TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Might even be stolen U.S. gold from the Federal Mint. Archer wrote that he also spoke with a journalist who had done extensive research on a Civil War-era group called the Knights of the Golden Circle. The KGC, Archer wrote, was a secret society of Confederate sympathizers that had purportedly “buried secret caches of weapons, […]

[Read more →]

President Trump has designated Camp Nelson in Kentucky as a national monument to honor the black volunteers who mustered there for service in the Union army. It also illustrates the limitations of the Emancipation Proclamation. According to the National Park Service, Camp Nelson, which is located just outside Nicholasville, began as supply depot and hospital […]

[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 →]

Rethinking U. S. Grant seems to be the in thing right now. History has no judgment, but historians do, and these tend to run in cycles (witness views of the Confederacy). So it is with Grant, who seems to be on the upswing. Claremont Review of Books reviews some of the latest scholarship, including books […]

[Read more →]

Business pressures and tax time have not left much for blogging, for which I apologize. Have some posts in the works, but until then here’s something from Fold3 that might interest readers. For a very limited time (until April 15th) Fold3 has their entire Civil War collection available for free access (you do have to […]

[Read more →]

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 […]

[Read more →]

Intriguing article by a biomedical researcher at Duke University, whose research suggests that the crew of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley died from the effects of their own torpedo. … after an exhaustive three-year Duke study that involved repeatedly setting blasts near a scale model, shooting authentic weapons at historically accurate iron plate and doing […]

[Read more →]