An article in the NY Times by Paul Finkelman, senior fellow in the Penn Program on Democracy, Citizenship and Constitutionalism at the University of Pennsylvania and a scholar-in-residence at the National Constitution Center.. An excerpt …
“The most obvious constitutional result of the Civil War was the adoption of three landmark constitutional amendments. The 13th ended slavery forever in the United States, while the 14th made all persons born in the United States (including the former slaves) citizens of the nation and prohibited the states from denying anyone the privileges and immunities of American citizenship, due process or law, or equal protection of the law. Finally, the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, prohibited the states from denying the franchise to anyone based on ‘race, color, or previous condition of servitude.’
“These amendments, however, have their roots in the war itself, and in some ways can been seen as formal acknowledgments of the way the war altered the Constitution. Other changes came about without any amendments. Thus, the war altered the Constitution in a variety of ways. A review of some of them underscores how the Union that President Lincoln preserved was fundamentally different — and better — than the Union he inherited when he became president.”
An article in the NY Times by Ted Widmer, assistant to the president for special projects at Brown University, and the editor of “The New York Times Disunion: Modern Historians Revisit and Reconsider the Civil War from Lincoln’s Election to the Emancipation Proclamation.” An excerpt …
“When did the Civil War end? Many have answered never. As late as 1949, in an address at Harvard, the writer Ralph Ellison said that the war ‘is still in the balance, and only our enchantment by the spell of the possible, our endless optimism, has led us to assume that it ever really ended.’”
“On 2nd June, 150 years ago, Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith signed the terms of surrender offered by the Union. The commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi, Smith’s agreement to the terms saw the dissolution of the last Confederate army, finally bringing to a close the US Civil War.
“The US Civil War had officially come to an end on 9th April, 1865, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. Nevertheless, over the following months several strongholds of Confederate forces continued to hold out in the conflict, most notably west of the Mississippi, and wage guerrilla warfare against Union forces.”
Here’s an article by Onofrio Castiglia that appeared in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star daily newspaper. An excerpt …
“When considering the millions of men who fought in the American Civil War, one local group highlights the fact that some of them were not men at all—but women, in disguise.
“Recently, Steve Killings, board president of the Academy for Veteran Education and Training—an educational nonprofit group located at Historic Jordan Springs—said that the organization is trying to erect a monument to honor the more than 500 women who posed as men so they could fight.
“According to the Civil War Trust, more than 3 million soldiers fought in the war.
“Killings said that there is no memorial anywhere dedicated to the little-known group of women who fought as valiantly as their male counterparts, and not as nurses or seamstresses, but as combat soldiers.”
An article by Leoneda Inge on the North Carolina Public Radio website. An excerpt …
“Events commemorating the 150th Anniversary marking the end of the Civil War are wrapping up across the south. It is noticeable that most of the visitors attending these events are white.
“But organizers at the Stagville State Historic Site in Durham made sure their event over the weekend would be more diverse. They say “Freedom 150” focused on the lives of the former slaves once the Civil War came to an end.”
A blog post by Daniel Davis at the Emerging Civil War blog.
“Over the course of the last year and a half, one of the officers who has grabbed my attention is Maj. Gen. Joseph Mower. Having served in the War with Mexico, Mower compiled an impressive combat record during the Civil War, fighting at Island Number 10, Iuka and Vicksburg. He participated in the Red River Campaign and the March to the Sea. He probably had his finest hour at Bentonville, where he turned Gen. Joseph Johnston’s left flank and came within a hair of cutting off the line of retreat of the Confederates. What is all the more extraordinary is that Mower began the war as a Captain of a company in the 1st U.S. Infantry and ended as the commander of the XX Corps in the Army of Georgia, all without a West Point education. Similar to many of his contemporaries, however, Mower does have question marks on his record. Last week’s visit to Corinth left me to further contemplate them and their possible answers.”
This is an article from North Country Public Radio by Nina Martyris, a freelance journalist based in Knoxville, Tennessee. An excerpt …
“Cookbooks published during the Civil War era provide vivid, contrasting portraits of how the conflict affected diets and social lives in the North and the South. A house divided against itself, indeed: There was very little in common between the kitchens of the Yankee North and the Confederate South.
“Over the four-year course of the war, the cotton-and-tobacco-growing South was steadily starved into submission by the Union's naval blockade of the Atlantic Coast and the Mississippi River, which cut off vital supplies of grain, pork and, most lethally, salt. Meanwhile, ports in the North remained open to trade with Europe. While parts of the South came close to famine, the North continued to dine well and even exported surplus food. All this was reflected in the food literature of the time.”
