The Civil War Podcast

In early 1865 Delany was granted an audience with Lincoln. He proposed a corps of black men led by black officers who could serve to win over Southern blacks. Although a similar appeal by Frederick Douglass had already been rejected, Lincoln was impressed by Delany and described him as “a most extraordinary and intelligent man.” [...]

The University of Richmond has posted an interactive, online map that charts the activity of the Union army and (sometimes unrelated) slavery/emancipation events across the states from ’61 to ’65.  It’s interesting to note how the red dots (emancipations) generally precede the blue dots (army investments), and to observe the profusion of red and blue [...]

I’m currently reading a John Brown biography, and am deep in the heart of the Bleeding Kansas chapters.  It’s interesting to note that, for all the violence and emotion of the pro- and anti-slavery factions, there were many moderate Kansas who tried desperately to keep these radicals in check. This story, of an escaped slave [...]

If you’re an American reading this, your income taxes are due today.  Lincoln, of course, famously instituted the income tax into law, but did you know that your two day “tax holiday” this year is due to Abe as well?  Turns out DC shuts down for Emancipation Day, which commemorates an event most of us [...]

I posted a somewhat whimsical article on April 1st about family trees, and today’s news item is a more sombre followup. My mother is a genealogist, and delights in tracing our family tree (which consists mainly of failed farmers or drowned fisherman – unlike their lucklessness, I have not inherited her enthusiasm). It involves painstaking [...]

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, [...]

It’s always disheartening to read reports of your favourite generals and presidents saying horrible things on the subject of race, but given the times, there’s a distasteful story for just about every personality in the war, North and South. Today, it’s Sherman: Blinded by his implacable racism, Sherman could see no worthwhile moral or legal [...]

Yesterday’s post about Eliza, the 1/64th black slave sold into sexual slavery, reminded me of a discussion from my university race relations class. A quick Google search (possibly hampered by my increasingly foggy memory – university’s starting to feel like a long time ago) doesn’t reveal much on the “one fatal drop” theory we discussed, [...]

More insights into the horrors of slavery, and more incidences of slaveowners’ distaste for the traders with whom they trucked. The more I read about Southern “civilization” (or “monstrous system”, as Mrs. Chesnut put it), the gladder I am that Sherman swept it away with such force. (Unrelated aside: Who knew Lexington, KY had such [...]

The most depressing thing about the current economic crisis is that governments are tackling the crisis through austerity measures and cutbacks. When you see websites like this one, you’re reminded of what was accomplished when the WPA assigned the country odd jobs (in a literal sense) and gifted its results upon later generations. The ethnomusicology [...]