Firsthand Accounts
Published: 11/7/11
Voices from the Past: “Sagacious Military Conjecture”
Wilder Dwight was a Lieutenant Colonel inthe 2nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Prior to dying September 19, 1862 from wounds at the Battle of Antietam, Dwight wrote some conjectures about...
Published: 11/7/11
Voices from the Past: “The Gratifying Duty”
Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Port Royal—one of the earliest amphibious operations of the American Civil War. The United States Navy fleet and the United States...
Published: 11/3/11
Sarah Morgan’s Arrival in Yankee-Occupied New Orleans
In April 1863, 21-year-old Sarah Morgan, along with her mother and sisters, found herself on a ship headed for the city of her birth, New Orleans. The Morgan family had...
Published: 10/31/11
Mrs. (“Beast”) Butler’s Scary Dream
Happy Halloween! To celebrate, we found a spooktacular letter from the archives… On April 4, 1862, Sarah Hildreth Butler, wife of Union general Benjamin F. (“Beast”) Butler, wrote a friend...
Published: 10/31/11
“They See a Ghost or Something.”
On May 25, 1863, Union soldier David L. Day, of the 25th Massachusetts Volunteers, recorded a strange incident that occurred while his regiment was on a recent nighttime march: Sometime...
Published: 10/31/11
Voices From the Past: “I am truly thankful for the institution of ghosts…”
“You perceive that my idea of ghosts is not limited to graveyards and tombs, or the tenants thereof; indeed, so far from it, the most troublesome I have ever known...
Published: 10/31/11
Voices from the Past – Out of That Silence Rose New Sounds More Appalling Still
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...
Published: 10/24/11
Voices From the Past: “An Inferior Force”
“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.” —General George B....
Published: 10/21/11
Ball’s Bluff Remembered
One hundred fifty years ago today, on October 21, 1861, Union troops suffered a humiliating defeat in what would come to be known as the Battle of Ball’s Bluff. After...
Published: 10/17/11
Southward Bound
One hundred fifty years ago today—October 17, 1861—25-year-old Lieutenant W. H. Timberlake of the 8th Maine Volunteers wrote the following letter from his regiment’s camp in Annapolis, Maryland. The men...