The 6th USCT Regiment was composed mainly of Pennsylvania men, and was organized at Camp William Penn between July and September 1863. In October, the regiment was assigned to the Army of the James and stationed near Yorktown, Pennsylvania. The regiment was also part of a plan to release Union prisoners from Belle Isle near […]
20
May
10
After being assembled at Camp William Penn, the 43rd USCT Regiment, composed mainly of Pennsylvania recruits, was assigned in April 1864 to the Ninth Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Continuing on through Washington, where the African-American regiment “attracted special attention,” the regiment became involved in the Wilderness Campaign in rural Virginia. On July […]
21
Apr
10
Civil War Letters of John C. Brock
Posted by Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Letters & Diaries, Recent ScholarshipThe book Making and Remaking Pennsylvania’s Civil War is a collection of essays about the events and legacies of the Civil War in Pennsylvania. The essay “The Civil War Letters of Quartermaster Sergeant John C. Brock, 43rd Regiment, United States Colored Troops,” edited by Eric Ledell Smith, focuses specifically on the issue of African-American troops from […]
6
Apr
10
Abraham Lincoln in 1860 at the Library of Congress
Posted by Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Images, Lesson Plans, Letters & DiariesThe Library of Congress provides a wealth of resources for teachers to use in the classroom. Most helpful are the themed Collection Connections, which seek to give historical context to the Library’s collections and assist teachers in using them in the classroom. One of these Collection Connections is on the Abraham Lincoln papers. In this […]
16
Mar
10
Two Communities during the Election of 1860
Posted by Published in 19th Century (1840-1880), Lesson Plans, Rare BooksWilliam G. Thomas III and Edward L. Ayers have a piece of digital scholarship entitled “The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities” that analyzes Augusta County, Virginia and Franklin County, Pennsylvania in the period just before the Civil War. While the scope of the article is to relate how slavery affected […]
9
Mar
10
Rice University’s project The Papers of Jefferson Davis has been blogged about earlier, but there are two documents relevant to the Election of 1860 that I wanted to point out. The project is an attempt to compile all of Davis’s documents into a 15-volume set (twelve of which has been published so far), and in the […]
2
Mar
10
On February 27, 1860, Abraham Lincoln made a landmark speech in his political career at the Cooper Institute in Manhattan, now known as the Cooper Union Address. This speech catapulted the Illinois senator onto the national scene and Lincoln scholars such as Harold Holzer believe that this speech secured his nomination as the Republican party […]
16
Feb
10
North Carolina and the Election of 1860
Posted by Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Letters & DiariesAs previously mentioned in this blog, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill supports a fantastic website for researching all aspects of the South during the Civil War era called Documenting the American South. On this website, there are several important resources that relate to the crucial election of 1860. A simple search of […]
8
Feb
10
HarpWeek has an online collection of political cartoons from 14 presidential elections between the years 1860-1912. These cartoons provide a visual insight into the climate surrounding the Election of 1860, and its core issues. Some of the cartoons require a lot of prior historical knowledge, while others can be understood with some basic analysis. HarpWeek […]
30
Nov
09
The Duke University libraries have several digital collections available on their websites. One of these is the American Song Sheets collection, which contains around 1800 song sheets, all from the 19th century. It was customary during the 19th century for publishers to print just the lyrics of popular songs on a single sheet, usually illustrated […]
