Confederacy

Discover the daring life of Jesse James, a Wild West outlaw whose exploits and complex legacy continue to captivate us today.

Historians do not talk much about naval action during the Civil War, certainly not as much as they talk about ground combat. If it’s not about a riverboat, the Monitor, the Merrimack, or damning torpedoes, it just doesn’t get the same attention. The CSS Shenandoah did a lot of things worth talking about. Her flag […]

April 27, 1865 — The Sultana was overcrowded with almost 2,000 recently released Union soldiers that had been held by the Confederacy. They were packed into the steam boat as it powered up a relentless spring-time flood on the Mississippi river, and though it was cramped, many were probably happy to be there. After the […]

April 14, 1865 — The President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, sat in the Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. “Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal — you sockdologizing old man-trap!” said an actor playing in “Our American Cousin” for […]

March 9, 1862:  It was the second year of the American Civil War, and the confederacy had acquired a frigate by the name of the U.S.S. Merrimack. They altered the ship, heavily armoring it and adding significantly more firepower, turning it into a formidable ironclad ship, the C.S.S. Virginia. The boat absolutely pummeled wooden Union […]

When most people thing of Walt Whitman, they think of “O Captain! my Captain!” Perhaps this is from a high school English class like mine, perhaps it’s from the “Dead Poets Society” movie with Robin Williams. However, he wrote hundreds of other poems and was quite popular in his day — though just as controversial, […]

Thankfully most people don’t take Facebook comments on politics too seriously, otherwise they would actually start putting their money where their mouths are.  Still, the thirst for blood within our own borders is quite disturbing.  Keyboard warriors that may or may not have once been real warriors are describing their (albeit fantastical) desires for a […]

In the aftermath of a wild weekend stemming from the chaos in Charlottesville and the ongoing discussion over free speech and white supremacy, many people saw a video of a mob of activists assembling in Durham, N.C., to tear down a statue dedicated to a Confederate soldier. The mob celebrated its destruction wildly, symbolic of […]

On this day in July 1863, William Carney a sergeant from the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry would perform actions that would earn him the Medal of Honor. The action took place at Fort Wagner on Morris Island, outside of Charleston, SC. Carney was the first African-American to be awarded the Medal of Honor in the […]