This is a link to an episode of the History of American Slavery courtesy of Slate.com. In this link is an MP3 audio file of “The Atlantic slave trade during its heyday and the remarkable life of Olaudah Equiano.” You can listen to the audio on this web page or download it to listen on your favorite portable device. In episode 2 of The History of American Slavery, a Slate Academy, hosts Rebecca Onion and Jamelle Bouie explore the shape of slavery during the late 18th century. They talk about the heyday of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the birth of the British abolitionist movement. They begin their discussion by remembering the remarkable life of Olaudah Equiano, 1745?–1797.
“It might seem strange, given how much has been written on American slavery just over the past half-century, that yet another book, in its title, could propose that The Half Has Never Been Told. But the half that Cornell historian Edward Baptist believes has “never been told” is revealed in the subtitle: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. The half that remains to be told is about capitalism’s complicity in slave labor—at which point we realize that this is not a book about slavery after all; it is a teeming, visceral condemnation of capitalism … “
A post by Ashley Webb on the Emerging Civil War blog. An excerpt …
“In late October of 1861, the Union Naval fleet set sail for Port Royal, South Carolina, hoping to advance Winfield Scott’s plan to blockade the Confederate ports and prevent trade with European countries. Similar to the Chesapeake Bay, Port Royal was a strategic supply route into South Carolina and Georgia, as well as one of the wealthiest Confederate ports because of its sea-islands cotton. The brief naval battle at Port Royal that took place in November 1861 unsettled the Confederate hold on the islands, and led to a hasty retreat for both the Confederate troops and the plantation owners, abandoning all property and possessions. The question soon became about what to do with the 10,000 slaves left behind … “
A post by Ashley Webb on the Emerging Civil War blog. An excerpt …
“Edward Pierce, an agent to the Federal Government sent to visit Port Royal and the surrounding islands of South Carolina, wrote an in depth anthropological style report on the African American population abandoned by retreating Confederate troops and evacuating plantation owners. Reprinted in the New York Tribune in February of 1862, Pierce documented the daily lives of the slaves, while taking a preliminary inventory of the available land, labor, and cash-crop production at each plantation … ”
Parts 1 – 4 were posted in last week’s list of articles. A series of blog posts by Ned B. at TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog. TOCWOC (The Order of Civil War Obsessively Compulsed) is a group Civil War blog formed in September 2007. Its purpose is to enlighten and entertain readers on every aspect of the Civil War, whether it be Social, Political, Military, or other history. An excerpt …
“Grant’s first order to Banks reached him on March 26 at Alexandria, Louisiana, where the forces for the campaign had concentrated. Though delayed by the navy’s effort to get the boats over the rapids, Banks still hoped he could reach Shreveport around April 10 and return Sherman’s troops after that.1 Meanwhile Grant had returned to Washington DC. His thinking about the spring campaigns had progressed substantially. In particular his desire for a campaign against Mobile had solidified. On the last day of March, Grant wrote orders to Banks that altered his previous instructions … “
Missouri 150 Years Ago
Every week, Len Eagleburger (co-edited by Beverly Shaw) edits a newsletter called “Ozarks Civil War Sesquicentennial Weekly.” One of its sections is entitled “Missouri 150 Years Ago.” These are the links to articles which appeared in the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper published in Columbia, Missouri.
All right, we’re beginning to see articles about reconstruction. Here is a post by Cynthia Lynn Lyerly at the We’re History blog. An excerpt …
“In the renewed efforts to encourage the National Park Service to commemorate Reconstruction, we should keep in mind that there actually are public commemorations of Reconstruction already in our nation. In Newberry, South Carolina, the Sons of Confederate Veterans erected one such roadside marker in 1994 to commemorate the “murder” of Calvin Crozier in September of 1865.
