Monthly Archives: May 2011

Correspondence

Via Lint In My Pocket—Artillery On The Ridge.

Posted in Civil War accoutrements | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Attacking in column

The decimated Phillips Georgia Legion and the Seventeenth Mississippi led the two columns of Rebel infantry that attacked Fort Sanders. The arrangement, with the PGL at the head of the left column and the 17th leading the right one, was … Continue reading

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Fort Sanders, Seventeenth Mississippi, The Northwest Bastion, The Phillips Georgia Legion, Thirteenth Mississippi | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Friedrich Engels on rifled weapons

Benjamin’s Parrott guns were rifled for greater range and accuracy. So were the 3-inch bronze and steel cannon of Parker’s “Boy Battery.” Both types of cannon were new, and also not so easy to make, according to these 1860 newspaper … Continue reading

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Boy Battery, Samuel Nicoll Benjamin | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The New York Cameron Highlanders

Prisoners after Bull Run: Some of the Highlanders, along with the Eighth Michigan, guarded by the Charleston Zouave Cadets (top), at Castle Pinckney in Charleston Harbor, SC. The Highlanders lost heavily at First Manassas (Bull Run) but stood their ground … Continue reading

Posted in New York Cameron Highlanders | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The war’s relevance today

The war’s relevance (or lack of it) in the 2011s is likely to be the subject of considerable pontification over the next three-and-a-half years as the Civil War Sesquicentennial is observed in different ways. Undoubtedly with a few solemn ceremonies, … Continue reading

Posted in Disputes and errors of fact, The Sesquicentennial | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Starving privates, gorging generals

Gen. Burnside’s Union troops were so hungry, according to some diaries and memoirs, they were stealing corn meal from the feed bags of the artillery and cavalry horses. So when Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s troops arrived on Dec. 6 to … Continue reading

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Crozier House, Gen. Ambrose Burnside, Knoxville, New York Cameron Highlanders, The Northwest Bastion, Twenty-Ninth Massachusetts | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Weak locomotives

Typical, slow locomotive of the times, this one of the Orange & Alexandria RR, similar to the one that pulled the cars Longstreet’s veterans rode in from Chattanooga to the vicinity of Knoxville. Well, “rode.” They rode downhill. They had … Continue reading

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Gen. James Longstreet, Knoxville | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

“Let The Dead Bury The Dead”

A common remark of the Civil War years, made by the novel’s Parthenia Leila Ellis, expressing frustration at the routine horror of the masses of corpses left unburied by both sides on major battlefields. As if to say that in … Continue reading

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Parthenia Leila Ellis | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Slavery in the North

Brutus and Natalie, the slaves/servants of widow Leila Ellis, are fictitious. But they represent what some moderns, in a simplistic good/evil dichotomy of the complicated Civil War, consider a unique Southern evil. They probably never heard of the Northern-financed slave … Continue reading

Posted in Knoxville, Slavery | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

USS Monitor

Twenty-Ninth Massachusetts’ Sergeant Timothy Chase’s “washtub on a skillet,” the USS Monitor. Taken some time after its fight with the Merrimac/Virginia. Note minor damage (left) on the turret.

Posted in Twenty-Ninth Massachusetts, USS Monitor | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment