A bit of Natchez, Mississippi history during Union occupation that conveniently gets swept under the rug, as it destroys the narrative of Lincoln’s virtuous war of emancipation. According to local historian Don Estes, during the War Between the States, African American Union Troops were segregated and quartered “Under the Hill” near the sawmill. They had…
The Christmas that Americans celebrate today seems like a timeless weaving of custom and feeling beyond the reach of history. Yet the familiar mix of carols, cards, presents, trees, multiplicities of Santas and holiday neuroses that have come to define December 25th in the United States is little more than a hundred years old.
Quakers in the Civil War seems like an inherently contradictory idea; the Society of Friends practices pacifism and nonviolence, and, for many, putting money or resources toward war efforts goes against the faith.
The American Revolutionary War, also known as the American War of Independence was fought between Great Britain and the thirteen British colonies between the years 1775 and 1783. The mutinous colonists declared themselves no longer allied with the crown and kicked off an eight year struggle against the political and economic policies of the British Empire. The Declaration of Independence was signed during the revolution in 1776 and declared the thirteen colonies, now to be separately chartered and governed, the United States of America.
It can be difficult to relate to the men and women of the Civil War era. Despite the extraordinarily different circumstances in which they found themselves, however, we can connect with our forebears in traditions such as the celebration of Christmas.
On May 25, 1843, Sam Houston, Jr. was the first of eight children born to General Sam Houston and Margaret Lea. Sickly when he was born at Washington-on-the Brazos, Texas, he improved so that his father described him as, “a hearty brat, robust and hearty as a Brookshire pig."
Confederate troops were rushed by rail to confront the Union army led by Brigadier General Irwin McDowell at Bull Run. Among those who rode by rail was a brigade under an eccentric professor from Virginia Military Institute. That brigade delivered the battle’s knockout blow and its general, Brigadier General Thomas Jonathan Jackson, would gain his sobriquet “Stonewall”.
As the morning sun burned through the fog along the New Market Road about eight miles southeast of Richmond on the autumn morning of September 29, 1864, it revealed a scene of carnage and human wreckage. Dead infantrymen in coats that were a familiar shade of Union blue covered the slopes before New Market Heights. But most of the faces of the dead and maimed were black.
The author of the children's poem "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was persistent in arguing that establishing the national November holiday could help heal wounds from the Civil War.
After the failed socialist revolutions of 1848 which encompassed most of the European continent, many German, English, Hungarian, Bavarian, etc. atheistic socialists flocked to the United States having been banned from their homelands for treason. Ironically just about all of them wound up in the North (for a number of factors including an already…