“Some elements of the actual story are indeed rendered truthfully on the marker. Crozier was escorting two white women when he knifed a soldier in the 33rd. He was summarily tried, convicted, and executed, under Trowbridge’s orders. Trowbridge was indeed brought to trial at a court martial. But the rest of the story is far more complicated …”
An article in the NY Times by Boyd Cothran and Ari Kelman. Boyd Cothran is an assistant professor of Indigenous and cultural history at York University in Toronto and the author of “Remembering the Modoc War: Redemptive Violence and the Making ofAmerican Innocence.”Ari Kelman is the McCabe-Greer Professor of the Civil War Era at Penn State and the author of “A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling Over the Memory of Sand Creek,” which won the Bancroft Prize in 2014, and, with Jonathan Fetter-Vorm, “Battle Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War.” Cothran and Kelman are both writing books about the relationship between Reconstruction and Native American history. An excerpt …
“On Dec. 21, 1866, a year and a half after Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant ostensibly closed the book on the Civil War’s final chapter at Appomattox Court House, another soldier, Capt. William Fetterman, led cavalrymen from Fort Phil Kearny, a federal outpost in Wyoming, toward the base of the Big Horn range. The men planned to attack Indians who had reportedly been menacing local settlers. Instead, a group of Arapahos, Cheyennes and Lakotas, including a warrior named Crazy Horse, killed Fetterman and 80 of his men. It was the Army’s worst defeat on the Plains to date. The Civil War was over, but the Indian wars were just beginning.
“These two conflicts, long segregated in history and memory, were in fact intertwined. They both grew out of the process of establishing an American empire in the West. In 1860.”
An article in the NY Times by Thom Bassett. An excerpt …
“Early on the morning of May 24, 1865, a bright, pleasantly warm day in Washington, D.C., Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman calmly guided his horse to the head of his army. He was about to lead his veteran troops on their last march, this time down Pennsylvania Avenue, before tens of thousands of thronging, wildly cheering citizens and the nation’s leaders, as part of the two-day Grand Review that celebrated the Union victory.
“For Sherman, this was more than simply a commemoration of the war’s end. It was also a grimly pursued vindication of himself against his enemies — and not just the men in gray. After relentlessly levying a hard war to force their submission, this marauder of the South had sought a soft peace to ease their reunion with the rest of the country. Now, in Washington, aimed to triumph over those he saw as his Northern enemies— viciously hypocritical journalists as well as the capital’s paranoid, backstabbing political and military elite.”
Grant & The Red River Campaign
A series of blog posts by Ned B. at TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog. TOCWOC (The Order of Civil War Obsessively Compulsed) is a group Civil War blog formed in September 2007. Our purpose is to enlighten and entertain readers on every aspect of the Civil War, whether it be Social, Political, Military, or other history.
Every week, Len Eagleburger (co-edited by Beverly Shaw) edits a newsletter called “Ozarks Civil War Sesquicentennial Weekly.” One of its sections is entitled “Missouri 150 Years Ago.” These are the links to articles which appeared in the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper published in Columbia, Missouri.
A blog post with three articles by Jason Roe from the Kansas City Public Library.
An excerpt from the “Downfall of the Confederacy.”
“At the beginning of May 1865, a few Confederate commanders and political leaders, including Davis, still called on Confederates to continue the fight through means of guerrilla warfare. Most Confederates followed the lead of General Lee, who rejected the idea because he saw it as pointless, needlessly destructive for the South, and likely to ruin any opportunity for peaceful reconciliation between North and South.”
An excerpt from the “Rebuilding in Missouri and Kansas.”
“As Unionists reveled at the end of the war, the residents of Missouri and Kansas had to consider how to reconcile their differences, rebuild, and move forward. The correspondence between a Missouri couple who were engaged to be married hinted at the various challenges faced in recovering from a decade of violence along the Missouri-Kansas border that predated the Civil War itself.”
An excerpt from the “Missouri Bushwhackers Continue Fighting.”
“Even as most Missourians sought to move on from the war, a number of hardened guerrilla fighters, or "bushwhackers," as they were known, had grown accustomed to personal feuds, brutality, and spoils of plunder. This atmosphere of violence is illustrated in the diary of C.T. Kimmel, an assistant surgeon in the 2nd Missouri State Militia Cavalry.”
An article in the NY Times by Christopher Phillips, professor of history at the University of Cincinnati. He is the author of six books on the Civil War era, including “Damned Yankee: The Life of Nathaniel Lyon” and the forthcoming “The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War on the Middle Border and the Making of American Regionalism.” An excerpt …
“In the late winter of 1865, Abraham Lincoln was completing a reconciliation-themed second Inaugural Address, pledging the nation to embrace the end of slavery ‘that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.’
