On Independence Day, 1863, the last thing on the minds of most Americans was celebrating freedom. Just outside a small town called Gettysburg, in Adams County, Pennsylvania, almost 50,000 men were casualties of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, the battle that was soon recognized as the turning point of the war.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee had succeeded in defeating Union General Joseph Hooker’s forces at Chancellorsville, Virginia, in May of 1863. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia had managed to repel an army twice their size. Emboldened by the victory, Lee decided to continue his march north. His goal was Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; if he could make it to Harrisburg, he hoped to continue on to Philadelphia. Read the rest of this entry »
While many of the figures associated with the Confederacy have become controversial in the years since the war, few have been the subject of more controversy than Nathan Bedford Forrest.
A man of contradictions himself, it’s no wonder that Forrest stirs such strong feelings – either of respect or disgust – in so many people. Nor would this surprise Forrest, who was just as divisive in his lifetime as he is now. Read the rest of this entry »
I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy. William Tecumseh Sherman
Rarely has an historical figure been both as revered and reviled as William Tecumseh Sherman. For Northerners, Sherman is the man who almost singlehandedly brought about the end of a civil war more bloody and bitter than any war fought before or since on American soil. For Southerners, he is a monster, an arbiter of destruction more brutal and complete than any seen before or since on American soil. Read the rest of this entry »
If the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory. Jefferson Davis
Of all the leaders associated with the Civil War few are as overlooked as Jefferson Davis. The president of the ill-fated Confederate States of America, Davis is largely dismissed in the pantheon of the “Lost Cause,” passed over in favor of military leaders such as Robert E. Lee, Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, and J.E.B. Stuart. Read the rest of this entry »
Although the southern states that seceded from the Union at the outset of the Civil War often claimed that “states rights” was the issue that resulted in secession, it was a thin argument; the truth was that the South, dependent since colonial times on slave labor, felt the North’s growing dissatisfaction with the slave situation in the South as a threat, a threat both to their livelihoods and their way of life.
The issue of slavery did not suddenly begin to be problematic with the election of anti-slavery President Abraham Lincoln in 1859. As each state was admitted to the Union, a battle raged about whether or not it would be a free or slave state (despite the fact that slavery was actually legal in the United States from 1654 until 1865), as the precarious balance of free and slave states determined which section would dominate Congress. Read the rest of this entry »
