In the darkness of early morning and under the cover of a midwinter haze in the Southern port city of Charleston, South Carolina, the Confederate Navy makes a surprise attack upon the federal blockade that has shut down commercial activity in the city. Firing upon and ramming unprepared Union vessels, Confederate gunboats Chicora and Palmetto…
Less than a month after the enactment of his Emancipation Proclamation, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln yet struggles with the question of how to accommodate black freedmen in a white-centric nation. Seemingly contrary to actions already underway and designed to assimilate freedmen into American society, Lincoln maintains an interest in the work of the American Colonization…
Not all white Southerners are supporters of the Confederacy. Throughout the mountainous regions of the South in particular, an area where slaves are a relative rarity while poor whites struggle to eke out a living from the land, strong pro-Union sentiment was present prior to the war and remains to this day, increasing as the…