This month, Social activist and abolitionist Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) and husband Samuel Howe (1801-1876) visit Washington D.C. and have an audience with former Baptist, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. During their visit to the city, the Howes witness a military review and listen to Company K of the 6th Wisconsin Volunteer sing “John Brown’s Body”…
White southern slaveholders commonly delude themselves into believing that their slaves love and are loyal to them. During the war, tales of faithful slaves are gleefully spread throughout the Confederacy and publicly held up as evidence against northern charges that African slaves desire freedom and liberty. One such story is printed in this week’s Tennessee…
James Skidmore, born on April 12, 1830 in Hardy County, West Virginia, today enlists in the Fifty-First Illinois. Though a relatively young 31 years of age, Skidmore’s life to this point has been filled with sorrow. He married Rebecca C. McBee in Hardy County in 1852. In 1856 the couple moved, with their three children,…