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Category: Civil War

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Waste Not, Want Not

Posted by: Erin Allen

While the Civil War imposed hardships on both sides, the South found it particularly difficult to adapt to new realities of daily life. The blockade of Southern seaports and the prohibition of trade with the North quickly depleted food supplies throughout the Confederacy. Farmers became soldiers, and a large percentage of crops were used to …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Mapping Slavery

Posted by: Erin Allen

According to the 1860 census, the population of the United States that year was 31,429,891. Of that number, 3,952, 838 were reported as enslaved. The 1860 census was the last time the federal government took a count of the Southern slave population. In 1861, the United States Coast Survey issued two maps of slavery based …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Dear Diary

Posted by: Erin Allen

LeRoy Gresham (1847-1865) was a teenaged invalid who kept a diary for nearly every day of the Civil War, recording the news, his Confederate sympathies and perceptive details about life on the homefront as he experienced the conflict through newspapers, letters and personal visitors. The son of an attorney, judge, and plantation owner in Macon, …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Black and White and (Still) Read All Over

Posted by: Jennifer Gavin

Old newspapers have acquired an iffy reputation over the years.  We bemoan the trees that had to die to bring them into existence for their one day of glory; we dub them “mullet-wrappers” or note, as they do in the British Isles, that “Yesterday’s news is tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper.” But old newspapers can be addictive!  …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

A Letter Home

Posted by: Erin Allen

For some Union soldiers, their exposure to southern slavery profoundly altered their views on the institution, even before President Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862. One such soldier, John P. Jones, wrote to his wife of his increasing sympathy for abolitionism after seeing the inhumanity with which slaves could be treated. He …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

The Bull Run of the West

Posted by: Erin Allen

“Better, sir, far better, that the blood of every man, woman, and child within the limits of the state should flow, than that she should defy the federal government,” swore Union Gen. Nathaniel Lyon to Missouri governor and Confederate sympathizer Claiborne Fox Jackson during negotiations to prevent the state from joining the Confederacy. His next …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Closing the Book

Posted by: Erin Allen

The Library of Congress, with collections that are universal and comprise all media, has a long history of acknowledging the importance of books. Its “Books That Shaped America” exhibition is currently on view through Sept. 29 in the Southwest Gallery of the Thomas Jefferson Building. The exhibition is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. …