About this episode: 

Presidential elections essentially boil down to a popular mandate, either supporting an incumbent’s administration or repudiating it. Never was that clearer than in 1864 when some four million people went to the polls to either re-elect Abraham Lincoln or oust him. At the election’s core: to stay the course and finish the war or admit it a failure and call for a cessation of hostilities. Such were the weighty consequences surrounding Abraham Lincoln’s quest for a second term. This is the story of a nation’s moment of decision. This is the story of the presidential election of 1864. 

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:

John Tyler

George B. McClellan

William Seward

Salmon P. Chase

Clement L. Vallandigham

Additional Resources:

Electoral Map - Election of 1864

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Thank you to our sponsor Bob Graesser, Raleigh Civil War Round Table's editor of The Knapsack newsletter and the Round Table's webmaster at http://www.raleighcwrt.org

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

For millennia humans have reflected on historical events. Quite often, one poses the timeless question: what if - had a life been spared or taken, had a candidate won rather than lost and, as it relates to this episode, what if a battle or war ended differently? So, with a degree of trepidation, we address that last question and will do so through the works of a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and two university professors. With writing fueled by incredible imagination and plots, characters and consequences drawn from factual trends and themes, we offer three stories from the genre of alternative and counterfactual history. Three stories that address “what if” the South had won the American Civil War.    

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For Further Reading:

If The South Had Won The Civil War by MacKinlay Kantor

The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove

The Confederate States of America: What Might Have Been by Roger L. Ransom

Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War by William Forstchen and Newt Gingrich

Grant Comes East: A Novel of the Civil War (The Gettysburg Trilogy, 2) by William Forstchen and Newt Gingrich

Never Call Retreat: Lee and Grant: The Final Victory: A Novel of the Civil War (The Gettysburg Trilogy, 3) by William Forstchen and Newt Gingrich

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Thank you to our sponsor, The Badge Maker - proudly carrying affordable Civil War Corps Badges and other hand-made historical reproductions for reenactors, living history interpreters, and lovers of history.

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Thank you to our sponsor Bob Graesser, Raleigh Civil War Round Table's editor of The Knapsack newsletter and the Round Table's webmaster at http://www.raleighcwrt.org

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant understood numbers. And, in the spring of 1864, he intended to use the North’s advantage in men and materiel to pressure, stretch and snap the Confederacy at multiple points.  And so, he ordered simultaneous campaigns. As Abraham Lincoln put it, “those not skinning can hold a leg.” Three were to begin in Virginia: at Bermuda Hundred, into the Shenandoah Valley and across the Rapidan into the Wilderness. One was to be launched on the Red River in Louisiana and, finally, a campaign from Chattanooga, Tennessee. One that was aimed at the very heart of the Confederacy. This is the story of that campaign. This is the story of William Tecumseh Sherman’s drive on Atlanta. 

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:

William T. Sherman

James B. McPherson

George Henry Thomas

Joseph E. Johnston

William J. Hardee

John Bell Hood

Additional Resources:

Movements and Battles of The Atlanta Campaign, May 7th - September 1st, 1864

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Thank you to our sponsor, The Badge Maker - proudly carrying affordable Civil War Corps Badges and other hand-made historical reproductions for reenactors, living history interpreters, and lovers of history.

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Thank you to our sponsor Bob Graesser, Raleigh Civil War Round Table's editor of The Knapsack newsletter and the Round Table's webmaster at http://www.raleighcwrt.org

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

Too often, we think only of wild assaults, the terrible collision of armed men, the desperate fighting of soldiers - often, hand to hand - and the killed and wounded but, in the American Civil War, we tend to overlook what happened to another element that comprised battle casualties: Those captured. This is the story about the American Civil War’s prisoners of war. This is also the story of the prisons that contained them. 

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:

Montgomery C. Meigs

William Hoffman

Henry Halleck

Thomas Rose

Henry Wirz

Edwin Stanton

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Thank you to our sponsor, The Badge Maker - proudly carrying affordable Civil War Corps Badges and other hand-made historical reproductions for reenactors, living history interpreters, and lovers of history.

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Thank you to our sponsor Bob Graesser, Raleigh Civil War Round Table's editor of The Knapsack newsletter and the Round Table's webmaster at http://www.raleighcwrt.org

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

As we’ve seen in the one presidential debate this election year, a performance has consequences.  Although it was not for the office of chief executive, we turn over time’s shoulder to speak of another storied debate - in 1858 and for the office of U.S. senator.  This is the story of a series of face-to-face confrontations that may not have had immediate ramifications but most certainly resonated two years later when, on the eve of civil war, the two both pursued the office of President of The United States.  This is the story of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. 

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:

Stephen A. Douglas

Lyman Trumbull

John C. Frémont

Dred Scott

James Buchanan

For Further Reading:

Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America by Allen C. Guelzo

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Thank you to our sponsor, The Badge Maker - proudly carrying affordable Civil War Corps Badges and other hand-made historical reproductions for reenactors, living history interpreters, and lovers of history.

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Thank you to our sponsor Bob Graesser, Raleigh Civil War Round Table's editor of The Knapsack newsletter and the Round Table's webmaster at http://www.raleighcwrt.org

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

Washington City was buzzing with anxiety. It was the middle of May 1864 and no news had arrived from Virginia for days. Then, finally, in flurries, it came - word from the front and it was most welcome. Grant was posed to strike a mortal blow. Readers clutched papers that, in bold print, screamed “Extra.” Unable to concentrate, Congress adjourned for three days. At 10 pm on the evening of May 11th, the President moved out onto the Executive Mansion portico where, before him, a massive crowd sprawled on the lawn. He announced the times as dramatic and, in his high, reedy voice, Mr. Lincoln read a message from Grant, “I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.” And, indeed, it would. To the tune of Union casualties that numbered as many or more as Robert E. Lee had in his Confederate army. This is the story of two more Overland Campaign collisions between Lee and Grant. Two more that continued to bleed both armies. This is the story of the battles at the North Anna and Cold Harbor.

