One year after the United States Army seized control of Alexandria, Louisiana, the Union abandons the town. Union Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks orders that the town be left intact, but two corps, ignoring the general’s orders, set about plundering and burning the city. By the end of the day, the flames have spread and the…
Today Thomas C. Cheney, soldier in the First New Hampshire Voluntary Light Battery and a member of the First Free Baptist Church Manchester, New Hampshire, writes a letter to his sister, Melissa. As is often the case with soldier letters to home, the subject matter ranges all over. Interspersed with personal queries and notes regarding…
Even as the clouds over the Confederacy grow ever darker–or perhaps because the future of the South looks so bleak–the veneration of the deceased Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson as a Southern saint is well underway. Having died less than a year ago, Jackson’s image is the subject of much debate among those who vie…