TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

It has become somewhat of a cottage industry to try to identify who shot various prominent figures like generals Sedgwick and Reynolds. The other say I ran across this postwar newspaper article dealing with the shooting of General Winfield Hancock at Gettysburg. The article credits Sergeant William Wood of Company H, 56th Virginia (Kemper’s brigade, […]

[Read more →]

For those of you who follow TOCWOC but are not regular readers of my Siege of Petersburg Online site, I thought I’d provide a little update here, the first in quite awhile. I’ve been VERY, VERY busy, so much so that my blogging here has dropped off more than I’d like.  That said, here’s where […]

[Read more →]

Cowan’s Auctions just completed a massive auction of Civil War items of all kinds. The catalog is fun to look through, even if you can’t afford to buy any of it. Three items I found particularly interesting were: A letter from General Lee to Virginia Senator Andrew Hunter in January 1865 about the enlistment of […]

[Read more →]

Very nice animated map of the Peninsula Campaign in 1862. If you’d like a short and concise campaign summary, check it out—it’s well done.

[Read more →]

Previously I mentioned that the remains of two unfortunate soldiers killed at Second Manassas had been found in a surgeon’s pit on the battlefield. I am happy to report that they have been decently interred at Arlington National Cemetery after all these years. The two Union soldiers buried Thursday at Arlington with full military honors […]

[Read more →]

In fact, they can, with modern forensic archeology, be quite eloquent. Case in point comes from the Manassas battlefield, when recent excavations have revealed quite a lot about about wounds and surgical practices. In an article for Smithsonian magazine, recently discovered remains of Union soldiers show a lot about their fate. The bones were discovered […]

[Read more →]

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 […]

[Read more →]