TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Indiana University Press is having a sale, which includes their Civil War books. Definitely worth a look. We’ve heard a lot about removing statues and even references to American slave owners. Apparently even figures like Sam Houston are under the gun, even though Houston opposed secession and refused to have anything to do with the […]

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A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War by Thomas Fleming Product Details Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Da Capo Press; 1st Edition, 1st Printing edition (May 7, 2013) Language: English ISBN-10: 0306821265 ISBN-13: 978-0306821264 This book is upsetting a number of people, looking at the distribution of […]

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I just wanted to alert TOCWOC readers quickly of the next American Experience episode (or in this case three episodes), The Abolitionists.  The first part debuts on Tuesday, January 8, 2013 in most markets, to be followed by parts 2 and 3 in succeeding weeks.  I hope to have a short review up on the  […]

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Race in 19th Century America By James W. Durney Article IV Section 2 of the Constitution provides for individuals held to service or labor contracts.  “No Person held to Service or Labor in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such […]

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150 years ago, July 1862 One month ago, the Army of the Potomac listened to Richmond’s church bells.  Now they are at Harrison’s Landing covered by gunboats on the James River.  On the first, the Battle of Malvern Hill ends the Seven Days’ Campaign.  The Army of Northern Virginia has suffered 20,141 causalities, about 4,300 […]

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Editor’s Note: This book will be available to the public on April 2, 2012. Brasher, Glenn D. The Peninsula Campaign and the Necessity of Emancipation: African Americans and the Fight for Freedom  (The University of North Carolina Press, April 2, 2012). 304 pages, illustrations, 2 maps, bibliography, endnotes, index. ISBN: 978-0-8078-3544-9 $39.95 (Hardcover). What campaign […]

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While visiting relatives in LA (Lower Alabama) I came across a copy of Rufus Ward’s book The Tombigbee River Steamboats: Rollodores, Dead Heads, and Side-Wheelers. Ward takes a look at Alabama’s almost forgotten steamboat era from the 1840s to the 1880s, in which the steamboats plying the Mobile, Alabama, Warrior and Tombigbee rivers dominated the […]

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