The Robinson Confederate Sharps

by Fred Ray March 11, 2018

Ian at Forgotten Weapons examines the Confederate Robinson carbine. S. C. Robinson’s company made some 1900 of them before the Confederate government bought the factory in early 1863. Although there were some complaints about them, the Robinsons were well made arms and quite serviceable. Unfortunately, as with so many of the Confederacy’s manufacturing efforts, there […]

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Pregnant…And On Picket

by Fred Ray March 9, 2018

Raynor’s Historical Collectible Auctions site is worth a visit to look at the Civil War manuscripts for auction. You can learn a lot just by looking at the excepts of the letters about soldiers’ attitudes about the war, their enemies, politicians, their leaders, and slavery. It’s often quite different than what you read in the […]

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Picketing, Skirmishing, and Sharpshooting in the Civil War

by Fred Ray March 8, 2018

My essay on Picketing, Skirmishing, and Sharpshooting in the Civil War is up at Essential Civil War Curriculum, a Sesquicentennial project of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech. Primary sponsors are Dr. James I. (Bud) Robertson and Professor William C. (Jack) Davis, both Professors at Virginia Tech. The security of an […]

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Review: Southern Reconstruction by Philip Leigh

by Fred Ray March 2, 2018

Southern Reconstruction By Philip Leigh Hardcover: 229 pages, $29.95 Publisher: Westholme Publishing; 1st edition (June 7, 2017) Language: English ISBN-10: 159416276X ISBN-13: 978-1594162763 6 x 1.5 x 9 inches Reconstruction in the South has become a subject dominated these days mostly by academics writing about race and America’s “unfinished revolution,” as viewed through the lens […]

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Charges Dropped for Durham Confederate Statue vandals

by Fred Ray February 24, 2018

The Durham DA has dropped all charges for the remaining vandals who pulled down a Confederate statue. District Attorney Roger Echols did not take questions after a terse statement in which he essentially said it did not make sense to pursue charges against the remaining suspects given that District Court Judge Frederick S. Battaglia Jr. […]

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Cotton Pickin’ and Black Geography

by Fred Ray February 18, 2018

Two recent articles are worth a look, one on the changing geography of Black America and another on how mechanization took over cotton farming. Mona Chalabi maps black populations in the US for the last 118 years, but unfortunately does not go back to the 1850s. However, the distribution in 1900 was probably not that […]

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Short Takes

by Fred Ray February 4, 2018

What is old is new again. Who would have thought that John C. Calhoun, in spite of having his named purged from a school, would be the most influential thinker in the liberal West? Yet nullification (okay, they call it resistance) and even secession (Calexit) are the issues of the day. It even extends to […]

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