TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

As I was copying newspaper articles from the Richmond Examiner from September 1864 for my Siege of Petersburg site, I came across the following interesting article in the September 5, 1864 Richmond Examiner: The Claims of the Negro.–One Benjamin Ruff, claiming to be a member of the Sixth Virginia cavalry, was committed to the Castle […]

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A regimental history of the 36th Wisconsin by James M. Aubery, published in 1900, contains his observation of so-called “Black Confederates”, and whether or not they were soldiers.  I think Aubery’s statement1 speaks for itself on the matter, emphasis mine. The following from General Longstreet regarding Hatcher’s Run explains itself and shows that the slaves […]

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The subject of Black Confederates is a divisive one that often comes up in surprising ways: Gregory Perry, of Monroe, who learned recently that an ancestor was awarded a pension for Confederate service, says it’s hard to reconcile that fact with what he knows firsthand about being a black man in the South. “I grew […]

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I’ve been researching sharpshooters for several years now, so it’s always nice to find something new like this from the history of the 115th New York. It’s interesting for a couple of reasons. One is the story of the conversion of the 13th Indiana into a sharpshooter battalion in all but name. This is almost […]

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Civil War novelist Kim Murphy takes a look at contraception during the mid-Nineteenth century. In the decades before the Civil War, there was no organized movement to advocate or control contraception. Freethinking printers and publishers began spreading the word about reproductive choices, and Charles Knowlton became the first American legally tried for the publication of […]

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The Wisconsin Historical Society looks at election chicanery in 1864 when the Republicans, like the Democrats today, faced a stunning defeat. They did, however, have an ace to play, the military vote. Since they controlled the Legislature, Republicans passed a bill in September that enabled soldiers to vote while serving in the field, and authorized […]

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