Firsthand Accounts
Published: 8/25/19
Extra Voices: Clara Barton, The Angel of the Battlefield
Read first person quotes by and about famed Civil War nurse Clara Barton.
Published: 8/14/19
Mutiny in the Army
Read a firsthand account of the mutiny among disgruntled soldiers in the 79th New York Infantry in the summer of 1861.
Published: 7/26/19
“My Little ‘Rebel’ Heart Was on Fire”
Uncover the incredible life of Belle Boyd, a teenage girl turned Confederate spy. Read an excerpt from her autobiography regarding a traumatic event that led her into this role.
Published: 3/4/19
Extra Voices: Avid Readers
Library of Congress A Union soldier holds reading material in camp In the Voices section of the Spring 2019 issue of The Civil War Monitor we highlighted first-person quotes about...
Published: 12/31/18
New Year’s Eve in Camp
War Letters of William Thompson Lusk (1911) William Thompson Lusk, 79th New York Infantry On New Year’s Eve 1862, 24-year-old William Thompson Lusk, a captain in the 79th New York...
Published: 11/12/18
“A Lady of Excellent Worth”
Cahaba: A Story of Captive Boys in Blue (1888) Castle Morgan prison in Cahaba, Alabama, as it appeared during the Civil War Nearly twenty years after the end of the...
Published: 3/17/18
St. Patrick’s Day in the Army
On March 17, 1863, Josiah Marshall Favill, a young lieutenant in the 57th New York Infantry, was one of many soldiers in the Army of the Potomac to observe the...
Published: 3/16/18
Extra Voices: Tobacco
Library of Congress In the Voices section of the Spring 2018 issue of The Civil War Monitor we highlighted first-person quotes from Union and Confederate troops about the use of...
Published: 2/2/18
A Story from the Trenches
Letters from a Surgeon of the Civil War John Gardner Perry During the early days of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant’s attempt to capture Petersburg, Virginia, in the summer of...
Published: 1/19/18
Close Calls at Beaver Dam Creek
Army Letters, 1861–1865 Oliver Willcox Norton as he appeared in 1863 Little over a week after he participated in the Battle of Beaver Dam Creek—the first of the Seven Days...
Published: 1/12/18
Extra Voices: Dog Days of Summer
Library of Congress Union soldiers bask in the sweltering summer sun in camp In the Voices section of the Summer 2015 issue of The Civil War Monitor we highlighted first-person...
Published: 10/20/17
A Ball’s Bluff Letter
Massachusetts Historical Society Captain Caspar Crowinshield, 20th Massachusetts Infantry On October 21, 1861, Union forces crossed the Potomac River to attack what they thought was a Confederate camp near Leesburg,...
Published: 9/23/17
Extra Voices: Sounds of War
Library of Congress Alfred R. Waud’s depiction of the Battle of Fredericksburg In the Voices department of our summer 2014 issue (Vol. 4, No. 2) we featured soldiers’ quotes that...
Published: 9/15/17
The Search for Orville Wheelock
The Boys in White Julia Wheelock One hundred fifty-five years ago this month, 28-year-old Michigan resident Julia Wheelock learned that her brother, Orville, a soldier in the 8th Michigan Infantry,...
Published: 8/11/17
A Bad Day on the March
Wisconsin Historical Society Surgeon Alfred Lewis Castleman, 5th Wisconsin Infantry After it was thwarted in its attempt to capture Richmond during the Peninsula Campaign in the summer of 1862, the...
Published: 7/21/17
Eyewitness to Bull Run
War Letters of William Thompson Lusk (1911) William Thompson Lusk, 79th New York Infantry A week after the Battle of Bull Run—a humiliating defeat for Union forces—23-year-old officer William Thompson...
Published: 7/3/17
News from Gettysburg
Library of Congress Lieutenant Waters Whipple Braman, Co. C, 93rd New York Infantry During the Battle of Gettysburg, First Lieutenant Waters Whipple Braman, 23, and his regiment, the 93rd New...
Published: 6/23/17
Extra Voices: Bad Officers
Library of Congress Confederate general John C. Pemberton In the Voices section of the Spring 2017 issue of The Civil War Monitor we highlighted first-person quotes about some Union and...