Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The American Civil War

About this episode: 

For those in power in the state of South Carolina, the November 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln was the final straw. Convinced that he and the Republican party were certain to forever change their economic, political, and cultural world, it was time to act. And so, even before the election year was out, the Palmetto State initiated the process to do what today, few Americans - if any - would even begin to consider. For this episode, the story of South Carolina’s momentous (and as consequences would demonstrate, calamitous) December decision: secession.

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode: 

Governor Francis Pickens

Edmund Ruffin

James Petigru

President James Buchanan

Robert Anderson

Get The Guide:

Want to learn more about the Civil War? A great place to start is Fred's guide, The Civil War: A History of the War between the States from Workman Publishing. The guide is in its 9th printing.

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

The year was 1860. The nation was coming apart and yet, its political parties made plans to come together - to gather in convention despite deep-seated and festering sectional issues, each to nominate a candidate and approve platforms that, as it turned out, united regions but not a nation. That meant dark consequences, ensuring this country would reap a cataclysmic whirlwind. With today’s polarization as an historical backdrop, this is the story of the most divisive presidential election in the history of this nation - the election of 1860.

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode: 

Stephen A. Douglas

William Lowndes Yancey

William Henry Seward

Richard J. Oglesby

John C. Breckinridge

John Bell

Additional References In This Episode:

Map of Final Election Results, 1860

Get The Guide:

Want to learn more about the Civil War? A great place to start is Fred's guide, The Civil War: A History of the War between the States from Workman Publishing. The guide is in its 9th printing.

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

A few nights after September the 22nd, 1862, a band came to serenade the 16th president. Moved by the music and supportive crowd, Abraham Lincoln stepped onto the executive mansion’s balcony and, referring to his recent Emancipation Proclamation, remarked: “I can only trust in God I have made no mistake. It is now for the country and the world to pass judgment on it, and maybe, take action upon it.”

But for the President, first things first: To put teeth into his executive proclamation, he would have to win the war - and that prompted him to leave Washington City and travel to the site of this country’s bloodiest single day. His ostensible purpose? To review the Army of the Potomac. His added incentive: to prod the army’s cautious commander, Major General George B. McClellan, into action. This is the story of the President’s visit to Sharpsburg, Maryland - his pilgrimage to the banks of Antietam Creek.

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode: 

George B. McClellan

John A. McClernand

Ozias M. Hatch

Ward Hill Lamon

Joseph C. G. Kennedy

John W. Garrett

Additional References In This Episode:

President Lincoln on battle-field of Antietam, October, 1862 / Alex. Gardner, photographer.

From left to right: Colonel Delos B. Sacket, Captain George Monteith, Lieutenant Colonel Nelson B. Sweitzer, General George W. Morell, Colonel Alexander S. Webb [Chief of Staff, 5th Corps], General George B. McClellan, Scout Adams, Dr. Jonathan Letterman [Army Medical Director], unidentified soldier, President Abraham Lincoln, Colonel Henry J. Hunt, General Fitz-John Porter, Joseph C. G. Kennedy, Colonel Frederick T. Locke, General Andrew A. Humphreys, and Captain George Armstrong Custer.

Get The Guide:

Want to learn more about the Civil War? A great place to start is Fred's guide, The Civil War: A History of the War between the States from Workman Publishing. The guide is in its 9th printing.

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

In a conflict that staged over ten thousand fights, Virginia led as a theater of war. The Volunteer State of Tennessee, second. What surprises many is that the third most active theater in the American Civil War was the border state of Missouri, a slave-holding state that remained within the Union. There, the curtain for violence rose long before Confederate forces open-fired on Fort Sumter. Indeed, on any night from 1855 until the summer of 1865, an attack on any town or settlement in Missouri or across the border in Kansas could strike like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky. In both states, lingering ill will and vicious fighting erased the line between civilian and soldier, armed violence with Old Testament vengeance and fury. In short, the worst guerilla war in American history. And now, the uncivil border war between Kansas and Missouri.

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode: 

Charles "Doc" Jennison

James Henry Lane

James Montgomery

William Clarke Quantrill

Frank James

Thomas Ewing, Jr.

