Episodes Nearest to June 1, 1862 to September 30, 1862: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. Armed Slaves
    date June, 1862 to September, 1862map ORLEANS, Louisianatags African-Americans, Slavery, War

    Armed and prepared for confrontation, runaway slaves knew that their link to freedom was right before their eyes.It was the perfect opportunity to leave the plantation when the Union forces arrived in New Orleans. Many of their masters were away at war and the women were the only ones that stood in the way of freedom. In a period of three months in 1862, large groups of slaves armed with cane knives,...

  2. Saving Grace: Creation of the United States Ambulance Service
    date August 2, 1862map CHARLES CITY, Virginiatags Health/Death, War

    Under the orders of General McClellan, the Army of the Potomac was the first section of the Union Army to derive benefits from an organized ambulance system. On August 2, 1862 General McClellan issued General Order No. 147 near Harrison Landing, Virginia. This order set up regulations within the Army of the Potomac for the creation, organization, and management of an ambulance train...

  3. Confederate Refusal to Pledge Allegiance
    date July 24, 1862map WILLIAMSON, Tennesseetags War, Women

    For months Elizabeth McCavock Harding waited for her husband, William Giles Harding. Federal forces contained him in Fort Mackinaw, Michigan between April and September of 1862 as a prisoner of war. During that time Elizabeth wrote to him frequently describing the state of health of their family and the state of the town of Nashville, Tennessee. She very much wanted to visit him and worried about...

  4. Southern Women Help the War Effort in Florence, South Carolina
    date August 11, 1862map MARION, South Carolinatags Health/Death, War, Women

    On August 11, 1862, one month before Southern women were officially accepted as nurses, J. Bachman announced the importance women held in the medical effort in coastal South Carolina. She explained, in a local newspaper, a proposed arrangement concerning the delivery of imperative medical supplies to Florence, South Carolina. The Northeastern Railroad had been sending donated supplies free of charge,...

  5. Life of a Union Captain: Captain James Wren and Sulphur Springs
    date August 24, 1862map SCHUYLKILL, Pennsylvaniatags War

    The Civil War cost the United States over 620,000 men's lives; many of these men were officers in major divisions who fought in ten or more engagements. One of the veterans of the war was a man by the name of James Wren from Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Wren was a Captain for Company B in the 48th Pennsylvania Regiment. His diary excerpts show that being an officer was not as glorious as it could...

  6. War preparation
    date 1862map ORLEANS, Louisianatags War

    In the midst of the war, factories were steady at work manufacturing gun carriages and turning cotton wagons and drags into army wagons. All commercial businesses were suspended and the ships were cleared out due to the notice of the Union blockade in the spring of 1862. New Orleans would have seemed a deserted city if it were not for the bustling movements of the Third Regiment of Louisiana Volunteers...

  7. Soldier Conditions and Morale
    date 1862map HENRICO, Virginiatags Health/Death, War

    Soldier conditions throughout the Civil War, especially for the Confederacy were far from inspiring. All units from Virginia through Texas experienced poor camp conditions. Many soldiers wrote home complaining about the high occurrence of death and the inability of the sick to recover.

    J.B. Robertson was a colonel in the fifth Texas Infantry and often corresponded with Governor Lubbock....

  8. Pauline Cushman Gains Trust of the Rebels: An Episode from Her Life
    date 1862map JEFFERSON, Kentuckytags Crime/Violence, Race-Relations, War, Women

    Pauline Cushman was born Harriet Wood in the South, on June 10, 1833. Living the beginning of her life in New Orleans, she eventually moved with her family to northern Michigan where she first discovered her love of the theatre. By the age of eighteen she moved to New York to try her luck at being an actress and stage performer. In homage to Charlotte Cushman, her favorite performer, Harriet legally...

  9. Reverend McGill Offers His Religious Views on Slavery
    date 1862map PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvaniatags Church/Religious-Activity, Slavery, War

    Reverend Alexander T. McGill believed very strongly in the 1860s that slavery should be abolished because it "degrades and destroys the children of men."