”His thoughts were not solely on the last, violent days of the war in the Confederacy. On Feb. 20, the president wrote to Missouri’s new governor, Thomas C. Fletcher, troubled by persistent violence and distrust among civilians there. ‘Waiving all else, pledge each to cease harassing others, and to make common cause against whomever persists in making, aiding or encouraging further disturbance.’ The president implored. ‘At such meetings old friendships will cross the memory, and honor and Christian charity will contrive to help.’ Less than two months later, Lincoln was dead. Had he lived, he would have learned, painfully, that amity would be difficult to find in slaveholding border states like Missouri, especially over the end of the peculiar institution there.”
An article in the NY Times by Dan Doyle, author of “The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War” and the McCausland professor of history at the University of South Carolina.” An excerpt …
“Even while the Civil War raged, slaves in Cuba could be heard singing, ‘Avanza, Lincoln, avanza! Tu eres nuestra esperanzal’ (Onward, Lincoln, Onward! You are our hope!) — as if they knew, even before the soldiers fighting the war far to the North and long before most politicians understood, that the war in America would change their lives, and the world.
“The secession crisis of 1860-1861 threatened to be a major setback to the world antislavery movement, and it imperiled the whole experiment in democracy. If slavery was allowed to exist, and if the world’s leading democracy could fall apart over the issue, what hope did freedom have? European powers wasted no time in taking advantage of the debacle. France and Britain immediately each sent fleets of warships with the official purpose of observing the imminent war in America. In Paris, A New York Times correspondent who went by the byline ‘Malakoff’ thought that the French and British observers ‘may be intended as a sort of escort of honor for the funeral of the Great Republic.’”
A blog post by Dave Powell at Emerging Civil War, a blog providing fresh perspectives on America's defining event. An excerpt …
“On a personal note, I am interested in Davis’s capture primarily because of the units involved. Not only do we have the 1st Wisconsin and 4th Michigan cavalries, but also longtime western theater personalities like John Croxton and Robert H. G. Minty – all Army of the Cumberland men.
“Of course, Davis’s collaring generated its own share of claims, counter-claims, and controversies. I know of (at least) three other cavalry regiments that would, in the postwar era, try to claim at least a share of reflected glory.”
A blog post at Emerging Civil War by Phil Greenwalt, National Park Service historian at George Washington Birthplace National Monument and Thomas Stone National Historic Site. An excerpt …
“After a walking tour of the Sunken Road on the Fredericksburg Battlefield, I received the following question; ‘What did the war cost?’
“Naturally, my first thought was to explain the casualty figures for the entire conflict, which now surpasses 750,000 men. Furthermore, another 64,000 men died of wounds received during the war and transpired in the immediate years after. I thought I had thoroughly answered the question.
“Wrong.
“She wanted to know what the overall cost, in addition to the casualty figures, which she agreed was extensive, horrible, and completely mind-blowing. All she had heard about was the casualties, but did anyone ever calculate the cost; economically, government-wise, etc.”
Missouri 150 Years Ago
Every week, Len Eagleburger (co-edited by Beverly Shaw) edits a newsletter called “Ozarks Civil War Sesquicentennial Weekly.” One of its sections is entitled “Missouri 150 Years Ago.” These are the links to articles which appeared in the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper published in Columbia, Missouri.
As part of his interview, McPherson recommended reading the following six books if you want to begin to understand "why the Civil War still matters."
Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution by Eric Foner. "Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the ways in which the emancipated slaves' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of Reconstruction; the remodeling of Southern society and the place of planters, merchants, and small farmers within it; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans." taken from Amazon.
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner. "Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in History, the Bancroft Prize, and the Lincoln Prize: from a master historian, the story of Lincoln's―and the nation's―transformation through the crucible of slavery and emancipation." taken from Amazon.
Confederate Reckoning by Stephanie McCurry. "The story of the Confederate States of America, the proslavery, antidemocratic nation created by white Southern slaveholders to protect their property, has been told many times in heroic and martial narratives. Now, however, Stephanie McCurry tells a very different tale of the Confederate experience. When the grandiosity of Southerners' national ambitions met the harsh realities of wartime crises, unintended consequences ensued. Although Southern statesmen and generals had built the most powerful slave regime in the Western world, they had excluded the majority of their own people-white women and slaves-and thereby sowed the seeds of their demise." taken from Amazon.
Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War byElizabeth R. Varon. "Winner, Library of Virginia Literary Award for Nonfiction; Winner of the Dan and Marilyn Laney Prize of the Austin Civil War Round Table; Finalist, Jefferson Davis Award of the Museum of the Confederacy. Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House evokes a highly gratifying image in the popular mind -- it was, many believe, a moment that transcended politics, a moment of healing, a moment of patriotism untainted by ideology. But as Elizabeth Varon reveals in this vividly narrated history, this rosy image conceals a seething debate over precisely what the surrender meant and what kind of nation would emerge from war. The combatants in that debate included the iconic Lee and Grant, but they also included a cast of characters previously overlooked, who brought their own understanding of the war's causes, consequences, and meaning." taken from Amazon.
Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865 by James Oakes. "A powerful history of emancipation that reshapes our understanding of Lincoln, the Civil War, and the end of American slavery. Freedom National is a groundbreaking history of emancipation that joins the political initiatives of Lincoln and the Republicans in Congress with the courageous actions of Union soldiers and runaway slaves in the South. It shatters the widespread conviction that the Civil War was first and foremost a war to restore the Union and only gradually, when it became a military necessity, a war to end slavery. These two aims―"Liberty and Union, one and inseparable"―were intertwined in Republican policy from the very start of the war." taken from Amazon.
After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War by Gregory P. Downs. "After Appomattox argues that the war did not end with Confederate capitulation in 1865. Instead, a second phase commenced which lasted until 1871―not the project euphemistically called Reconstruction but a state of genuine belligerency whose mission was to shape the terms of peace. Using its war powers, the U.S. Army oversaw an ambitious occupation, stationing tens of thousands of troops in hundreds of outposts across the defeated South. This groundbreaking study of the post-surrender occupation makes clear that its purpose was to crush slavery and to create meaningful civil and political rights for freed people in the face of rebels’ bold resistance." taken from Amazon.
Posted by: Dick Titterington AT 07:18 am
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The African American Civil War Memorial & Museum will honor black soldiers who were not welcome at the original Grand Review celebration. An article in The Nation by Richard Kreitner. An excerpt …
“By this week 150 years ago, the Civil War was over, the Union preserved and slavery effectively abolished. But there was one more formality needed to officially mark the end of the war: a Grand Review of the Armies in Washington, DC, to welcome the victorious troops home …
“Excluded from the triumphant event, however, were the almost 200,000 black soldiers who had fought on the Union side, all of whom had been conveniently kept away from Washington. The only blacks who marched were former slaves paraded as comic relief.”
An article in the NY Times by Richard Parker, author of “Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America.” An excerpt …
“PALMITO RANCH, Tex. — On the flat, cactus-studded coastal plain of South Texas the prevailing wind brings the salty smell of the Gulf of Mexico. Gloomy, low-hanging clouds stream overhead, northward. Other than the saw grass and yucca, the landscape is featureless, bounded only by the muddy Rio Grande and the sea.
“It was here, though, that the American Civil War ended in its final and ultimately pointless battle, 150 years ago. When the news of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox reached the Confederacy’s westernmost state, chaos fell upon the cities as the remnants of the Confederate Army turned upon Texas itself. And here, on this isolated stretch of nowhere, the Confederate Army made its final and most futile stand.”
An article in the NY Times by Phil Leigh, Civil War book author. An excerpt …
“By early May 1865, a month after Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, most of the remaining Confederate soldiers had laid down their arms. While some Southerners were angry, and others were relieved, nearly all were apprehensive about the future. Many moved West and north; some decided to leave the United States completely.
Many Southerners were pessimistic about the region’s economic future. Partly because of the monetary value of slaves, in 1860 seven of the 10 states with the highest per capita Wealth would join the Confederacy. Much of that Wealth was wiped out, and today Virginia is the only former rebel state to rank among the top 10 in per capita income, while five of the bottom 10 are former Confederate states. The classic example is Mississippi, which ranked No. 1 in 1860, and 50th in the 2010 census.”
An article in the NY Times by Adam Arenson and Virginia Scharff. Adam Arenson is an associate professor of history at Manhattan College and a co-editor of the new volume “Civil War Wests.” Testing the Limits of the United if Virginia Scharff is an associate provost for faculty development and a distinguished professor of history and the director of the Center for the Southwest at the University of New Mexico. She is also the chair of western women’s history at the Autry National Center and co-curator (with Carolyn Brucken) of the Autry exhibition and editor of the companion volume “Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and the West.” The exhibition is open now and runs through January. This essay draws on the introductions to both volumes. An excerpt …
“After Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, the Civil War continued. After the final pitched battle at Palmito Ranch, Texas, on May 12-13, 1865, the Civil War continued. After Cherokee leader Stand Watie became the last Confederate general to surrender on June 23, 1865, the Civil War continued. Even after Aug. 20, 1866, when Andrew Johnson formally declared an end to the War and began to pull back the troops occupying the former Confederate states, the war wasn’t really over, at least not in the American West.”
