershed battle in the western theater.
Following its ratification by the requisite three-quarters of the states earlier in the month, the 13th Amendment is formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution, ensuring that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude… shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Fought on October 13, 1864, during the Petersburg Campaign, the Battle of Darbytown Road, also known as the Battle of Alms House, was a failed Union attempt to stop the construction of new defensive breastworks outside of Richmond, Virginia.
Born on January 8, 1831, in Knoxville, in Crawford County, Pemberton grew up and attended the local schools in Rome, where his family lived for almost thirty years. He studied medicine and pharmacy at the Reform Medical College of Georgia in Macon, and in 1850, at the age of nineteen, he was licensed to practice on Thomsonian or botanic…
The six-month encampment of General George Washington’s Continental Army at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-1778 was a major turning point in the American Revolutionary War.
