The Becker Collection: Drawings of the American Civil War Era "..contains the hitherto unexhibited and undocumented drawings by Joseph Becker and his colleagues, nineteenth-century artists who worked as artist-reporters for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Newspaper observing, drawing, and sending back for publication images of the Civil War, the construction of the railroads, the laying of the trans-atlantic cable in Ireland, the Chinese in the West, the Indian wars, the Chicago fire, and numerous other aspects of nineteenth-century American culture." {artist biographies / subject browse} [via]
posted by peacay on Sep 9, 2009 - 8 comments

The Letter Repository contains hundreds of personal letters from the early 18th Century through the Second World War. A large portion of the letters are from periods of conflict, the largest chunk being from World War Two, though there are also sizable numbers from the First World War and the American Civil War. There are also quite a few love letters. You can both see scans of the letters (and photographs or other materials) as well as transcriptions, which you can edit should you spot errors. One of my favorite collection of correspondance is the one between a Herbert Beyer, who served in the Air Force in World War Two, his darling Cleo and his parents.
posted by Kattullus on Aug 25, 2009 - 11 comments

Civil War reenacting is so 2002. Vietnam reenacting is the new black. But really, if reenacting is your thing, you've got lots of wars to choose from.
posted by billysumday on Aug 17, 2009 - 59 comments

Velupillai Prabhakaran, the elusive and ruthless leader (timeline, short bio) of the violent separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been reportedly killed in battle by the Sri Lankan Army (self-loading video) [more inside]
posted by shoebox on May 19, 2009 - 57 comments

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 on Mar 3, 2008 - 94 comments

Operation enduring chaos: ... the death squads are the result of US policy. At the beginning of last year, with no end to the Sunni insurgency in sight, the Pentagon was reported to have decided to train Shia and Kurdish fighters to carry out "irregular missions". ... From killing everyone named Omar (a Sunni name) who passes thru the wrong checkpoint, to simply marking businesses (and their owners) they want gone with red crosses, how various squads and militias and "armies" and "brigades" are running Iraq.
posted by amberglow on Oct 29, 2006 - 48 comments

The practical future of the country formerly known as Iraq. [NewsFilter, but a significant acknowledgement of something long-in-coming.]
posted by digaman on Aug 9, 2006 - 63 comments

A soldier in War. A letter home. Nobody will ever top Sullivan Ballou's. (Youtube Video) A week before the battle of Bull Run, Sullivan Ballou, a major in the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers, wrote home to his wife in Smithfield. The actual letter begins @ 2:25 into the video. But it's far from a waste to watch the whole six minutes.
posted by thisisdrew on Aug 8, 2006 - 16 comments

the "Second Liberation of Baghdad" --coming soon, in which we act as "enforcers", providing "protection" --...American and Iraqi troops would move from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, leaving behind Sweat teams — an acronym for “sewage, water, electricity and trash” — to improve living conditions by upgrading clinics, schools, rubbish collection, water and electricity supplies. Sunni insurgent strongholds are almost certain to be the first targets, although the Shi’ite militias such as the Mahdi army of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical cleric, and the Iranian-backed Badr Brigade would need to be contained. ... Will we be greeted with candy and flowers again as well?
posted by amberglow on Apr 16, 2006 - 65 comments

The Battle of Glorieta Pass is considered the turning point of the Civil War, in terms of the New Mexico Territory. It happened March 26-28th, 1862. Initially Charles L. Pyron and William Reed Scurry's Confederate force, based at Johnson's Ranch, thought that they had won the battle. They would soon learn that the Union troops, lead by John P. Slough, had circled and destroyed their supplies, leading to Scurry's retreat towards San Antonio. More detailed battle info: [1] [2]-Some site photos.
posted by rollbiz on Mar 27, 2006 - 27 comments

"CivilWar@Smithsonian is produced by the National Portrait Gallery and is dedicated to examining the Civil War through the Smithsonian Institution's extensive and manifold collections." Winslow Homer's Civil War drawings, portraits of leaders, artifacts of soldiering, and, of course, Mathew Brady's portraits. Much more besides. Previous Winslow Homer thread.
posted by OmieWise on Dec 20, 2005 - 6 comments

The 10 year long civil war in West Africa's Sierra Leone may have concluded in the last couple of years but rehabilitation of the country is painfully slow. War crime trials are under way but are underfunded and there's only scant attention paid by the western press. Naturally, the most vulnerable are at greatest risk. Pep Bonet has photographed children at the hospital for the blind, a war amputees soccer team and the rather disturbing conditions at Kissy mental hospital in Freetown. There is only space for about 150 of the estimated 50,000 people left psychotically disturbed by the war. These lucky ones are held in chains by way of treatment control. (via) [aid]
posted by peacay on May 28, 2005 - 19 comments

Civil War Maps The Library of Congress just published an online collection of approximately 2,240 Civil War maps, with information about the collection and a History of Mapping the Civil War.
posted by kirkaracha on Jan 11, 2005 - 6 comments

The battle the US wants to provoke Make no mistake: this is not the "civil war" that Washington has been predicting will break out between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. Rather, it is a war provoked by the US occupation authority and waged by its forces against the growing number of Shia who support Moqtada al-Sadr (by Naomi Klein in Baghdad).
posted by acrobat on Apr 6, 2004 - 49 comments

With great fanfare President Bush declared yesterday that major combat operations are over in Iraq. Missed in that speech and probably little noticed by many is the fact that the most difficult part of the Iraq War has now started. Even Donald Rumsfeld has recently hinted that the UN may need to play a role now. Hopefully the administration will heed some of the many lessons from history like this one.
posted by thedailygrowl on May 2, 2003 - 16 comments

Hardcore vs. Farb So, you want to be a Civil War Reenactor. Here's a few sources to get you started so you can learn the lingo and shop for authentic shoes, hats, and hardtack. (more inside)
posted by Secret Life of Gravy on Oct 4, 2002 - 24 comments

I vividly remember watching Ken Burns' amazingly great The Civil War during the Gulf War. Now that we're apparently having a Gulf War sequel, The Civil War has been remastered and re-released. The Washington Post jumps on the bandwagon with an online discussion with Ken Burns and a great Flash map of the campaign from the Seven Days to Antietam.
posted by kirkaracha on Sep 23, 2002 - 9 comments

Civil War: Political Violence and Robust Settlements -- an article from the Santa Fe Institute Bulletin about game theoretical approaches combined with on the ground field studies to analyze war and conflict. The article centers around work (Forging Democracy From Below: Insurgent Transitions in South Africa and El Salvador | Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador) done by Elisabeth Jean Wood, an NYU professor of political science with a background in physics. "The reason to study violence and suffering," says Wood, "is to understand its origins, processes, andâ?"ideallyâ?"to contribute to its cessation."
posted by kliuless on Aug 8, 2002 - 3 comments

"We have executed Guillermo Sobero as a gift to the country on independence day," he said. The most popular phrase to describe guerilla civil war in the past century has probably been sectarian violence. Look, here's more now. Hard to understand how this poor SOB's death advances their cause, but maybe I'm missing something.
posted by Ezrael on Jun 12, 2001 - 6 comments