Loyal dogs populated both armies in the Civil War. For every Union dog, there was a Confederate dog taking part in the battles. Like wars before it, the Civil War had no organized canine corps. (The first canine corps for the U.S. did not come about until World War II.) But if men were going…
Although Brig. Gen. Felix K. Zollicoffer’s main responsibility was to guard Cumberland Gap, in November 1861 he advanced west into Kentucky to strengthen control in the area around Somerset. He found a strong defensive position at Mill Springs and decided to make it his winter quarters. He fortified the area, especially both sides of the Cumberland River.
Our own race is boastful as well as intolerant and aggressive. This is especially true of the New England type, and hence it is that we are prone to regard ourselves in many, if not all respects, superior to the people of the South. In some respects, undoubtedly, we have the advantage of those who…
John W. “Jack” Hinson was a man who found himself firmly on both sides at the outset of the Civil War. He claimed neutrality and achieved it by giving intelligence reports to both sides, including one report to then-Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.
African-American Men Burned at the Stake in New York In England, burning had been used to punish rebellious women, peasants and poor people, demonizing the most oppressed people in European society. Carol Karlsen makes the point that characteristics of the witch were projected onto black and poor white women, seen as being “seductive, sexually uncontrolled,…
In his 1775 treatise, Taxation No Tyranny, British author Dr. Samuel Johnson rhetorically asked, “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” The paradox that Dr. Johnson called out in 1775, is a question Americans continue to grapple with to this day—the institution slavery. The institution of slavery had been a part of American society for more than 150 years when the Revolutionary War began in 1775. Slavery existed, and was protected by law, in all 13 American colonies when they declared their independence from Great Britain in 1776.
The following is taken from General Robert E. Lee After Appomattox, edited by Franklin L. Riley (New York, 1922), pp. 182–95. Following, this contribution appeared in the “Lee Memorial Number” of the Wake Forest Student, published in January, 1907.—Editor; REV. J. WILLIAM JONES
During the early 19th century, and especially after the War of 1812, American society was profoundly transformed. These years witnessed rapid economic and territorial expansion; the extension of democratic politics; the spread of evangelical revivalism; the rise of the nation's first labor and reform movements; the growth of cities and industrial ways of life; radical shifts in the roles and status of women; and deepening sectional conflicts that would bring the country to the verge of civil war.
Gen. Forrest is the subject of a very old hoax that has been around since the 1860s. There is no truth to the rumor that he was ever a 'leader of the kkk' or that he was a racist. When he was called to appear at the 1871 US Congressional Committee that investigated the charges of his rumored involvement with that group, he was building a railroad with most of his workers being blacks, whom he paid better wages than other companies were paying whites. He worked to promote civil rights for blacks, and for all men; his speech to the Pole Bearers is proof of that.
The massive Federal assault against Vicksburg’s defensives on May 22, 1863, started with such promise. For a time the Stars and Stripes even floated above the soaring ramparts of the Railroad Redoubt. But the tides of battle shifted and things swiftly went off the rails.
