Category Archives: Thirteenth Mississippi

Colonel Kennon McElroy’s grave

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Dick Stanley

Here’s a possible correction in the Afterword—not in the novel itself. In the Afterword, I asserted that the grave of Colonel Kennon McElroy was unknown. It was as far as I knew at the time I wrote the novel. Apparently … 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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19th Century Weapon: The steam train

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Dick Stanley

“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

The Knoxville Whig & Rebel Ventilator

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Dick Stanley

Parson William Brownlow’s Knoxville Whig newspaper added the words Rebel Ventilator to its flag in the runup to the Civil War. The fiery Union editor maintained it until the occupying Rebels drove him out of town, turning his steam presses … Continue reading →

Posted in Col. Alfred G.W. O'Brien, Elisa Brownlow, Parson William Brownlow, Thirteenth Mississippi | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The battle’s sesquicentennial

Posted on November 29, 2013 by Dick Stanley

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

Reprise: Camp Chase, the fiddle tune

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Dick Stanley

Camp Chase was a Union prisoner-of-war camp in Ohio which took several of the captured Rebels from the Battle of Fort Sanders, including the 13th Mississippi’s Lieutenant Colonel Alfred George Washington O’Brien. The POW camp already had, by tradition anyhow, a … Continue reading →

Posted in Col. Alfred G.W. O'Brien, Fort Sanders, Prisoners of War, Thirteenth Mississippi | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

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