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By Fred Kiger
4.8
137137 ratings
The podcast currently has 81 episodes available.
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
Subscribe to the Threads from the National Tapestry YouTube Channel here
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:
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
Subscribe to the Threads from the National Tapestry YouTube Channel here
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:
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
Subscribe to the Threads from the National Tapestry YouTube Channel here
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:
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
Subscribe to the Threads from the National Tapestry YouTube Channel here
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:
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
Subscribe to the Threads from the National Tapestry YouTube Channel here
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
Subscribe to the Threads from the National Tapestry YouTube Channel here
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
*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
Subscribe to the Threads from the National Tapestry YouTube Channel here
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
*Title Image by The McMahan Photo Archive/RMP Archive/Mathew Brady / The Brady Studio
Producer: Dan Irving
About this episode:
For most of us, our mental snapshot of 19th-century battlefield medicine is captured when Union Major General Carl Schurz recorded a ghastly scene at Gettysburg: “There stood the surgeons, their sleeves rolled up to their elbows … [One] surgeon snatched his knife from between his teeth …, wiped it rapidly once or twice across his bloodstained apron, and the cutting began. The operation accomplished, the surgeon would look around with a deep sigh, and then – 'Next!'” Relying on first-hand accounts, meticulous statistics and research, we share a side of the conflict that few who fought wanted to think about and, particularly, experience. For our 70th episode, we tell the story of Civil War Medicine.
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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:
William A. Hammond
Jonathan Letterman
Samuel Preston Moore
Sally Tompkins
Dorothea Dix
Clara Barton
Additional Resources:
The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy by Bell Irvin Wiley
The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union by Bell Irvin Wiley
Voices of the Civil War by Richard Wheeler
Civil War Medicine 1861-1865 by C. Keith Wilbur
Subscribe to the Threads from the National Tapestry YouTube Channel here
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
*Title Image by Alexander Gardner
Producer: Dan Irving
About this episode:
Back in December of 2018, we told the story of an engagement that took place along the banks of the Rappahannock and detailed events that took place afterwards. Now, five years later, we return to that story but with greater detail, and the addition of first person accounts. Once again, we would like to take you back to November and December 1862, when yet another Federal commander wanted Richmond but, in order to do that, had to take a sleepy little town almost halfway between the Southern capital and Washington City. Once again, we return to stories not only about men in battle but men showing compassion for one another - yes, even for those deemed their enemy. This is story of the Battle of Fredericksburg, revisited.
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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:
George B. McClellan
Ambrose Burnside
William B. Franklin
William Barksdale
Richard Kirkland
Additional Resources:
Battle of Fredericksburg Overview
Subscribe to the Threads from the National Tapestry YouTube Channel here
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
*Title Image by Mort Kunstler
*Map by Hal Jespersen
Producer: Dan Irving
About this episode:
By 1864, a desperate Confederacy realized it must resort to desperate measures. Measures not only confined to land battles and trying to break the Union blockade, but the procuring and use of commerce raiders which would scour the oceans to wreak havoc on the North’s vast merchant marine. Anything to create economic hardship. Anything to doom Abraham Lincoln’s chances for reelection. This is the story of one such raider. This is the story of the CSS Shenandoah.
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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:
James Dunwoody Bulloch
Thomas Dudley
Lord John Russell
James Iredell Waddell
William Conway Whittle
For Further Reading:
Sea of Gray: The Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah by Tom Chaffin
Subscribe to the Threads from the National Tapestry YouTube Channel here
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
Producer: Dan Irving
The podcast currently has 81 episodes available.
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