Monthly Archives: August 2012

The struggle for emancipation in the Civil War produced some memorable cartoons. One such example appeared in Harper’s Weekly in its issue of August 16, 1862. The caption for the cartoon reads, “DROWNING GENTLEMAN. ‘Take that Rope away, you darned Nigger! … Continue reading →

One my favorite Civil War letter writers is William Tecumseh Sherman. He wrote with a forthrightness and candor that I find refreshing. And one my favorite Sherman letters was written on August 24, 1862. The recipient was Thomas Hunton, a … Continue reading →

One of my all-time favorite Civil War letters is Abraham Lincoln’s August 22, 1862 missive responding to Horace Greeley’s open letter to him, dated August 19, 1862. Greeley, of course, was editor of the influential newspaper, The New York Tribune. Entitled … Continue reading →

One of the strengths of Disunion in the New York Times is it in essence is cloud sourcing a good history of the Civil War, one article at a time. No matter how important or obscure the episode, somewhere an expert exists … Continue reading →

Emancipation in the Civil War is mostly a story of slaves throwing off the shackles of slavery to gain their freedom. Occasionally, however, for some African Americans things worked the other way around, at least temporarily. That is, occasionally free … Continue reading →

On August 14, 1862, Abraham Lincoln did something unprecedented in presidential history up to that point: he met with a small delegation of black leaders (all free black clergymen). But the meeting did not auger a decision to give African … Continue reading →

Reading nineteenth-century newspapers can sometimes be a slightly frustrating experience. The language is usually perfectly intelligible but even if you are knowledgeable about the historical context, as Michel Foucault might have put it, they have an entirely different discourse than … Continue reading →

Kansas was a special place in the American Civil War. Essentially, because of “Bleeding Kansas” the bloody fight between freesoil and pro-slavery settlers in the 1850s for control of the territory, the Civil War had arguably begun seven years earlier … Continue reading →

Originally posted on Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog:
While doing research on something else, I came across a couple of accounts of the aftermath of the Confederate assault on Fort Pillow, written by naval officers of U.S.S Silver…

About a month ago, Civil War Emancipation dealt with Gen. Benjamin Butler’s poor treatment of black Louisianans near the start of his controversial tenure as overseer of Union-occupied New Orleans. His command extended to all Union-controlled areas of Louisiana, although because … Continue reading →