Blog Archives

May ’62

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Civil War-Civil Rights

1862 Abraham Lincoln seriously doubted whether General George McClellan’s just-begun campaign up the Virginia peninsula would fare better than a direct drive on Richmond. That was because Lincoln had long since learned to doubt McClellan’s stomach for war anywhere. The … Continue reading →

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April ’62

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Civil War-Civil Rights
Maj. Gen. U. S. Grant

This gallery contains 4 photos.

1862 Dixie’s Virginia-to-Texas vastness was too large to be conquered, many in the South had assured themselves. But by the onset of this, the war’s one-year anniversary month, room for doubt had grown. The Federals had made alarming inroads. The Confederacy’s figurative back … Continue reading →

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March ’62

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Civil War-Civil Rights
Senator Charles Sumner

This gallery contains 4 photos.

1862 Neither contending government exhibited pride in the root of their war. Southerners shrank from broaching the topic of slavery around non-slaveholders, and Northerners were similarly reluctant among slaveholding unionists. Each had two more reasons on the other side of … Continue reading →

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January ’62

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Civil War-Civil Rights
Don Carlos Buell

This gallery contains 1 photo.

1862 The two warring American nations each had reason to rejoice—somewhat—as the new year opened. On January 1 in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Confederate commissioners John Slidell and James Mason, released from U.S.custody, boarded a British ship bound for Europe. That meant … Continue reading →

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December ’61

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Civil War-Civil Rights

1861               So now came December and the approach of a new year–in a war the naive of both sides had assumed would not last three months.             The conflict was already promising to bust budgets on both sides … Continue reading →

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November ’61

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Civil War-Civil Rights

1861               On November 6 Jefferson Davis, provisional president of the Confederate States of America, became no longer provisional.             The former United States senator from Mississippi had been named the first–but provisional–president of the Confederacy in February by … Continue reading →

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October ’61

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Civil War-Civil Rights

1861             The cool of autumn pointed toward winter, when rain and sleet would drown the Confederacy’s inferior roads and slacken campaigning to an endless plod.             So Presidents Lincoln and Davis settled into a longer war than most people … Continue reading →

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September ’61

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Civil War-Civil Rights

1861             Major General John C. Fremont’s August 30 proclamation of martial law and emancipation of rebel-owned slaves in Missouri caused a September sensation. Well, several sensations.             The New York Times of Sept. 2 hailed Fremont’s emancipation edict as “by … Continue reading →

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August ’61

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Civil War-Civil Rights

1861               August brought the war’s second major battle. It underlined in blood the geographical breadth and scope into which the conflict had exploded. Unlike Bull Run–or, to Confederates, Manassas–this next bloodletting occurred three hundred miles west of the Mississippi … Continue reading →

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July ’61

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Civil War-Civil Rights

    1861               The people of the North were restless.             It had been two months since the Fort Sumter surrender, and no major move had been mounted to quash the Dixie rebellion. The longer what President Lincoln … Continue reading →

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