The Civil War Podcast

I’m so excited to see this Adalbert Volck exhibition, which I mentioned in a previous update.  The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, of all papers, has this excellent biography of the man. (But, surprisingly, none of his cartoons.) Volck lived nearly 50 years after the war’s end, dying in Baltimore in 1912. In a letter to the Library [...]

I’d procrastinated on reading this article, mainly due to its length, but it’s a fascinating read and entertainingly written – well worth the investment in time. While it eventually settles down into an examination of the German immigrant population and its effect on the border state, it’s introduced by a look at the city that [...]

While Catholic soldiers always prove an interesting focus for research, the Catholic Church as an entity was uncharacteristically silent from 1861-5. As this article investigates, this may have been due to the Church having a dog(ma) in each side of the fight. On the eve of the Civil War, as citizens were taking sides, and [...]

From the Irish Brigade on Irish Confederates assault at Fredericksburg, to Father Corby, Thomas Meagher and the rest of the New York micks, to Pat Cleburne, there’s a lot of Irish participation I could reference on this St. Paddy’s Day. Instead, I’ll link to a fantastically focused website whose author blogs about all things Ireland [...]

Another catch-up Disunion article, this one looking at the contribution of American Jews to the Union Army, specifically through a piece of legislation that initially barred rabbis from the chaplaincy. One of the interesting asides is that Clement Vallandigham, notorious Copperhead, was a voice of reason in appealing for the change in wording. There are [...]

The contribution of German Americans on the war is a topic I’d like to explore in more depth. They got a bad rap in the East, with the failures of the Fights mit Sigel divisions, but they were a significant population within the Union Armies, and, with Carl Schurz and Karl Marx among them, they [...]