TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Lots of bad news all over these days, but I did get a laugh out of this one. The Associated Press had to issue a correction last month after a story suggested that legendary 20th Century musician James Brown, and not fiery abolitionist John Brown, led a raid on Harpers Ferry just before the Civil […]

[Read more →]

In the wake of the recent shootings in Arizona, Wired magazine looks at at a Secret Service study on the motivations of assassins. Although they vary, politics plays a surprisingly small role. Contrary to popular assumptions about public killings, the attackers didn’t conform to any particular demographic profile. But when Fein reconstructed their patterns of […]

[Read more →]

Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America (Paperback) by Evan Carton (Author) Product Details Paperback: 400 pages Publisher: Bison Books (April 1, 2009) Language: English ISBN-10: 0803219466 ISBN-13: 978-0803219465 Inconsistencies and excesses In the Civil War’s Emancipation Tradition John Brown is one of the major players, the doomed idealist, martyred by the evil […]

[Read more →]

Bruce Chadwick. 1858: Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and the War They Failed to See. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, Inc. (April 1, 2008). 355 pages., notes, index. ISBN: 978-1402209413 $24.95 (Hardcover w/DJ). Why 1858? I found myself asking that question repeatedly the entire time I was reading this book. What made […]

[Read more →]