William "Bloody Bill" Anderson

Get The Guide:

Want to learn more about the Civil War? A great place to start is Fred's guide, The Civil War: A History of the War between the States from Workman Publishing. The guide is in its 9th printing.

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

Far too many see the Union war effort in the American Civil War as a monolith - patriotic men across the north from Maine to Minnesota, flocking en masse together under national colors - to fight to preserve the Union, and to rid the nation of the hateful institution of slavery. As will be evidenced in this episode, nothing could be farther from the truth. Within the federal union in the summer of 1863, there was war-weariness. Men of influence like New York politician Samuel J. Tilden, and artist/inventor Samuel F.B. Morse dared to call for peace at any price. And it wasn’t only men of power - there were some men and women representing several societal classes who professed pro-southern sentiments. Indeed, New York City had its share of these so-called copperheads. In February of 1863, a development added to their disaffection: the passage of the Enrollment and Conscription Act. A draft. So by the 4th of July that year, with word that R.E. Lee was at the head of a Confederate army in Pennsylvania, and U.S. Grant’s siege dragging on and on down at Vicksburg, Mississippi, not everyone felt like celebrating independence. Too many saw no end to the conflict, and now, men were going to be forced to fight in it. Taken altogether, a cauldron of simmering, seething fuel - all that was needed was a spark, and it came on a Monday, the 13th of July. What followed, still the largest civil and most racially charged urban disturbance in American history. And now, its story.

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode: 

Samuel J. Tilden

Samuel F.B. Morse

Horatio Seymour

George Opdyke

Thomas C. Acton

Horace Greeley

Source For This Episode:

James McCague, The Second Rebellion: The Story of the New York City Draft Riots of 1863, 1968

For Additional Reading:

Iver Bernstein, The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War, 1990

Get The Guide:

Want to learn more about the Civil War? A great place to start is Fred's guide, The Civil War: A History of the War between the States from Workman Publishing. The guide is in its 9th printing.

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

For John Wilkes Booth, time was ticking down to the moment he knew he would act. At a tavern next to Ford’s Theatre, he asked for a bottle of whiskey and water. While steeling his nerve for what he would soon do, there came a voice from the back of the dark and smoky bar: “You’ll never be the actor your father was!”

Booth smiled, nodded, and said quietly, “When I leave the stage, I will be the most famous man in America.”

In less than an hour, he would be the most wanted man in America. For this episode, we look back over time’s shoulder - from about 10:15 in the evening of April the 14th, 1865 to the sun’s rise on the morning of the 26th. This is the story of selected dramatic events within those fateful thirteen days. And now: the flight, capture, and killing of this democracy’s first presidential assassin.

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode: 

John Wilkes Booth

Davey Herold

Samuel Mudd

Edward P. Doherty 

Boston Corbett

Other References From This Episode

Map of John Wilkes Booth route, April 14th - April 26th, 1865

Wanted poster for John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators

Get The Guide:

Want to learn more about the Civil War? A great place to start is Fred's guide, The Civil War: A History of the War between the States from Workman Publishing. The guide is in its 9th printing.

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

Eight decades ago, popular historian Bruce Catton, and journalist/author Jim Bishop wrote works that profoundly affected my life and future profession: teaching. Catton's This Hallowed Ground and Bishop's The Day Lincoln Was Shot were both written in such dramatic prose that the events, people - indeed, the very era itself - came alive for me. Even today, both authors and their works reinforce my passionate belief that history is alive, relevant, and should be conveyed as a story. For this episode, it is with great reverence and pleasure that I take my lead from Bishop's book, which was published in 1955, sold over 3 million copies, and was translated into 16 languages. He began his research for the day Lincoln was shot in 1930. Then, after two decades had passed, in 1953, in an effort to expand his research, Bishop began reading seven million words of government documents. The result: an absolutely riveting hour-by-hour account of Abraham Lincoln's last 24 hours. In respectful tribute to the two authors that most influenced my professional coming-of-age, and stoked my drive to recount history as a story, I dedicate this effort. With Bishop's work as my central point of reference, here: hour-by-hour, from seven in the morning of April the 14th to 7:22 and 10 seconds the next morning, is the story of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode: 

John Wilkes Booth

William H. Seward

George Atzerodt

David Herold

Lewis Paine/Payne

Mary Surratt

Get The Guide:

Want to learn more about the Civil War? A great place to start is Fred's guide, The Civil War: A History of the War between the States from Workman Publishing. The guide is in its 9th printing.

