In 1865, after the end of the Civil War, Col. P. H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdon Anderson, asking him to return to work for him. In reply,
Jourdon Anderson told Colonel Anderson exactly where he could stick his offer. This letter was part of The Freedmen's Book (
full download in many different formats) which was distributed to those freed after and during the Civil War, so that they would know stories of other freedmen who had done well, including Touissant L'Ouverture, Phillis Wheatley and Frederick Douglass. The book was put together and published by Lydia Maria Child, abolitionist, women's rights activist, Indian rights campaigner and all around awesome person. She became famous in her own time for her cookbook
The Frugal Housewife, but today her best known work is Over the River and Through the Woods. The Freedmen's Book was part of an effort by abolitionists after the war to educate freed slaves. The American Antiquarian Society has a great website about that movement,
Northern Visions of Race, Region and Reform, which has plenty of
primary sources and images galore.
posted by Kattullus
on Apr 22, 2010 -
92 comments
About 2% of the US population died while serving in the military during the US Civil War, roughly equivalent to about six million people today. A few years after the war the best selling book at 100,000 copies was
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps'
The Gates Ajar, which deals mainly with heaven and what exactly happens there. Spoilers follow.
[more inside]
posted by shothotbot
on Jan 27, 2010 -
29 comments
Confederate soldier
Richard Kirkland is known as the "Angel of Marye's Heights" for venturing in between the opposing army's lines to give water to his wounded foes. The Union soldiers were mowed down the previous day in a series of futile attacks against the Confederate positions. The story fits in with the narrative of post-war reconciliation and reunion and offers an inspiring tale of humanity amid the carnage of war. There is
a statue at the Fredericksburg battlefield and
a movie in the works.
But did it really happen? One writer takes a look at the records, and
it doesn't seem likely.
[more inside]
posted by marxchivist
on Dec 22, 2009 -
22 comments
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
Mere days after asserting his state's "sovereignty" from an "oppressive" Federal government, Governor Rick Perry stands before an angry crowd at Austin City Hall and announces that Texas may once again secede from the Union. "
There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."
[more inside]
posted by Avenger
on Apr 15, 2009 -
315 comments
Whose Father Was He? The soldier’s body was found near the center of Gettysburg with no identification — no regimental numbers on his cap, no corps badge on his jacket, no letters, no diary. Nothing save for an ambrotype (an early type of photograph popular in the late 1850s and 1860s) of three small children clutched in his hand. Errol Morris presents the Civil War-era mystery of a fallen soldier and a found photograph.
[via]
posted by sarabeth
on Mar 30, 2009 -
21 comments
Reenacting slavery at Chickamauga National Military Park. When a reenactor put his knapsack on the ground, the person portraying his slave picked up his knapsack and "moved it before I could say a word. I instantly knew that I had an opportunity to demonstrate the institution's cruelty here, and so I did not acknowledge his act, did not thank him for it, did not make eye contact, did not stop my talk. My own cruelty -- even to make a teaching point to the audience -- made me shudder inside."
[more inside]
posted by marxchivist
on Sep 24, 2008 -
34 comments
2 July 1863, second day of
Gettysburg. Sickles has pulled his III Corps -- without orders -- off of Cemetery Ridge and positioned it a half mile in front of the rest of the Union lines. Longstreet smashes the hapless III Corps and its men are in full flight. Hancock rides back and forth inside the gaping hole left by Sickles. Below him, almost 2000 men of Wilcox's brigade are charging up the slope. They will gain a foothold on the ridge and be reinforced by Lee. As Longstreet pins down the Union left, Lee will roll up the center and right of the Northern army and chase them from the field. He will then march on and take Washington before turning north along the eastern seaboard. Lee will capture and burn Philadelphia and Boston in his March Along the Sea, chasing the Northern government from city to city until Lincoln finally sues for peace and the union is no more.
Suddenly, a line of blue-coated soldiers comes into Hancock's view. "My God, is this all the men here? Who are you?" "
1st Minnesota, sir." "See those colors?", says Hancock, pointing at the flags of the oncoming Confederates, "Take them."
[more inside]
posted by forrest
on Jul 2, 2008 -
82 comments
The Battle of Gettysburg in Lego, done by 7th Graders:
Day 1;
Day 2;
Day 3.
[youtube links] Lots of blood and flying bodies. Complete with
Matrix references. Soundtrack by The Eagles, Queen, and Richard Strauss.
[via]
posted by marxchivist
on Feb 27, 2008 -
23 comments
Acquitted of the murder of Francis Scott Key's son by the first successful pleading of temporarily insane?
Check. Civil War Union general?
Check. Medal of Honor winner?
Check. Amputated leg on display to the public?
Check. Lover to the deposed Queen of Spain?
Check. Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce you to Major General, Foreign Minister, and Congressman
Daniel Edgar Sickles.
[more inside]
posted by Atreides
on Feb 11, 2008 -
18 comments
John Tenniel and the American Civil War. Best known for his illustrations for
Alice in Wonderland, John Tenniel also produced political cartoons for the British magazine
Punch. This sites collects 54 of Tenniel's cartoons dealing with the American Civil War. In addition to the cartoons themselves, the site gives an explanation of the symbols and props in each cartoon and places them context with then-current events and issues.
[more inside]
posted by marxchivist
on Dec 3, 2007 -
24 comments
Spanish Civil War posters, utilizing many early modernist styles --like Art Deco, surrealism, realism, and photomontage-- to communicate with the people of Spain, many of whom were illiterate.
posted by Gamblor
on Aug 4, 2007 -
20 comments
Lost Cause [
WaPo, bugmenot] History museums are a repository for public memory, but also a nation's mirrors, reflecting self-image. When our views of history shift, museums that fail to change are likely to fail in general. Today's Washington Post reports on the struggle and decline of the
Museum of the Confederacy, contrasting it with the
American Civil War Center, nearby geographically, worlds away in philosophy.
posted by Miko
on Apr 4, 2007 -
18 comments
The
premise of Marvel Comic's
Civil War storyline is that after a hero-related disaster, the government decides to force all superheroes to register, causing a split in the hero community. While heroes debate and decide which side to join, fans
debate whether or not the cross-over series is actually any good. Clearly,
Christopher Bird falls squarely on one side and has attempted to "improve" the story by starting a project to edit the dialogue of the series.
(1) (2) (3) (4)
(5) (6)
posted by robocop is bleeding
on Feb 9, 2007 -
53 comments
On December 13, 1862,
Sgt. Richard Rowland Kirkland of the 2nd Carolina stood in the
Sunken Road at the bottom of Marye's Heights at the
Battle of Fredericksburg. The 19-year-old Kirkland was part of Longstreet's First Corps; across from him was Hooker's Center Grand Division, part of the Army of the Potomac under Ambrose Burnside. (More boring history stuff inside.)
posted by forrest
on Dec 13, 2006 -
26 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
Tintype Rebel. Time stands still for John Coffer. The
wet plate and
tintype photographer makes his home at
Camp Tintype, a farm preserved from the 1860s. With no running water or electricity, Coffer travels the roads with his horse "Brownie" and an ox-drawn wagon to take his photographs. Coffer adopted the lifestyle of a
Civil War-era itinerant
photographer more than 20 years ago and was among the first to revive the
wet plate process. He's created tintype
stereoviews (that achieve a 3-D effect when viewed through a stereoviewer), the “world’s first” tintype movie [.
mov], and a series of large format, 20” x 24” tintypes which may be the largest ever made. Lincoln
would be proud.
posted by NationalKato
on Aug 3, 2006 -
16 comments