A blog post at Mysteries and Conundrums, a blog exploring the Civil War-era landscape in the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania region. An excerpt …
“This month brings the sesquicentennial of some of the first instances of historical touring of the Fredericksburg-area battlefields during peacetime in Virginia (even if not yet during peacetime nationwide), by military personnel other than members of the units who had fought at those places.
“The intermittent touring of mid-May 1865, ranging from the informal or self-guided to the planned and guided, was among the secondary activities of Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman and some units of a four-corps army group that he accompanied through the Fredericksburg area. Although a majority of the regiments in one of the four corps had fought at Chancellorsville with the Army of the Potomac, they were strangers to the sites of the local battles that had come after Chancellorsville. Most of the men in the other three corps were seeing the Virginia combat zones for the first time. My blog post today samples impressions of the four battlefields penned by soldiers of three of the corps, the Fifteenth, the Seventeenth, and the Twentieth.”
A blog post at Emerging Civil War, a blog providing fresh perspectives on America's defining event. An excerpt …
“Over the last ten years, the Civil War Trust has worked tirelessly to reclaim the once-lost Franklin battlefield in central Tennessee, where Confederates attacked Union forces on November 30, 1864. The attack ignited horrific, close-quarters combat that lasted five hours. According to Southern author Sam Watkins, this battle served as ‘the finishing stroke’ of the Confederacy. After the fighting, the ground was littered with dead soldiers, the majority of whom belonged to the determined-yet-unsuccessful Confederate army—yet ‘Bloody Franklin,’ as the soldiers later called it, was considered a Confederate victory.”
An article by Gregory P. Downs and Kate Mazur appearing on TheAtlantic website. An excerpt …
“Four years ago, the sesquicentennial of the Civil War kicked off with conferences, public lectures, government proclamations, and even balls and galas. As Reconstruction's anniversary begins, however, there is no such fanfare and few signs of public reckoning, much less celebration.
“Reconstruction has long suffered such neglect. The National Park Service, steward of the nation's Civil War battlefields and a leader in interpreting the war for the public, has not a single site dedicated to that vital and controversial period. Now, on the cusp of significant Reconstruction anniversaries, the Park Service is ready to change how Americans remember Reconstruction, to help push the era—in all its complexity—back onto the map of America's collective memory.”
Missouri 150 Years Ago
Every week, Len Eagleburger (co-edited by Beverly Shaw) edits a newsletter called “Ozarks Civil War Sesquicentennial Weekly.” One of its sections is entitled “Missouri 150 Years Ago.” These are the links to articles which appeared in the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper published in Columbia, Missouri.
An article in the NY Times by Martin Griffin, associate professor of American literature at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the author of “Ashes of the Mind: War and Memory in Northern Literature, 1865-1900.” An excerpt …
“The train that brought Abraham Lincoln’s body back to Springfield, Ill., took almost two weeks to complete its journey, making a long, northeasterly loop through Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and Indiana. The last stretch, from Chicago to Springfield, was completed on the morning of May 3, 1865.
“The journey was widely covered in the press as millions of Americans turned out to pay their last respects. Generations of historians have described, and tried to interpret the meaning of, this unique funeral procession. But no author has probed the event more deeply than Walt Whitman.”
An article in the NY Times by Joshua Zeitz, author of “Lincoln’s Boys: John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln s Image.” An excerpt …
“Today Americans almost universally regard Abraham Lincoln as our greatest president. And yet he was not always the revered figure that he has become.
“Writing many decades after Lincoln’s assassination, John Hay, who served as one of Lincoln’s secretaries, observed that if the president had ‘died in the days of doubt and gloom which preceded his re-election,’ rather than in the final weeks of the Civil War, he would almost certainly have been remembered differently, despite his great acts and deeds. Indeed, just months before his death, many leading members of his own political party agreed with Gov. John Andrew of Massachusetts, who found Lincoln “essentially lacking in the quality of leadership.”