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

E.B. and Barbara Long’s monumental The Civil War Day By Day reveals that there were 10,455 military events during the American Civil War. Here’s a few examples selected from the 16 classifications that they used: there were 79 captures, 727 expeditions, 6337 skirmishes, 76 major battles, and 29 campaigns. No surprise that Virginia was the stage for the most military events. Though Tennessee was second, most students of the conflict are more aware of those events in the eastern theater. However, for this episode, we take you west to The Trans-Mississippi - to an active theater of the war that may surprise you. The statistics bear me out. The third most active state for Civil War events was Missouri, fourth was Mississippi, and the fifth serves as our stage today: Arkansas. For this episode, we recount a clash that may well have slipped under your Civil War radar - a 2-day fight which produced profound consequences. Today, we make our way to northwestern Arkansas - to Elkhorn Tavern, and the Battle of Pea Ridge.

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode: 

Henry W. Halleck

Samuel Ryan Curtis

Peter J. Osterhaus

Sterling Price

Benjamin McCulloch

Earl Van Dorn

Albert Pike

Other References From This Episode

 Leetown - March 7th, 1862

Elkhorn Tavern - March 7th, 1862

Elkhorn Tavern - March 8th, 1862

**Maps credit: Steven Stanley of The Civil War Trust

**Picture credit: On The Battery by Andy Thomas

Get The Guide:

Want to learn more about the Civil War? A great place to start is Fred's guide, The Civil War: A History of the War between the States from Workman Publishing. The guide is in its 9th printing.

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

At the beginning of the American Civil War, the Confederate States of America were faced with creating an army and, even more daunting, a navy. Starting essentially from scratch, it needed warships to defend ports and harbors, and a merchant marine to establish desperately needed trade with foreign nations. Mr. Lincoln ordered a blockade to negate both objectives, and in response, southern political and military administrators turned to radical naval design and innovation. The construction of ironclads was one response. Another: the very source for this episode. This is the story of the Confederacy’s desperate attempt to break the Union blockade - the first submersible to sink an enemy vessel. This is the incredible story of the H.L. Hunley.

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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode: 

Horace Lawson Hunley

Franklin Buchanan

P.G.T. Beauregard

George E. Dixon

Clive Cussler

Other References From This Episode

 Recommendation for Further Reading

**Picture credit: Hunley.org

Get The Guide:

Want to learn more about the Civil War? A great place to start is Fred's guide, The Civil War: A History of the War between the States from Workman Publishing. The guide is in its 9th printing.

Producer: Dan Irving

About this episode: 

For Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, the summer and fall of 1862 was a veritable roller coaster ride of emotion, from glimmering hope to hand-wringing despair. For Davis, the Confederate summer offensive may well have been the South’s greatest chance for foreign recognition - but by the end of October, that moment had passed. For Lincoln, far too cautious and deliberate generals allowed retreating Confederate armies to escape from Maryland and Kentucky. Both presidents had to accept that the conflict had no end in sight. And yet, as 1862 drew to a close, both saw opportunity in central Tennessee. Fought in weather that had to match the mood of weary men, officers, presidents, and American people, this is the story of the clash along the banks of Stones River. This is the story of the Battle of Murfreesboro. ----more----

Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode: 

Braxton Bragg

Don Carlos Buell

Willian Rosecrans

Philip Sheridan

Leonidas Polk

Julius P. Garesché

Other References From This Episode

 Actions on December 31st, 1862 - 8 a.m.

Actions on December 31st, 1862 - 11 a.m.

Actions on December 31st, 1862 - 4 p.m.

Actions on January 2nd, 1863 - 4 p.m.

Actions on January 2nd, 1863 - 4:45 p.m.

*** Maps Source: Hal Jespersen, http://www.cwmaps.com/

Recommendation for Further Reading

Get The Guide:

Want to learn more about the Civil War? A great place to start is Fred's guide, The Civil War: A History of the War between the States from Workman Publishing. The guide is in its 9th printing.

Producer: Dan Irving