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:

A. P. Hill

Richard S. Ewell

John B. Gordon

Gouverneur Warren

George Gordon Meade

Franz Sigel

Additional Resources:

Fighting at North Anna, VA - May 24th, 1864

Actions, Battle of Cold Harbor - June 3rd, 1864

For Further Reading:

To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13–25, 1864 by Gordon C. Rhea

Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26–June 3, 1864 by Gordon C. Rhea

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Thank you to our sponsor, The Badge Maker - proudly carrying affordable Civil War Corps Badges and other hand-made historical reproductions for reenactors, living history interpreters, and lovers of history.

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Thank you to our sponsor Bob Graesser, Raleigh Civil War Round Table's editor of The Knapsack newsletter and the Round Table's webmaster at http://www.raleighcwrt.org

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

With gray cape lined with red satin and ostrich plume in hat, he was the beau ideal of the cavalier South. He rode and campaigned with Sam Sweeney on banjo and Mulatto Bob on the bones. At times, one wondered was it war or just a lark. Despite all the showy display, he was Robert E. Lee’s “eyes and ears” and his reconnaissance set the table for battles and campaigns. And, in doing so, he came across as a knight in shining armor on a holy quest - a happy warrior in the middle of a desperate war. A dashing adventurer who loved to see his name in headlines, there were some who believed that for him, the contest was a constant quest for glory. And, sometimes, that propensity got himself, his comrades and the commander he dearly loved in trouble. This is the story of a man whose exploits paved the way for Confederate victories, and, to many, one of its greatest defeats. This is the story of James Ewell Brown Stuart. 

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:

Fitzhugh Lee

Flora Cooke

Philip St. George Cooke

John Mosby

John Pope

Joseph Hooker

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Thank you to our sponsor, The Badge Maker - proudly carrying affordable Civil War Corps Badges and other hand-made historical reproductions for reenactors, living history interpreters, and lovers of history.

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Thank you to our sponsor Bob Graesser, Raleigh Civil War Round Table's editor of The Knapsack newsletter and the Round Table's webmaster at http://www.raleighcwrt.org

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

She was witty, intelligent and a great conversationalist: everything that raised the eyebrows of proper Southern women in the mid-19th century. And then, she married the man who became the first and only President of the Confederacy. Wedded to her fate with him and a doomed nation, her life was filled with trying times. She was, if you will, locked in a personal civil war as she struggled to reconcile her societal duties with strong individual beliefs. This is the story of a remarkably resilient woman who served as the Confederacy's First Lady. This is the story of Varina Howell Davis.

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:

Jefferson Davis

Sarah Childress Polk

Washington Irving

Jane Appleton Pierce

Elizabeth Keckley

Alexander H. Stephens

Additional Resources:

First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis’s Civil War by Joan E. Cashin

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Thank you to our sponsor, The Badge Maker - proudly carrying affordable Civil War Corps Badges and other hand-made historical reproductions for reenactors, living history interpreters, and lovers of history.

Check out The Badge Maker and place your orders here

Thank you to our sponsor Bob Graesser, Raleigh Civil War Round Table's editor of The Knapsack newsletter and the Round Table's webmaster at http://www.raleighcwrt.org

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

For those aboard the fifty-gun USS Congress, it had been a quiet morning. Its crew, as usual, prepared the twenty-year-old vessel for inspection which would be held the next day. Meanwhile, the ship’s quartermaster gazed out over Hampton Roads which glistened under a late winter sun. All seemed normal. And then, at 12:45 p.m., a column of heavy black smoke. Curiosity aroused, the quartermaster turned to a fellow officer, handed him his glass and asked for him to take a look. Their gaze created concern. Indeed, as the quartermaster put it, at last, “that thing is a-comin”. Something no one had ever seen before. Its mission - to change the course of the war. It was Saturday, March 8, 1862, and one vessel, an ironclad, was about to alter centuries of naval warfare. This is the story of technology turning a page. This is the story of the Duel between the Ironclads.

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:

Stephen Mallory

John Mercer Brooke

John L. Porter

Gideon Welles

John Ericsson

John Worden

Additional Resources:

Monitor: The Story of the Legendary Civil War Ironclad and the Man Whose Invention Changed the Course of History by James Tertius De Kay

Duel Between The First Ironclads by William C. Davis

The Blockade: Runners and Raiders (The Civil War Series, Vol. 3) by Time-Life Books

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*Title Image by Ivan Berryman

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

When exercising power, the 16th President’s stocky and sphinxlike Secretary of War could demonstrate a Jekyll and Hyde personality. Personally honest, he could be unforgiving and given to histrionics when he thought them necessary. And again, when required, warm hearted, selfless and patriotic. In charge of the Union’s land-based operations, he made tough decisions and did so with little regard for those affected by those decisions. His mission was to win the war and he pursued that purpose with relentless fury. In doing so, far too many simply remembered him as the “unloved Secretary of War”. In the pantheon that was Abraham Lincoln’s Cabinet, this is the story of his Mars. This is the story of Edwin McMasters Stanton.   

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:

Salmon P. Chase

Daniel Sickles

Simon Cameron

William Seward

Lorenzo Thomas

Manton Marble

Additional Resources:

Lincoln's Autocrat: The Life of Edwin Stanton by William Marvel

Stanton: Lincoln's War Secretary by Walter Stahr

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*Title Image by The McMahan Photo Archive/RMP Archive/Mathew Brady / The Brady Studio

Producer: Dan Irving