Category Archives: “Knoxville 1863”

Reprise: The Unfortunate Friendship

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Dick Stanley

Unfortunate, that is, for the boys age 14 to 17 who comprised the majority of Captain/Doctor William Watts Parker’s Sixth Virginia Light Artillery. Meaning his friendship with Colonel Edward Porter Alexander, Longstreet’s chief of artillery. For as Alexander put it … Continue reading →

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USS Monitor restoration continues

Posted on August 27, 2015 by Dick Stanley

The USS Monitor ironclad is featured in the novel in the recollections of Sergeant Timothy Chase of the 29th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. The fictional sergeant saw the Monitor’s successful fight against the CSS Virginia ironclad in 1862 and has “dined … Continue reading →

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A soldier poet

Posted on July 26, 2015 by Dick Stanley

Mayst purest pleasures ever be thine, A [something] holy, pure, chaste, divine, Richest of all treasures I’d wish thee given, Youth, beauty, happiness – a home in Heaven. So then-Captain, later Colonel, Kennon McElroy wrote in December, 1861, in an elaborate, … Continue reading →

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Zouaves at Knoxville

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Dick Stanley

It’s doubtful whether the Lauderdale Zouaves company of the 13th Mississippi Regiment still had uniforms as presentable as this when the regiment attacked Fort Sanders on Nov. 29, 1863. But such apparently was their appearance when the war began. Their … Continue reading →

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Was The South Ever Confederate, Anyway?

Posted on July 4, 2015 by Dick Stanley

The old arguments over the Confederate battle flag (pride or racist symbol, or both), intensified after a photograph surfaced of a mass murderer in Charleston, South Carolina, holding one. This war retrospective, by contemporary Knoxville journalist Jack Neely, whose title … Continue reading →

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Families Divided By The War, Gen. William P. Sanders, Parson William Brownlow | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Where Union Gen. Sanders died

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Dick Stanley

There aren’t many places in Knoxville today reminiscent of the Battle of Fort Sanders. The fort itself disappeared long ago, unless you count the neighborhood and hospital that later assumed its name. There’s Bleak House, of course, Gen. Longstreet’s headquarters. … Continue reading →

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“Our own good Colonel Cameron”

Posted on March 16, 2015 by Dick Stanley

Long before they defended Fort Sanders’s Northwest Bastion, the Seventy-Ninth New York Cameron Highlanders was decimated on the slope of Henry Hill at First Manassas, where their first regimental colonel, James Cameron, was killed by a bullet in his chest. Cameron’s … Continue reading →

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Parson Brownlow’s wife Elisa

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Dick Stanley

In the novel, the historical Elisa Brownlow and my fictional Leila Ellis are close friends. This photo of Mrs. Brownlow was taken in Philadelphia, Pa, soon after the war began when the Confederates had kicked her husband out of Knoxville … Continue reading →

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Civil War clothing, Parson William Brownlow, Parthenia Leila Ellis, Susan Brownlow | Tagged , , | Leave a comment