Today U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declares the 11 states of the Confederacy and southerners “in a state of insurrection against the United States.” Lincoln also deems all commercial trade to states outside the Confederacy as “unlawful” as long as the insurrection continues. Thus, the thriving cotton trade between the South and Border states is severely…
In a tobacco warehouse in Richmond, Virginia, imprisoned Union officers captured at the Battle of Manassas / Bull Run await their fate. Among the prisoners until a few days ago was Abraham Edward Welch of Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1st Lieutenant of Company F of the First Minnesota Infantry, son of a former chief justice of the…
Today a former neighbor of Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson is appointed colonel of the 4th (West) Virginia Infantry Regiment of the United States Army. The appointment of Joseph Andrew Jackson Lightburn (1824-1901) comes as the Union-supportive western portion of the state of Virginia is in the process of establishing itself as a state separate…