TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Why didn’t people smile in those old CW-era photos? Robinson Meyer gives some reasons, I can add a few more. First, it was a serious age. Young men grew beards to look older as soon as they could, quite unlike today when we have men in their 50s who try to look and act like […]

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Note: I’m stepping outside of the bounds of my typical Civil War book reviews for a look at the Revolutionary War battle of Guilford Courthouse, Lord Cornwallis’ pyrrhic victory over Nathanael Greene’s Continentals and militia near modern day Greensboro, North Carolina.  Rest assured this departure from the Civil War will not become a trend, but […]

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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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