Civil War Monitor

Quotables

• Elegy for the Native GuardsRead More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 6/11/2012 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  In honor of Natasha Trethewey being named the next poet laureate, we thought we would share with you one of her Civil War inspired poems.

• Voice from the Past: "It revolutionized the navies of the world"Read More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 3/9/2012 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  THE engagement in Hampton Roads on the 8th of March, 1862, between the Confederate iron-clad Virginia, or the Merrimac (as she is known at the North), and the United States wooden fleet, and that on the 9th between the Virginia and the Monitor, was, in its result, in some respect the most momentous naval conflict ever witnessed. No battle was ever more widely discussed or produced a greater...

• Voice from the Past: Sending ValentinesRead More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 2/14/2012 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  Another Valentine's Day 1862 "Voice from the Past" to mark the holiday.   Friday, 14th -- This is Valentine's Day and some of the boys are having a great time sending out valentines to the girls in this locality; others are sending...

• Voice from the Past: "The Right to Citizenship"Read More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 2/7/2012 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.

• Voice from the Past: "A Terrible Struggle if it Comes to War."Read More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 1/19/2012 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  Both sides forget that we are all Americans, and that it must a terrible struggle if it comes to war.

• Voice from the Past: "Not peace, but a sword"Read More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 12/26/2011 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  Happy Holidays! Today's Voice from the Past is Wilder Dwight of the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry. The following passage is an excerpt from a 15 December 1861 letter to his mother:

• Voice from the Past: Dressed All the Wards with Festoons and GarlandsRead More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 12/22/2011 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  We had taken some goodies and little traps with us for the men in the hospitals in Alexandria and were glad to find the nice arrangements that had already been made by Madame M. She had got Col. Davies to detail some of the 16th men to bring her Christmas greens, and had dressed all the wards with festoons and garlands, little flags, mottoes, etc., besides arranging for a grand Christmas dinner...

• Voice from the Past: A Pleasant ChristmasRead More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 12/19/2011 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  Christmas went off very pleasantly and apparently to the satisfaction of all. Drills were suspended and all went in for a good time. The Irishmen had their Christmas box, the Germans their song and lager, while ball playing and other athletic sports used up the day, and music and dancing were the order of the evening. Santa Claus came with a Christmas dinner for a few, but more of us he passed by....

• Voice from the Past: A Loud Rap on the DoorRead More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 12/15/2011 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  Good morning! Today's Voice from the Past comes from a December 22, 1861 letter from Elisha Franklin Paxton to his wife.   And if you hear a loud rap at the door some night before long, you need not think robbers are breaking in, but that your own...

• Voice from the Past: A Christmas Bundle Read More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 12/12/2011 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  Good Morning! Today's Voice from the Past is Julia Ellen LeGrand Waitz of New Orleans, Louisiana. The following excerpt is from a December 1861 diary entry.   Just completed another bundle of clothes for poor Claude, which we hope...

• Voices from the Past - Christmasday!Read More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 12/5/2011 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  Good morning! To celebrate the holidays, all of the quotables this month will reference Christmas 1861. Our first voice from the past is Raphael Semmes, who wrote the following statement in his diary on Christmas Day, 1861:

• Voice from the Past: "The Best Man and the Best General"Read More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 11/28/2011 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  "I am very glad to learn that my order changed Gen. Scott's feelings entirely, and that he now says I am the best man and the best general that ever existed."

• Voice from the Past - The Customs of Our Puritan FathersRead More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 11/21/2011 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  Good morning! To celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, The Front Line will be posting different "Voices from the Past" about Civil War soldiers' Thanksgiving experiences. Our first quote comes from the 1861 diary of David L. Day, 25th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

• Voice from the Past - "Am afloat, adrift"Read More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 11/17/2011 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  "Am afloat, adrift, abroad, motion uneasy, “Inner man” “stomach” becoming so. I think I’ll try full-length. A cotton-bale & the open air on the for’ard deck. “Very grand.” The sea—if one could only see it and not sea-sickness. Very charming, too a sailor’s life, and so they say is hanging when one gets used to it. “Aye...

• Voices from the Past - The Integrity of the UnionRead More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 11/14/2011 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  "You will please constantly to bear in mind the precise issue for which we are fighting; that issue is the preservation of the Union and the restoration of the full authority of the general government over all portions of our territory..."

• The Confederate Perspective: "Port Royal...has been taken by the enemy's fleet"Read More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 11/7/2011 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  — From the 9 November 1861 entry of John Beauchamp Jones Diary—

• Voices from the Past - Out of That Silence Rose New Sounds More Appalling StillRead More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 10/31/2011 Author: Laura June Davis | 

  The Battle of Fredericksburg (December 11-15, 1862) was a decisive loss for the Union Army, crippling Northern morale. The chilling quote below derives from Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's description of the battle's aftermath

• Voices From the Past: "I am truly thankful for the institution of ghosts..." Read More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 10/31/2011 Author:  | 

  "You perceive that my idea of ghosts is not limited to graveyards and tombs, or the tenants thereof; indeed, so far from it..."

• Voices From the Past: "An Inferior Force"Read More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 10/24/2011 Author:  | 

  “Well, so far we seem to have applied a new maxim of war, always to meet the enemy with an inferior force at the point of attack.”

• Voices from the Past: A "Plucky" Young SoldierRead More

  Category: Quotables Posted: 10/10/2011 Author: Terry Johnston | 

  Good morning!  The Civil War Monitor has added a new section to The Front Line: Quotables.  Each Monday, we will share a Voice from Past to help you learn more about the Civil War...from the men and women who actually lived it.