The Civil War Podcast

In recent years, I’ve fallen out of the habit of reading books; I now spend most of my time on Wikipedia.  Now that I’m working (or not working, as is currently the case) from home, I thought it time to rectify this error.  In honor of the sesquicentennial (and as research for the podcast by [...]

In researching one of my Podcast topics, I was directed to The Class of 1846, by John C. Waugh, for a quote I needed to verify. As expected, our fabulous library system quickly delivered me a copy. I got the quote I needed, but a quick flip-through reveals a well-written, charming series of vignettes for [...]

My sizeable collection of Civil War books expands regularly without me making much of a contribution to the “read” shelf, so I’m making an effort to read more this year. First up was Burke Davis’ Sherman’s March. It may seem contradictory to start a reading campaign with a title I’ve already read, but in my [...]

I’m filing this under “memoirs”, regardless of the fact that it’s a Twain piece. Despite the huge coincidence at the crux of it, huge coincidences weren’t unusual in the war, and anyways it certainly feels real. You almost feel as though you’re sitting on the porch with Aunt Rachael as she tells it. “Aunt Rachel, [...]

Since the Ken Burns series rekindled public interest in the war, every diary keeper, North and South, whose writings were stashed away in attics has become a published author. Most of these accounts are repetitive or uninspiring, but I’m sure each one has at least one anecdote of interest. This account contained a term I’d [...]

I tried a search for “best Civil War memoirs” (listing “Grant” and “Watkins” as qualifiers for quality), and one Amazon list suggested John H. Worsham’s narrative. Found it on DocSouth, and a quick flip through reveals some very entertaining anecdotes, and a sense of irreverence amidst the hard marching and the terrible battles. We went [...]

Thanks to Google’s Books service, I went from a quick consultation of this book to reading a good portion of it online. The first few chapters are available in their entirety – as the book progresses more and more are left out, but it’s enough to gauge the readability, and this one’s very readable. Like [...]

Another fine Disunion piece, this one on the importance of the telegraph in disseminating war news to the nation. There is plenty of documentation of Lincoln’s time spent in the Telegraph Office, but I hadn’t realised the genesis nor the explanation for this habit. We have McClellan to thank for the many anecdotes relayed (ahem [...]

This Christmas, I treated myself to a few wonderful items from the PBS online store‘s bumper sale. (Caveat emptor: They will spam you endlessly if you buy anything. Spam is the pledge break of the digital age.) Ken Burns box set, his excellent Lewis & Clark series, American Experience’s Abraham & Mary Lincoln series (also [...]

Well, while we could never really be considered any cog in an Axis of Evil, Canada did offer harbour (complete with extraneous “u”) to Confederate agents during the war years. http://www.cfhi.net/WilmingtonsWartimeCanadianConnection.phpthe site I mentioned yesterday details some of the efforts of the Confederate Secret Service, who coordinated cross-border activities during the conflict, including the St. [...]