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ECW Weekender: Vicksburg National Military Park
An ECW colleague emailed me a note the other day: “I’m reading the Vicksburg/Tullahoma book, and really enjoyed your article about visiting Vicksburg. I’ve never been and I’m more motivated now than...
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Attrition Rates of City-Class Ironclads
City-Class Ironclads off Cairo, Illinois 1862 (Naval History and Heritage Command) Perhaps nothing is more identifiable with the Mississippi River valley’s naval campaigns as the city-class ironclads....
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A Taste of Vicksburg – The Story of the Jam Jar
Tucked away in the collection’s storage at the University of West Florida’s Historic Trust is a simple artifact with a greater history than meets the eye. A brown stoneware jar, about Jam jar brought...
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“The prison over the Pearl River at Jackson, Mississippi, where Union...
In researching my forthcoming book on the battle of Jackson, Mississippi—which took place on this date in 1863 as part of Grant’s campaign through Mississippi to take Vicksburg—I stumbled on a little...
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Vicksburg Campaign on Video
The Big Black River near the site of the May 17, 1863, fighting Yesterday, May 17, marked the anniversary of the fight at the Big Black River bridge during Grant’s Mississippi overland campaign. The...
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What If. . .Vicksburg Had Fallen in July ’62?
David G. Farragut on the deck of USS Hartford In his memoirs, Admiral David D. Porter recollected a November 1861 meeting with President Lincoln and navy secretary Gideon Welles in which—he says—he...
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Halleck: The Art of Pretending to Say Something or Nothing
Henry Halleck I came across a dispatch from Henry Halleck to U.S. Grant the other day that serves as a nearly perfect Halleckism. By early April 1863, Grant was undertaking yet another of his attempts...
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“Do We Know the Name…?”: The Battle of Jackson illuminates a research challenge
“History is lunch.” That’s the premise of a lunchtime speaker series hosted by the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson. On Wednesday, the battle of Jackson, Mississippi, was on the menu and I was...
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Book Review: Vicksburg
Although published in 2019 this work is extremely thorough and well worth reviewing a few years late. Vicksburg is one of the few major battle sites I have not been to, and this book has made me...
View ArticleThe case of the Douglas orphans’ seized cotton
Union troops in the South often confiscated cotton and other goods belonging to Confederates, in order to support the Northern war effort. In one case, they took Mississippi cotton to which a Unionist...
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ECW Podcast: Bayou Battles for Vicksburg
Get ready to head into the swamps and backwaters of Louisiana and Mississippi in the newest episode of the Emerging Civil War Podcast. Historian Timothy B. Smith joins us to talk about the latest...
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Stars and Bearss
While searching for some Vicksburg-related images at the Naval History and Heritage Command website today, I came across this photo from salvage operations for the USS Cairo. The Cairo hit a mine in...
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Book Review: When Paper Collar Bandbox Soldiers Fight: A History of the 4th...
When Paper Collar Bandbox Soldiers Fight: A History of the 4th Regiment West Virginia Volunteer Infantry. By Philip Hatfield, Ph.D. & Terry Lowry. Charleston, WV: 35th Star Publishing, 2024....
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Book Review: The Inland Campaign for Vicksburg: Five Battles in Seventeen...
The Inland Campaign for Vicksburg: Five Battles in Seventeen Days, May 1-17, 1863. By Timothy B. Smith. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2024. Hardcover, 531pp. $54.99. Reviewed by Robert M....
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Book Review: Decisions of the Vicksburg Campaign: The Eighteen Critical...
Decisions of the Vicksburg Campaign: The Eighteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Operation. By Larry Peterson. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2024. Paperback, 215 pp. $29.99....
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