Monthly Archives: May 2011

A Tip of the Hat

Posted on May 21, 2011 by Donald R. Shaffer

I have deliberately tried in Civil War Emancipation not to toot my horn too much. My credentials as a historian are freely available to anyone who cares to read my profile blurb that gets added at bottom of each new … Continue reading →

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A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Posted on May 18, 2011 by Donald R. Shaffer

It took the British, with their sophisticated, droll sense of humor to find anything funny about the outbreak of the American Civil War. Yet more than anyone else, Great Britain legitimately could take a small degree of pleasure in Spring … Continue reading →

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A Prophet at the New York Times

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Donald R. Shaffer

As Civil War Emancipation indicated in its March 18 edition, what the future portended for slavery in Spring 1861 was uncertain. Conventional wisdom though at the time would have suggested the survival of the peculiar institution, at least for the … Continue reading →

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Reassuring Missouri Slaveholders

Posted on May 14, 2011 by Donald R. Shaffer

As Adam Arenson has written about lately in Disunion in the New York Times, Missouri was on edge in Spring 1861, as a secessionist governor tangled with the state’s Unionist majority. Missouri was already a violent place, as the scene … Continue reading →

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Mocking the Slave Insurrection Scare

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Donald R. Shaffer

As was noted by Civil War Emancipation in its May 4 edition, by early May 1861 northern newspapers began taking note of the slave insurrection scare prevalent in many slave states after the outbreak of the Civil War. The departure … Continue reading →

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Images of Slavery – Slaves Waiting for Sale

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Donald R. Shaffer

Source: http://www.oocities.org/eyre_crowe/art_slavery.html In May 1861, the Royal Academy of Arts in London opened a new exhibition of paintings. Among the works on display was “Slaves Waiting for Sale” by Eyre Crowe, based on a sketch the English artist had made … Continue reading →

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Facts for Patriotic Abolitionists

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Donald R. Shaffer

A significant difference of opinion existed in the northern black community at the beginning of the Civil War. While all African Americans in the North wanted slavery to end, besides the dwindling supporters of emigration, the community was divided on … Continue reading →

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A Proposal for Black Confederate Soldiers – May 1861

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Donald R. Shaffer

Some of the best work on the history of emancipation in the Civil War is by the Freedmen and Southern Society Project at the University of Maryland, College Park.[1] This editing project scoured the National Archives in Washington, D.C. for … Continue reading →

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David Blight on Frederick Douglass’ Demoralization

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Donald R. Shaffer

In this past Friday’s Disunion in the New York Times, David W. Blight revisits Frederick Douglass and his reaction to the early weeks of the Lincoln Administration. Blight finds, “The two months following Lincoln’s inauguration found Frederick Douglass struggling to … Continue reading →

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Slavery and the Creation of West Virginia

Posted on May 7, 2011 by Donald R. Shaffer

Scholars have long known that slavery, or the relative lack of such, played a key part in the creation of West Virginia during the Civil War. Thursday’s Disunion in the New York Times puts that fact in an interesting light … Continue reading →

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