Month: November 2008
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Short Takes
A Lincoln letter, or at least an official copy, has surfaced at the Dallas Historical Society. It’s the famous “Bixby letter” in which the president attempts to console a mother for the loss of her five sons. There are problems, as the article points out—Lydia Bixby was no fan of Lincoln’s; all of her sons […]
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Confederate Mobilization? A Reader Question
Longtime TOCWOC reader Mark Kucinic recently contacted us with the following interesting observation: I just finished reading a biography of Winfield Scott and ran across a piece of info I have never noted before. I went back through my somewhat extensive library and have taken part in a number of discussions about the origins of […]
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Origins of the Rifle-pit
One of the most common features of the Civil War battlefield was the rifle pit, especially in the last two years of the war. Yet this feature was unknown in Napoleon’s time. As the name suggests, the rifle pit’s introduction coincided with the widespread use of the rifle, and can be dated to the Siege […]
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Short Takes
Many Civil War histories sort of assume that tactics developed in a vacuum, without antecedents. In a previous post I mentioned that both sides used tactics developed by the French chasseurs. Here I’ll point those who are interested in light infantry tactics toward some resources on the web. We hear a lot about “Napoleonic warfare” […]
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Fiction Review: The Shenandoah Spy
The Shenandoah Spy: Being the True Life Adventures of Belle Boyd, CSA, the ‘Confederate Cleopatra’ By Francis Hamit In his novel, The Shenandoah Spy, Francis Hamit weaves facts and fiction around the espionage activities of the legendary Confederate spy Belle Boyd, creating an entertaining storyline that includes her real-life encounters with other well known historical […]
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Evaluating Negative Evidence
“There is no evidence” is a phrase that historians love to throw out, but it’s one that ought to be used more cautiously than it is. Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Most of what we evaluate is paper evidence, which covers only a small part of what actually […]
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Chasseurs and Pennsylvanians
American Civil War units often copied their European counterparts. The best known were the flashy zouaves, but there were others as well, such as the chasseurs. The name means “hunter” in French, and they were light infantry, the functional equivalent of the German Jägers. Chasseurs came in both infantry (chasseurs à pied) and cavalry (chasseurs […]