The Archive
All Articles
Every article indexed from the pages of Civil War News — 2551 of them across113 issues, 2016 to 2026. Each one opens the full text on civilwarnews.com.
Civil War Provost Guards
Civil War Provost Guards by Joan Wenner, J.D. America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroye…
Burger and Brothers First National Guidon
by Shannon Pritchard The swallowtail guidon shown below was used by the Army of Northern Virginia’s cavalry companies and, just as the name implies, they were use…
Brentmoor, Warrenton Home of the Gray Ghost, Fades Back into History
Brentmoor, Warrenton Home of the Gray Ghost, Fades Back into History by Bob Ruegsegger Brentmoor, also called the Spilman-Mosby House, was built for Judge Edward…
Book Reviews — January 2021
Fighting For The Union and a Pension An Immigrant Story. By Kenneth E. Burchett. Illustrated, Index, Notes, Amity American Publishing, 2020, 167 pp., softcover. A…
American Battlefield Trust Launches Massive, Multi-Year “Gaines’ Mill-Cold Harbor Saved Forever Campaign”
For decades, preservation experts have had a near-consensus: a square-mile of the Richmond suburbs was the most historically significant but unprotected Civil War…
“Conduct Unbecoming an Officer and a Gentleman…”
During the Civil War President Lincoln put the nation’s capital under military rule (martial law), fearing that otherwise crime and sedition would flourish. The o…
Wedding Rings
While the wearing of wedding rings by married women has been traced back to ancient times, it is only in the latter part of the last century that more than a smal…
Uniform of a Stonewall Brigade soldier killed at First Manassas
The history associated with this uniform starts generations before it was made. For our purposes here, we will begin with Captain Fielden Hale of eighteenth centu…
The Letter
In 1978, my mother returned from Charleston with a white shoe box tied with a string. On the cover, two words were written in large letters: “FOR DAVID.” Having f…
The Ball Repeating Carbine
As the American Civil War ground into its third year of combat, the ever conservative Ordnance Department began actively looking for metallic cartridge carbine de…
Slow Pete The Knoxville Campaign – Part II
“Every day of delay added to the strength of the enemy’s breastworks” – C.S. Col. Edward Porter Alexander After the November 16, 1863, Battle of Campbell’s Statio…
Rousing Rendition of an Abolitionist Legend
The Good Lord Bird is a new Showtime mini-series centered on the life of John Brown, told through the eyes of Little Onion (Henry Shackleford), a young black man…
Newspaper Navigator
Sheridan’s Victory Map. https://news-navigator.labs. loc.gov/prepackaged/1861_ photos.zip https://news-navigator.labs. loc.gov/prepackaged/1861_illustrations.zip…
Never-Before Seen Scrapbook Sheds New Light—Provides Valuable Insights
In the heated days following the fall of Fort Sumter and President Lincoln’s call for 75,000 troops, northern governors raced to declare their full support and pr…
More on Buckshot
This column follows up on Joe Bilby’s mentioning buck shot at Gettysburg (October CWN) so we decided to provide some additional outstanding details. This article…
Letters to the Editor — December 2020
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: In regard to secession, let it be known that Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island all joined the voluntary Union of sovereign states with th…
John Brown
The Graphic War highlights prints and printmakers from the Civil War discussing their meaning and the print maker or artist’s goals. Currier and Ives published tw…
History’s First Draft – The Maryland Campaign as it Happened
How fast did the news travel? How accurate were the reports in the press? What did Northern readers know during the middle of September 1862, as Lee’s forces marc…
Emerging Civil War — December 2020
From the Editor “No period of American history makes greater demands on the historian than that of the Civil War,” historian C. Vann Woodward wrote in his introdu…
Civil War Alphabet Quiz - H
Civil War Alphabet Quiz - H H as in...December 1. Confederate submarine 2. US Navy vessel sunk by #1 3. Admiral Farragut’s flagship 4. Mississippi Union supply ba…
Central Virginia Battlefields Trust – Turning 25
On December 11, 1862, after a weeklong delay in receiving needed pontoon bridges to cross the Rappahannock River, Union Major General Ambrose E. Burnside ordered…
Book Reviews — December 2020
Lincoln: The Silent Abolitionist Aroused Lincoln and the American Founding. By Lucas E. Morel. Notes, bibliography, index, Southern Illinois University Press, siu…
American Battlefield Trust — December 2020
The American Battlefield Trust is proud to announce publication of our newest book, Battle Maps of the Civil War: The Western Theater, now available from Knox Boo…
A Tribute to Edwin C. Bearss: Champion of West Virginia Battlefields
Edwin Cole Bearss, legendary battlefield guide and preservationist, Chief Historian Emeritus of the National Park Service, and decorated Marine veteran of World W…