    Slavery needed to be abolished immediately, but slaves needed to be educated first, because, "neither slavery perpetuated, for its own sake, nor slavery abolished before its subjects are educated for freedom will comport with the determination...

  10. The Battle of Shiloh: Through the Eyes of a Union Soldier
    date 1862map MARION, Tennesseetags Civil War, Battle

    The battle of Shiloh was fought in southwestern Tennessee in April of 1862. Confederates started the battle in an attempt to drive General Grant's army from the Tennessee River. Among the Union troops present, Samuel Bennett of the 26th Kentucky Volunteers kept a diary and wrote down his thoughts of the battle. For him the battle began when he left Savanna for Pittsburg Landing. It was at...

  11. Van Evrie offers evidence for the necessity of maintaining Slavery
    date 1862map NEW YORK, New Yorktags Slavery, Economy, trade relations

    Van Evrie's thirty page pamphlet, written in 1862 used the example of the West Indies, and with the help of statistics and examples, demonstrated how slavery in the West Indies benefited the United States of America. It also showed how eventual abolition in the United States would be a failure to both Southern States and Northern States.

    Throughout the nineteenth century, the islands...

  12. Women's Welfare Activist Records Inequalities Faced by Female Teachers
    date 1862map WASHINGTON, Vermonttags Public School, Teachers, Equal Rights, Women, Education, Powerful Women in History, Women's roles, women's rights

    During a visit to America, women's welfare activist, Emily Faithfull examined the vast inequality that existed between men and women teachers and concluded that the situation was unfortunately no better for English women. The "feminization of teaching" had just begun to evolve around the time of her visit (1862);the majority of teaching positions in America, from the colonial period to the middle...

  13. The Sioux and United States Indian Policy
    date 1862map DATOKA TERRITORY, Territorytags Sioux Wars, Sioux, Buffalo, Indians, Native Americans

    Amos H. Gottschall traveled across the North American continent four times from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which took him twelve years to do.  During his travels, Gottschall lived with the Indians he came across.  Gottschall wrote all his experiences down, especially with the Sioux from whom he later picked up the Sioux language.  Gottschall became very fascinated with the Indians and decided...

  14. Food Aid in New Orleans
    date September 1, 1862map ORLEANS, Louisianatags Health/Death, Economy, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Devastation and upheaval occurred in areas throughout the South where the Union army had gained control. The Union's control meant the freeing of slaves. This led to a shortage of agricultural labor and a scarcity of resources. This situation was further heightened by slaves who fled from nearby areas to the sanctity of Union borders. <br />New Orleans was a particular example of this...

  15. Virginia Upheaval
    date July 1, 1862map FAUQUIER, Virginiatags African-Americans, Race-Relations, Slavery, War

    A planter named Edward Turner who resided in Fauquier County wrote down notable events of 1862. He stated that, “Any lying negro who felt disposed to do so could involve in the most serious difficulties of the first men in the land;Excellent and worthy citizens were stripped of poverty and otherwise shamefully treated (by the Yankees) upon the testimony of some unprincipled slave,' (Hardwick/Hofstra,...

  16. Hood and His Texans at the Battle Gainess Mills
    date June 27, 1862map HANOVER, Virginiatags War

    Courageously "march[ing] under a constantly increasing shower of shot and shell," General John Bell Hood and his fighting Texans battled their war towards a Union embankment and on to glory. The stage was the Battle of Gaines's Mills on June 27th, 1862, and it was up to Hood and his men to lead the charge to Confederate victory. This was the battle, as Hood describes it in his memoir, which...

  17. Mr. Guerrilla is Innocence Personified        
    date September 6, 1862map BEAUFORT, South Carolinatags Irregular Warfare, Civil War, Crime/Violence

         On Saturday September 6th 1862 an entertaining article was published in The New South paper in Port Royal regarding the antics of guerrilla warfare. This intriguing article describes the operations of guerrilla fighters during the Civil War. Guerrillas during this period fall into several different categories. Partisan, raiding, and bushwhacking are just several of the main focuses of...

