I haven’t commented on what Brooks Simpson refers to as “the gift that keeps on giving” in some time, but news that Ann DeWitt is once again posting is too good to pass up. You know Ms. DeWitt as the person who discovered an entire regiment of black Confederate cooks and the owner of one [...]
Lost Cause
I don’t normally share reader mail, but this struck me as worth posting. It’s been a few years since I last visited Stratford Hall and while I had a pleasant visit I too was struck by the emphasis on the cherubs. Today I visited Stratford Hall. The Great House obviously demonstrates the Lee family’s tremendous [...]
On June 30 the Anderson County UDC dedicated a marker to Wade Childs, who accompanied his owner as a body servant in Orr’s Rifles. Andy Hall recently took this one apart, not that it takes much time and effort to uncover these cases of so-called black Confederate soldiers. This one is an absolute mess. There [...]
Update: A must read post by Robert Moore at Cenantua’s Blog. This morning one of my readers asked me to clarify my thoughts about a recent post on Sherman and those who claim to be victims of his army’s actions in Georgia and the Carolinas. This reader’s email reflects not only the post itself but [...]
In addition to giving a talk on how to teach Civil War monuments in Charleston for the Civil War Trust, I also took part in a panel discussion in which participants could ask anything that was on their mind. Some of the participants submitted their questions beforehand. One participant asked what war crimes William Tecumseh [...]
For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already [...]
This just in: A legal battle to fly the Confederate flag from the street light poles of Lexington died today at the hand of a federal judge. In a written opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Wilson dismissed a lawsuit against the city filed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The lawsuit challenged an ordinance, [...]
Today I completed a rough draft of an essay on John Christopher Winsmith and his servant Spencer for the NYTs Disunion column. Winsmith’s letters are incredibly rich and help to sketch a constantly evolving master – slave dynamic during the first sixteen months of the war. As a teaser consider the following reference to Spencer [...]
