The Civil War Podcast

In yesterday’s post on Bunny Breckinridge, I mentioned his great-grandpa’s fury at Sherman’s whiskey-based neglect. It’s a great story, and I’ve copy-pasted a version here. It’s taken from the memoirs of John S. Wise, son of the Virginia governor Henry A. Wise. Through him Wise Jr. had apparently told him by Joe Johnston – the [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

A two-for-one posting: An interesting article that mentioned a memoir which I’ve added to the Library. A Canadian girl disguised herself as “Frank Thompson”, and joined the Union Army. Given this description from the article, the memoirs will be quite the Victorian potboiler: How did Emma and 400 other male impersonators that served in the [...]

Another free book added to the Library, and this one promises to be interesting: Nelson A Miles was a young volunteer who earned wounds, acclaim and medals (including the Medal of Honor, though in fairness these were handed out like candy during the Civil War) on his rise to a major generalship. Post-war, he became [...]

I’ve uncovered a few more e-books on my travels. They’ve been added to the Library. John Beatty’s The Citizen Soldier or, Memoirs of a Volunteer – http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20460 Finally, Richard W. Johnson’s A Soldier’s Reminiscences in Peace and War, also via Archive.org, has a handful of personal stories about Lincoln, as well as about several other [...]

As regular readers have noticed, I am an enthusiast of “free” books – those texts out of the public domain which have been uploaded to Internet archives and digital libraries. I’m also a fan of audiobooks, which I’ve taken to playing while I clean, commute, or generally bum around the house (note reverse order of [...]

Another free book added to The Library; Fred Seward’s Reminiscences of a War-Time Statesman and Diplomat. Fred was the son and wartime administrator of William H. Seward, Secretary of State. He was gravely injured in the assassination attempt on his father, as part of the plot that killed Lincoln. I have no idea if this [...]