February 18, 1861 is generally remembered as the day Jefferson Davis took his oath as Provisional President of the Confederacy (read Adam Goodheart’s fascinating analysis of Davis’ inaugural speech in Disunion). But also on that day a brief story appeared in the … Continue reading
Yesterday’s Disunion blog in the New York Times has a nice piece by John Ashworth, of the University of Nottingham, entitled “What the South Got Wrong.” Ashworth explores the miscalculations by the South that helped lead to the Civil War … Continue reading
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In the February 16, 1861 issue of The Illustrated London News the following two images appeared. Both depict moments from a slave auction in Richmond, Virginia. For decades before the Civil War, a lively internal slave trade flourished in the United … Continue reading
On February 15, 1861, the Washington Convention at the Willard Hotel considered as a body for the first time the compromise that up to that point had been in committee. The problem was that not one compromise emerged out of … Continue reading
On February 14, 1861, the New York Times published an editorial addressing the secession crisis. The Times struck an optimistic tone that in retrospect seems misplaced and naive, but reflected the hopes raised in North at that moment by the Washington Convention that, with … Continue reading
Yesterday’s Disunion blog in the New York Times has a piece by Steve Hahn, “What Lincoln Meant to the Slaves,” which provides a fine perspective on what the slaves were thinking and doing in the period leading up the Civil War. … Continue reading
On February 12, 1861, the Daily National Intelligencer reported on the activity of the U.S. House of Representatives the previous day. Like the Washington Convention meeting at Willard Hotel, the members of the House desperately wanted to preserve the Union. On that day, they … Continue reading
As indicated when I discussed slavery in Texas’ “Declaration of Causes,” I planned to backtrack and analyze this issue in the written justifications of secession offered by other southern states. Let me start with South Carolina’s “Declaration of Immediate Causes which May Induce and … Continue reading
I hope Kevin Levin will excuse me if I piggyback on him again so quickly. I wouldn’t do it if he hadn’t shared an article yesterday highly relevant to Civil War Emancipation. I will say, as an aside, that I fully intend … Continue reading
Yesterday’s Disunion blog in the New York Times, written by Ronald Coddington, centers on the wartime experiences of Confederate Captain David Ramsey from Wilcox County, Alabama. This edition of Disunion would be of little interest to Civil War Emancipation except for an incident involving … Continue reading
Civil War Emancipation 