Looking for the Confederate War

Have you ever been reading something and a word or two, or a sentence, kind of pops out at you? That was me a couple a days ago. I was readi...

It should not come as any surprise, but I read lots of books every year. They are for research, for reviews, even for fun. A couple of week...

In June 1864, Capt. George W. Kirk led a raid from East Tennessee into Western North Carolina. Kirk surrounded and captured Camp Vance near...

Kevin Stone asked the other day about the Lockville and Haywood communities in Chatham County during the War. Let's look at Lockville. ...

Last week, I posted that it was my tenth anniversary as a blogger. As part of my "celebration," I asked a few friends to intervie...

Dang... I missed my own anniversary. I started this blog ten years ago yesterday - November 2, 2006. I guess this small post will have to...

The new issue of J19 arrived yesterday, and I was reading an essay by Jillian Spivey Caddell entitled "Words of War." The author ...

Most of us have heard the Vance anecdote - about how he was in the process of delivering a speech for the Union when word arrived of the fi...

We tend to write and talk a lot about Tar Heel regiments in the Army of Northern Virginia. And rightfully so. That is where the bulk of Nor...

A couple of folks have messaged my lately wondering "what's next?". So, here is what I've been working on since turning i...

On the verge of the conflict in 1861, North Carolina had eight representatives in the US House, and two in the US Senate. Every state has t...

Today, I had the opportunity to attend the unveiling of a marker remembering Robert B. Vance in Crosby, Tennessee. The marker was installed...

Well, it's gone. I emailed the Branch-Lane manuscript to Savis Beatie this morning. No, I have no idea when it will be published. It to...

Recently, I was looking through the records of the African-American Freedmen's Bureau, attempting to flesh out my knowledge of a local ...

As I sat working on captions for photographs for the Branch-Lane book today, I got to wondering about how many war-time photos there are of...

Back last year, I wrote a column on how Greensboro and Guildford County were the most written-about locations in North Carolina during the ...

At the recent Emerging Civil War symposium, I was chatting with Gettysburg Guide Matt Atkinson, and he told me of an account of generals sq...

This past weekend, I had the chance to attend the Emerging Civil War conference in Spotsylvania, Virginia. The theme for the event was ...

I really don't like unanswered questions. However, delving into the murky past provides me with scores, nay, hundreds of unanswered que...

Last week, I posted excerpts from a letter that appeared in the Semi-Weekly Standard on April 17, 1863, dealing with events between Shelto...