An article in the NY Times by Evan Fleischer. An excerpt …
“In 1915, 50 years after Appomattox, the London Branch of Civil War Veterans counted 115 members. The list can be found in Harvard’s Houghton Library, and it provides the names, addresses, ages and length and general location of the service of all its members. One man, listed only as E. Munro, was reported as being 105 years old. Presumably, there were many other veterans who made their way to Britain after the war, who had either died by 1915 or had never bothered to join the branch.”
An article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch by Joe Holleman about a blog post by St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay asking whether a memorial to Confederate soldiers in Forest Park should be removed.
A similar article in the Kansas City Star by Jim Suhr of the Associated Press about a blog post by St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay asking whether a memorial to Confederate soldiers in Forest Park should be removed.
Missouri 150 Years Ago
Every week, Len Eagleburger (co-edited by Beverly Shaw) edits a newsletter called “Ozarks Civil War Sesquicentennial Weekly.” One of its sections is entitled “Missouri 150 Years Ago.” These are the links to articles which appeared in the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper published in Columbia, Missouri.
For our June program, Arnold Schofield will be talking about the Battle of Palmito Ranch, fought on May 12-13 near Brownsville, Texas. It was the last battle of the American Civil War and took place more than a month after Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
This article was written by Tom Zoellner and appears on the Texas Observer website. An excerpt ...
"War is full of ironies, not the least of which is that infantrymen are asked to spill blood for the sake of occupying a piece of earth that wouldn’t be worth a glance on any other day.
"'We go to gain a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name,' complains a captain marching off to war in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. 'To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it.'
"So it was with an unremarkable patch of salt prairie to the east of Brownsville, where on May 12 and 13, 1865, a Union advance was beaten back by Confederate artillery fire. About 800 troops were involved at what came to be called the Battle of Palmito Ranch."
Posted by: Dick Titterington AT 07:40 am
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An article by David Madden, a novelist and historian, is the founding director of the United States Civil War Center and the author of the forthcoming book The Tangled Web of the Civil War and Reconstruction.” An excerpt …
“As John Wilkes Booth stepped into President Lineo1n’s booth at Ford’s Theater on the evening of April 14, 1865, Union prisoners of war were heading home on foot and by rail, free from Andersonville, Cahaba and other prisons. Several thousand men had been brought to a transit camp at Vicksburg, Miss., where they awaited transport along the Mississippi River.”
“Prior to the advent of half-toning, a process perfected in the 1880s that enabled newspapers to finally print photographs, publishers relied on illustrators to sketch the news of the day. This was certainly the case during the War Between the States. And perhaps the most famous artist to come out of the bloody conflict was Alfred Rudolf Waud.”
Crossroads blog post by Brooks D. Simpson, a historian and writer who teaches at Arizona State University. An excerpt …
“It is to be expected that some people would take advantage of the 150th anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox (sometimes seen as the end of the Civil War, although that’s wrong) to reflect on how Americans remember the Civil War. However, that topic tends to be confused with speculation on whether Confederate heritage persists or is eroding.”
Article by John Hennessy, the chief historian of Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park. An excerpt …
“This past week 150 years ago might have been the most tumultuous week in American history—one filled with joy in victory at Appomattox, rejoicing at broken shackles for millions of slaves finally freed, despair at Confederate defeat and horror at the death of a president.”
I remember when my kids elementary school had a fund raiser to collect a million pennies to help restore the Banneker School located near downtown Parkville, Missouri. That was a long time ago, back in the twentieth century. LOL!
This is an article by Su Bacon that ran in the KC Star. An excerpt …
“It takes more than sandblasting, tuckpointing and roofing to preserve a piece of history.
“A determined group of women and men would tell you that it takes time and determination. At the 130-year-old Bannecker School in Parkville, a promise is being fulfilled.
“The historic structure was built by the Parkville School District in 1885 as a one-room schoolhouse to educate the children of freed slaves in Platte County.”
Missouri 150 Years Ago
Every week, Len Eagleburger (co-edited by Beverly Shaw) edits a newsletter called “Ozarks Civil War Sesquicentennial Weekly.” One of its sections is entitled “Missouri 150 Years Ago.” These are the links to articles which appeared in the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper published in Columbia, Missouri.
James W. Farley died on Monday, April 13. He was a Platte County attorney, a civil war historian and author of “Forgotten Valor, The First Missouri Cavalry Regiment C.S.A.,” published in 1996, and co-author with his son of “Missouri Rebels Remembered: Si Gordon & John Thrailkill,” published in 2006.
