Category Archives: Knoxville

Reprise: The Bridge Burners

In 1861, a group of forty Unionists of East Tennessee, some of them from Knoxville, set out to put their actions where their politics were. They plotted to burn regional railroad bridges to stop or at least slow Confederate soldiers … Continue reading

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Reprise: Embalming the dead

The novel’s fictional Sergeant Timothy Chase of the 29th Massachusettes Infantry Regiment was detailed to see to the embalming and transportation of the regiment’s dead after the battle of Fort Sanders. Chase’s “scientific curiosity” led him to closely inspect the embalming … Continue reading

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Full-black mourning

The novel’s Parthenia Leila Ellis would have looked something like this, during her period of full-black mourning for her dead Confederate husband. Except that her face was usually covered by the veil that went with it—to spare others the disconcerting … Continue reading

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A neighborhood’s ghost

The real Fort Sanders is long gone, but it haunts the Knoxville neighborhood named for it. And the ghost still draws researchers, including retired University of Tennessee archeologist Charlie Faulkner: “The earthwork fort actually stood for decades after the war; there … Continue reading

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Ninth Georgia artillery emplacements

Site of the Morgan Hill archeological dig in the summer of 2009, where artifacts such as belt buckles and friction primers convinced University of Tennessee scientists they had found the 1863 emplacements of the Ninth Georgia Artillery Battalion. The Ninth … Continue reading

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The Bridge Burners

In 1861, a group of forty Unionists of East Tennessee, some of them from Knoxville, set out to put their actions where their politics were. They plotted to burn regional railroad bridges to stop or at least slow Confederate soldiers … Continue reading

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A reenactor explains the cavalry

Cavalry played no part at all in the attack on Fort Sanders and little enough in the whole Siege of Knoxville. But General Joseph Wheeler’s rebel cavalry had an early role, and that’s my excuse for including this good video … Continue reading

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USCT Reenactors

Reenactors of the African-American Civil War Museum in Washington, D.C., in period clothing, presumably portraying the wives and mothers of the United States Colored Troops, such as the ones who served in Knoxville.

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