Category Archives: The Sesquicentennial

Gettysburg’s 150th

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Dick Stanley

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

Reprise: Federal troops originally fought only for the Union

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Dick Stanley

In the novel, Sergeant Timothy Chase uses his eyewitness experience of the Monitor and Merrimack battle of 1862 as an entertaining dramatic narrative to deflect the anger some other federal troops occasionally turned on him and his comrades of the … Continue reading →

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", The Sesquicentennial, Twenty-Ninth Massachusetts, USS Monitor | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Civil War flapdoodle

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Dick Stanley

The Sesquicentennial ought to be producing new works of fact on the war, instead of merely recycling and regurgitating the same old malarky. But greedy publishers and lazy editors will have their way. Abbeville Press’s new Great Civil War Heroes … Continue reading →

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The war’s relevance today

Posted on May 22, 2011 by Dick Stanley

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 →

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Battlefield preservation

Posted on April 22, 2011 by Dick Stanley

A hundred fifty years after the war, groups such as the Tennessee Civil War Preservation Association are still talking about how to preserve the old battlefields from modern development. Hence this meeting scheduled May 13-14 at Lipscomb University in Nashville. … Continue reading →

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Too cold to write

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Dick Stanley

Texas Brigade Private John Camden West wrote his wife from their camp near Knoxville on Dec. 19, almost three weeks after the assault on Fort Sanders: “I would like to write you a long letter but it is so windy … Continue reading →

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Fort Sanders, Knoxville, The Sesquicentennial | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Black powder

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Dick Stanley

Civil War reenactors, at least in Washington State, are said to burn at least a hundred pounds of black powder in one of their typical blooodless battles. Thus, in this Sesquicentennial of the war, they are lobbying for a change … Continue reading →

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Remembering the war

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Dick Stanley

Some states are ignoring the Sesquicentennial via one of the oldest forms of advertising, the automobile license plate. Maryland comes to mind, not to mention Texas, though neither hosted near as many major battles as Tennessee (second only to Virginia) … Continue reading →

Posted in "Knoxville 1863", Tennessee, The Sesquicentennial | Tagged , | Leave a comment