An article by Gregory P. Downs, associate Professor of history at City College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and the author of “After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War.”
“The United States extended the war for more than five years after Appomattox. Using its war powers to create freedom and civil rights in the South, the federal government fought against a white Southern insurgency that relied on murder and intimidation to undo the gains of the war.”
Fun post by Phil Edwards on vox.com list some theories to answer the question. An excerpt …
“So why did people in old photos look like they'd just heard the worst news of their life? We can't know for sure, but a few theories help us guess what was behind all that black-and-white frowning.”
Article by Brian Burnes in the Kansas City Star about Raphael G. Rombauer, one of four Hungarian-American brothers living in St. Louis at the start of the war. All four brothers fought for the Union. An excerpt …
Elizabeth Young of Kirkwood, Mo. is Rombauer’s great-great-granddaughter. Alerted to the unusual status of her relative’s ashes, Young retrieved them last September from a St. Louis mortuary, where they had been stored for more than a century.
Rombauer’s remains were buried in Park Cemetery in Carthage Missouri on Saturday, April 11, 2015.
Beverly Shaw from the Civil War Round Table of Western Missouri came across this article in the Independence Examiner about the use of pioneer journals to pique the interest of middle school students in Independence, MO. Audrey Elder, was instrumental in thinking of this engaging way to study history.
Another article brought to my attention by Beverly Shaw. It’s a well-written opinion piece by Leonard Pitts Jr., Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the Miami Herald. An excerpt …
“On the day after the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Abraham Lincoln appeared at a second-floor window of the White House. He was acceding to the wishes of citizens who had gathered to serenade their president in this moment of victory. They called for a speech but Lincoln demurred. Instead he asked the band to play ‘Dixie.‘
“The song — a homesick Southerner's lament — had been the de facto anthem of the Confederacy during 48 bloody months of civil war, but Lincoln declared now that the South held no monopoly on it. ‘I have always thought Dixie one of the best tunes I have ever heard,’ he said. It was probably his way of encouraging a nation that had ripped itself apart along sectional lines to begin knitting itself together again.”
An article in the Washington Post by Allen Guelzo, the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era and Director of the Civil War Era Studies at Gettysburg College. An excerpt …
“The lead .41-calibre bullet with which John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln on the night of April 14, 1865, was the most lethal gunshot in American history.”
An article in the New York Times Disunion blog by Martha Hodes, a professor of history at New York University and the author, most recently, of ‘Mourning Lincoln.”. An excerpt …
“As horrible as Lincoln’s murder seems to us today, it is hard to fathom just how earth-shattering it was for many people at the time. It was shocking enough that this was the first presidential assassination in American history. But it also came at a moment — less than a week after Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox — when Americans were either celebrating victory or despairing at defeat.”
An article by Matt Ford, an associate editor at TheAtlantic. An excerpt …
“Confusion reigned as telegraphs and steamships slowly spread the news across the Atlantic and the Americas over the course of weeks and months. When the full horror of Lincoln’s murder became known, letters of condolence came pouring in from trade unions in Italy, from town councils in Britain, from Masonic lodges in France, and from all other manner of groups and citizens throughout Europe and the New World. The legislatures of France, Italy, Belgium, Prussia, and Britain penned lengthy memorials to the fallen president. Foreign consuls and ministers flooded into American diplomatic posts from Brazil to Russia to share their sympathies.”
An article by Rudi Keller in the Columbia Daily Tribune. An excerpt …
“As a journalism student, I had occasionally read his “Fan in the Stands” column, which appeared during the Missouri Tigers football season. I didn’t know the man behind it was an accomplished journalist with 20 years as wire editor at the Tribune when he retired in January 1986, or that he was a Civil War scholar working on a book about Missouri Confederates.”
An article by Rudi Keller in the Columbia Daily Tribune. An excerpt …
“A memorial to Boone County’s Civil War dead was installed in 2001 on the Boone County Courthouse lawn. More than 100 of Boone County’s black soldiers who died in the war aren’t included in the list of names.”
Missouri 150 Years Ago
Every week, Len Eagleburger (co-edited by Beverly Shaw) edits a newsletter called “Ozarks Civil War Sesquicentennial Weekly.” One of its sections is entitled “Missouri 150 Years Ago.” These are the links to articles which appeared in the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper published in Columbia, Missouri.
, recently appeared on The Diane Rehm Show to promote his new book, 
James W. Farley died on Monday, April 13. He was a Platte County attorney, 
