The Cost of War: Killed, Wounded, Captured, and Missing The Civil War was America’s bloodiest conflict. The unprecedented violence of battles such as Shiloh, Antietam, Stones River, and Gettysburg shocked citizens and international observers alike. Nearly as many men died in captivity during the Civil War as were killed in the whole of the Vietnam…
The National Archives and Records Administration has a substantial, though scattered, set of records for “Black Confederates.” Thousands of body servants, laborers, cooks, musicians, teamsters, etc., encamped with and served the Confederate Army.
I’ll describe some actual, real-life black Confederates. In 1891, Tennessee began granting pensions to Confederate veterans. The Board of Pension Examiners was established to determine if those applying for pensions were eligible. Eligibility requirements included an inability to support oneself, honorable separation from the service and residence in the state for one year prior to…
The Corwin Amendment, also called the “Slavery Amendment,” was a constitutional amendment passed by Congress in 1861 but never ratified by the states that would have banned the federal government from abolishing the institution of slavery in the states where it existed at the time. Considering it a last-ditch effort to prevent the looming Civil…
Despite being the Confederate high-water mark of the Western Theater and one of the most important battles of the American Civil War, most people, including many Civil War buffs, know little about the Battle of Perryville. Consider these 10 facts about this watershed battle in the western theater.
Overview The Freedmen’s Bureau was established in March of 1865 to help freed people achieve economic stability and secure political freedoms. Many white Southerners, as well as President Andrew Johnson, challenged the Bureau’s legitimacy, sparking racial violence in the South and the ultimate failure of the Bureau. The Bureau presented questions about the role of…
Fought on October 13, 1864, during the Petersburg Campaign, the Battle of Darbytown Road, also known as the Battle of Alms House, was a failed Union attempt to stop the construction of new defensive breastworks outside of Richmond, Virginia.
Born on January 8, 1831, in Knoxville, in Crawford County, Pemberton grew up and attended the local schools in Rome, where his family lived for almost thirty years. He studied medicine and pharmacy at the Reform Medical College of Georgia in Macon, and in 1850, at the age of nineteen, he was licensed to practice on Thomsonian or botanic…
