Category Archives: Seventeenth Mississippi

19th Century Weapon: The steam train

“In today’s world of tanks, bombers and submarines, it’s perhaps hard to believe that the train was once an amazingly mobile weapons platform. They might be locked to their rails, but for over a century trains were the fastest means … Continue reading

Posted in Boy Battery, Eighteenth Georgia, Eighteenth Mississippi, Eighth Georgia, Gen. Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, Gen. James Longstreet, Seventeenth Mississippi, Sixteenth Georgia, The Phillips Georgia Legion, Thirteenth Mississippi, Twenty-First Mississippi | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

This is Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day came and went without much notice in the late days of the war. Private RobertA. Moore of the 17th Mississippi Regiment which led the attack on Fort Sanders: “This is Valentine’s Day,” Moore wrote in his diary in … Continue reading

Posted in Fort Sanders, Seventeenth Mississippi | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The battle’s sesquicentennial

One hundred fifty years ago at dawn today, four seriously-under strength Mississippi and Georgia regiments attacked the earthwork Fort Sanders on Knoxville’s west side. The very subject of Knoxville 1863, the novel—this blog—and the book itself. I suppose there will be … Continue reading

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Eighteenth Georgia, Fort Sanders, Knoxville, Reenactors, Seventeenth Mississippi, The Phillips Georgia Legion, Thirteenth Mississippi | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Gettysburg’s 150th

I’m not sorry to be missing Gettysburg’s 150th anniversary these next three days. Too much of the occasion will be taken up by reenactment events, which reenactment participants call “impressions.” But too many of the reenactors are too corpulent and all … Continue reading

Posted in Boy Battery, Civil War armament, Civil War clothing, Eighteenth Georgia, Eighteenth Mississippi, Eighth Georgia, Gen. Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, Gen. James Longstreet, Gen. Lafayette McLaws, Gen. William T. Wofford, President Abraham Lincoln, Reenactors, Seventeenth Mississippi, Sixteenth Georgia, The Phillips Georgia Legion, The Sesquicentennial, Thirteenth Mississippi, Twenty-First Mississippi | Tagged , | Leave a comment

New history: an error and an argument

There’s a new history on the Battle of Fort Sanders, one of the few ever written. It’s Lincoln Memorial University historian Earl J. Hess’s 2012 The Knoxville Campaign: Burnside and Longstreet in East Tennessee. I bought a copy to see if … Continue reading

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Disputes and errors of fact, Fort Sanders, Gen. Lafayette McLaws, Orlando Poe, Samuel Nicoll Benjamin, Seventeenth Mississippi, The Phillips Georgia Legion, Thirteenth Mississippi | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Reprise: “…the only real night charge we ever made.”

Two of the Mississippi Brigade’s regiments, the 18th and the 21st, were charged with driving in the Union pickets the night before the dawn assault on Fort Sanders by the 17th and 13th regiments. After the war, 18th regiment Captain Wiley Gart … Continue reading

Posted in Eighteenth Mississippi, Fort Sanders, Seventeenth Mississippi, Thirteenth Mississippi, Twenty-First Mississippi | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

General Humphreys’ honorable mention

General Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, commander of the Mississippi Brigade after the death at Gettysburg of its fiery brigadier General William Barksdale, wasn’t as aggressive as his predecessor. In fact, in the first big battle of his command, Chickamauga, Humphreys played … Continue reading

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Gen. Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, Seventeenth Mississippi, Thirteenth Mississippi | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Seventeenth Mississippi reenactors

Speaking of the Seventeenth Mississippi Infantry Regiment, which, along with the Phillips Georgia Legion, led the principal attack on Fort Sanders on Nov. 29, 1863, it’s commemorated in several reenactor groups. The self-styled Rough and Readies of Company D aren’t … Continue reading

Posted in Reenactors, Seventeenth Mississippi | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment