Sixteen-year-old John Taylor Cuddy left his home in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to enlist in Company A of the 36th Pennsylvania Infantry on June 5, 1861. Over the next two years, Cuddy wrote 77 letters home to his family describing his experiences as a soldier in the Union army. Cuddy’s correspondence is available online as part of […]
22
Jun
10
The John Taylor Cuddy Correspondence
Posted by solnitr Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Letters & Diariesno comment
20
Jun
10
The Battle of Port Royal, November 17, 1861
Posted by solnitr Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Historic Periodicals, Images, Recent ScholarshipIn its inaugural issue published on March 15, 1862 the New South, a weekly periodical with Northern sympathies, described the Union capture of Port Royal, South Carolina on November 7, 1861 as a “brisk little engagement with the enemy at Port Royal Ferry, in which the National forces, both Army and Navy manifested pluck and […]
18
Jun
10
The Battle of Wilson’s Creek, August 10, 1861
Posted by solnitr Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Letters & Diaries, Maps, Recent ScholarshipOn August 10, 1861 about ten miles south of Springfield, Missouri Confederate forces under the joint command of General Benjamin McCulloch and Major General Sterling Price of the Missouri State Guard, defeated General Nathaniel Lyon’s Union troops at the battle of Wilson’s Creek. The National Park Service provides information geared towards teachers on their website, […]
15
Jun
10
The Sinking of the CSS Alabama, June 19, 1864
Posted by solnitr Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Images, Letters & Diaries, Rare Books, Recent NewsOn the morning of June 19, 1864, before the naval battle with the USS Kearsarge Captain Raphael Semmes of the CSS Alabama, in an impassioned address, spoke to his crew: “you have been all over the world and it is not too much to say that you have destroyed and driven for protection under neutral […]
11
Jun
10
The 54th Massachusetts
Posted by solnitr Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Historic Periodicals, Recent ScholarshipOn September 8, 1865, the New York Tribune commented on the unusual amount of fanfare the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry received on their return to Boston. The author of the editorial explained the public response reflected the 54th’s status as the first northern regiment of black soldiers and the reputation the regiment earned as being […]
8
Jun
10
The First Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861
Posted by solnitr Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Historic Periodicals, Images, Lesson Plans, Maps, Places to VisitThe artist H. Lovie captured a strange scene on July 21, 1861 in Manassas, Virginia: civilians sitting on a hill overlooking the clash between the Union and Confederate armies. Lovie’s picture was published in Frank Leslie’s weekly illustrated newspaper, a great visual resource for documenting the Civil War. Both the picnicking residents of Washington DC […]
4
Jun
10
William H. Carney at Fort Wagner
Posted by solnitr Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Historic Periodicals, Images, Letters & Diaries, Places to VisitOn May 31, 1897, the city of Boston erected a monument created by the American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in honor of the 54th Massachusetts and its colonel, Robert Gould Shaw. The monument commemorates the regiment’s participation in the second attack on Fort Wagner, South Carolina on July 18, 1863. The August 8 edition of Harper’s […]
3
Jun
10
Confederate forces under the command of General Robert E. Lee and Maj. Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson had 40,000 fewer soldiers fighting at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia than Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s Union troops. Nonetheless, General Lee executed what historian John Murrin has labeled “the riskiest operation of his career” coming out victorious on May […]
2
Jun
10
The Battle of Pea Ridge, March 6-8, 1862
Posted by solnitr Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Images, Letters & Diaries, Places to Visit“I hope to God that I won’t have to witness the same again,” wrote Vinson Holman after his first combat experience at Pea Ridge, Arkansas. Though Holman’s regiment, the 9th Iowa, lost 216 men to casualties over the course of the three-day battle as documented by the Official Records, the Union victory on March 8, […]
1
Jun
10
The Capture of Fort Donelson: February 16, 1862
Posted by solnitr Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Lesson Plans, Places to Visit, Recent ScholarshipIn Ulysses S. Grant ’s memoir, fully available on Google Books, the brigadier general recollected that from February 11 to 16 1862, his men battled extreme winter conditions that alternated between “rain and snow, thawing and freezing” in addition to engaging the 21,000 Confederate troops entrenched at Fort Donelson . Historians Jack Hurst and Kendall […]