  18. Operations on the James River near Chesterfield
    date June 21, 1862map CHESTERFIELD, Virginiatags Government, Law, Politics, War

    One Friday in a neighborhood along the James River called Drury?s Bluff two Federal gunboats came barreling up the river. As the gunboats got closer they began to shoot into the woods on the Chesterfield side of the river in hopes to kill Confederate forces. The boats were then opened upon by a battery from Stafford Virginia headed by Capt. French. The two boats turned around unable to face the...

  19. An Appeal for an Organization Benefiting Freedmen
    date September, 1862map Washington City, District of Columbiatags African-Americans, Health/Death, War, Women

    It was the summer of 1862 and Elizabeth Keckley, a former slave, was walking down the streets of Washington, DC. She stopped when she came across a big festival with music and white women and men dancing together. Upon inquiry, she learned that the festival was a fundraiser for the sick and wounded white soldiers. Immediately, she contemplated the need for an organization that supported the black...

  20. Battle of Antietam
    date September 17, 1862map ALLEGANY, Marylandtags War

    Union General McCellan responded to Confederate General Robert Lee's plans of heading north by gathering his Army of the Potomac to counter them. Lee hoped to get to Pennsylvania to regroup, but instead confronted the Union army at Antietam Creek. Despite General McCellan's advantage in men Lee's troops were able to hold their ground. In the end Lee's army returned to Virginia,...

  21. J.E.B. Stuart Rides Around McClellan
    date June 12, 1862 to June 15, 1862map RICHMOND, Virginiatags Government, Migration/Transportation, War

    J.E.B. Stuart’s most celebrated act was his encirclement of the Union General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac in June of 1862. Newly appointed commander of the Army of Northern Virginia Robert E. Lee and Jeb Stuart devised the plan to circle around McClellan and gather intelligence. The aggressive strategy stemmed from the knowledge that McClellan was hesitant to attack the Confederate...

  22. Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation Issued
    date September 22, 1862map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Race-Relations, Slavery, War

    Encouraged by General Robert Lee's defeat at Antietam and hoping to bring in the Border States, President Lincoln decided to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. He declared that starting January 1, 1863, all slaves in rebellious slaves would be declared free. It stated that the executive government would enforce the freedom of the slaves and that no conducts of repression toward their freedom...

  23. War Governors Declare Loyalty to Lincoln
    date September 24, 1862 to September 25, 1862map BLAIR, Pennsylvaniatags Emancipation Proclamation, Governor Curtin

    General George McClellan's inability to secure victory on the battlefield in the summer of 1862 added turmoil to an already fragile situation. Many northern politicians were frustrated with the general's performance, not to mention their anguish over a costly war that was once expected to be a quick victory. Dick Yates, Governor of Illinois, emphasized through speeches and private...

  24. Jeremiah Cooper Recuperates from Disease
    date June 6, 1862map FRANKLIN, Pennsylvaniatags Health/Death, War

    Many soldiers in the Civil War had to worry about their own health and the health of everyone around them. The Civil War took place during what the Union Army Surgeon General called, "the end of the medical Middle Ages". At this time, there was not a lot known about diseases, how to stop them from spreading, or how to cure them. Regiments were typically reduced to half or less of their original...

  25. D.A. Mahony recounts his kidnapping by the Union Army in his book Prisoner of State.
    date August 14, 1862 to November 11, 1862map DUBUQUE, Iowatags Imprisonment, Civl War, War

    In the early morning of August 14, 1862, D.A. Mahony was aroused from his sleep by a man, representing the Secretary of War, named Mr. Gregory. With several Union soldiers surrounding his home and threatening to murder him and his wife if he resisted, Mahony found himself unable to escape his arrest.  Mahony was taken from his home by Gregory and the Union soldiers. The Democratic editor of the...