American Civil War

Recent news and articles

Museum at Ford's Theater explores the Lincoln assassination dallasnews.com :: 2009-08-10
After 10pm on April 14, 1865, one of America's most admired actors, John Wilkes Booth, mortally wounded President Abraham Lincoln. 9 hours later Lincoln died across the street from Ford's Theater at the home of merchant William Petersen. A nation mourned, and Vice President Andrew Johnson, himself one of the missed targets of a vast conspiracy, became the 17th president. The new Ford Theater museum makes it possible to understand Booth's view of Lincoln. Here visitors can see the assassin's derringer, knife, diary, compass, and belongings of his co-conspirators. Also on show are the clothing and boots Lincoln had to Ford's Theater on the night he died. [John Wilkes Booth - Lincoln Assassination]

Black spies infiltrated staff of Confederate president Jefferson Davis fosters.com :: 2009-08-10
When Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy during the Civil War, realised somebody on his staff was leaking information to the Union, the last person he thought of was the nanny, Mary Elizabeth Bowser. He thought she was only an illiterate slave. "Wrong Jeff, she was a school teacher from Philadelphia," said Hari Jones, curator of the African American Civil War Memorial Museum in Washington, adding that: "African American spies in the Civil War were critical to the Union effort." Called the Lincoln's Loyal Legal League, a network of African American spies used their own form of communication to weaken the Confederate effort and pass on information to the Northern states. [Spy & Intelligence - American Civil War]

What the Confederate flag means today - Between a flag and a boycott thesunnews.com :: 2009-07-07
Today, the confederate flag can be found on the side of a barn; on a bikini in the window of a shop; at the Confederate Soldier's monument on Statehouse grounds; on T-shirts, tattoos, and bumper stickers. Its meaning has become as varied as its displays. It's about heritage because it was carried into battle by ancestors fighting to defend their homeland. It's about hate because when Confederate General Robert E. Lee marched north to Gettysburg, one of the things that the Army of Northern Virginia did was seize free black folk and send them back into slavery - whether they had originally been slaves or not. [Confederacy Today & Aftermath]

Auburn University obtains surrender letter Ulysses S. Grant wrote to Robert E. Lee al.com :: 2009-07-07
A rare letter from Union General Ulysses S. Grant to Confederate General Robert E. Lee details the surrender of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and setting the stage for the end of the Civil War. The handwritten letter (April 10, 1865) is a copy Grant made of a letter he wrote to Lee after Lee formally surrendered at Appomattox. Grant calls on Confederate forces to give up artillery and pledge their loyalty to the U.S., but says that officers can keep side arms and all of the soldiers can return to their homes "not to be disturbed by the United States authorities as long as they observe their Parolle & the laws inforced where they reside." [General Ulysses S. Grant]

Western front Civil War battles often forgotten rockwallheraldbanner.com :: 2009-07-07
Scholars and historians say the Civil War on the Kansas-Missouri border, and the Civil War in the Ozarks, has been forgotten and overshadowed by larger battles in the East. --- Including skirmishes, Missouri saw 1,200 engagements during the Civil War: more than any other state except Virginia and Tennessee. --- Kansas has several Civil War battlefields, including a cemetery in Baxter Springs where soldiers killed by Confederate guerrilla leader William Quantrill’s forces are buried. The biggest battle in the state was fought in October 1864 along the banks of Mine Creek, featuring one of the largest cavalry face-offs of the war. [Battles and Battlefields - American Civil War]

The Civil War Medicine Museum in Frederick examiner.com :: 2009-07-07
The National Museum of Civil War Medicine - in Frederick, Maryland - is located in a building used by an embalmer who treated the bodies of Civil War soldiers. Shattered bones and stories of injured soldiers are exhibited in a respectful, professional manner. The tour in the museum is set up thematically and flows easily from one section to another: from medical education to recruitment to camp life, evacuation of the wounded, to field dressing, hospitals, embalming, and modern military medicine. [Civil War Museums]

Archaeologists locate Confederate cannons from a sunken Confederate gunboat in the Pee Dee River sciencedaily.com :: 2009-06-10
Archaeologists have located 2 large cannons - each weighing upwards of 5 tons - from sunken Confederate gunboat C.S.S. Pee Dee in the Pee Dee River and have pinpointed where the Mars Bluff Naval Yard once stood on the east side of the river in Marion County, S.C. Underwater archaeologist Christopher Amer says the findings and the artifacts recovered will help tell the story of the people who worked at the Mars Bluff Naval Yard and how they built the Confederate warships. The Mars Bluff Naval Yard was one of many Confederate naval yards that were located inland in Southern states so gunboats and support vessels could be built and protected from Union forces. [Wrecks: Civil War-era]

Valuable Abraham Lincoln document found in the Hawaii State Archives kgmb9.com :: 2009-06-10
A document that was hidden away in the Hawaii State Archives for decades has finally been explained. Abraham Lincoln signed it as part of his plan to free slaves during the Civil War. Someone found the file in a vault in 1935. They noticed Lincoln's signature, but did not know what the document was. It remained a mystery until Daniel Stowell visited the archives, realizing the date, Sept. 22, 1862, was the date Lincoln signed the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. "This document is intimately related to the end of slavery in the US. It's the beginning of the process. The order to the Secretary of State to affix the seal of the US to make official the preliminary emancipation proclamation." [Civil War Documents, Archives]

Civil War memorabilia up for auction after Civil War Museum closes capitalnews9.com :: 2009-06-04
It's one of the biggest and rarest collections of Civil War memorabilia in the entire country. And it's about to be auctioned off. "This is probably one of the hardest things that we had to do. The cannons, the costumes, the uniforms, the guns are going," explained Eastover Resort owner Ticki Winsor. Eastover Resort in Lenox is the home of the Civil War Museum. But because of the bad economy, Winsor is forced to sell the property, including everything in the museum. [Relics and Memorabilia - American Civil War]

Female Confederate spy Isabelle Boyd - Cleopatra of the Secession examiner.com :: 2009-06-04
Isabelle Boyd - one of the most infamous of Confederate spies, who provided information to General "Stonewall" Jackson - today lies buried among the very "Yankees" she plotted so hard against. She became known as "Le Belle Rebelle" by French war correspondents and the "Cleopatra of the Secession" by the North and is now sometimes referred to as the "Wisconsin's Southern Belle." Isabelle's town was occupied by the Union in 1861. One day a band of drunken Union soldiers broke into her home looking for souvenirs. They found nothing and one soldier intent on raising the Union flag pushed her mother. Belle drew her pistol and shot the man dead - She was just 17. [Spy & Intelligence - American Civil War]

American history 1861-1865: U.S. Civil War was a conflict between the Abraham Lincoln led Union and 11 southern states that formed CSA - the Confederate States of America, led by Jefferson Davis. In the first year the Union got control of the border states and established a naval blockade as both sides raised large armies. In 1862 the bloody battles began. Robert E. Lee get a series of Confederate victories, but his best general, Stonewall Jackson, was killed at the Chancellorsville in May 1863. Lee's invasion of the North was repulsed at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. In July 1863 Ulysses Grant seized control of Mississippi by capturing Vicksburg, thus splitting the Confederacy. The war ended after the Confederacy collapsed following General Robert E. Lee's surrender at the Battle of Appomattox.

Also called: 'War of the Rebellion', 'War of Southern Independence', 'War of Northern Aggression' and 'War Between the States'.

American Civil War in the News is a edited review of American Civil War related news and articles, providing collection of hand-picked 1861-1865 era history.