The state of Virginia’s position in the American Civil War echoed that of the state’s most prominent citizen during this turbulent era, one whose name would become synonymous both with the state and the war: General Robert E. Lee. Like his home state of Virginia, Lee had been an important part of the Union [...]

I intend to make Georgia howl. William Tecumseh Sherman
By the 1930s, most of those who’d lived through the American Civil War were long gone. The war was beginning to fade from the American memory, or at least become less prominent. However, one book and the movie that it spawned not only brought the [...]

As one of the first states to secede from the Union, Alabama’s stance during the Civil War was overwhelmingly pro-Confederate. However, the road to rebellion was not, in Alabama’s case, an especially easy one; while most of the state was happy to secede, there were Alabamans who did not go willingly.
Alabama’s Deep-South delta location [...]

Few states were as violently divided about the Civil War as Missouri. A state whose very formation was the progenitor of the “Missouri Compromise” that served to settle growing dissention between free and slave states, Missouri was from its very beginning a state at odds over the tensions that wold result in the Civil [...]

Ohio’s geographic location in relation to free and slave states made it an important player in the American Civil War. While the state supported the Federal war effort by providing large numbers of troops, of military officers, and supplies to the Federal Army, and it’s location as one of the closest free states made it [...]

It was inevitable that Mississippi would play a major part in the Civil War. A Deep South Delta state where King Cotton reigned supreme, it’s heavy reliance on slavery to man the large cotton plantations that comprised the state assured that it would secede if the institution of slavery was threatened. The fact [...]

To many, Pennsylvania’s major contribution to the Civil War was the battle of Gettysburg; the best-known battle of the war, the war’s turning point, the bloodiest battle of the war, whatever one associates with Gettysburg, it is the primary historical touch point for Pennsylvania during the Civil War.
However, Pennsylvania was more than just the home [...]

While the Civil War has always featured prominently in American history, and is therefore prescient in the minds of Americans, Ken Burns’ documentary about the Civil War undoubtedly created a resurgence of interest in the Civil War upon its first airing in September of 1990.
The interest in Burns’ The Civil War was keen; 40 million [...]

The words seem to jump from the faded paper: “100 Colored Men Wanted for Substitutes!” “Come in and Prevent the ‘Draft’!” “Enlist Now and Get Your $100 Bounty! Don’t Wait to Be Drafted and Lose Your Bounty!” “The Draft is Inevitable! It Can’t Be Shirked!” These are examples of phrases from Civil War recruitment [...]

If the mind of the Civil War was firmly entrenched in Virginia, with the seemingly indefatigable General Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia, then the heart of the Civil War was in Tennessee. Following only just behind Virginia in the number of battles fought, Tennessee saw some of the bloodiest scenes of the war, [...]