Episodes Nearest to December 8, 1863: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. Lincoln's Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction
    date December 8, 1863map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Slavery

    Lincoln issued this proclamation with hopes of expediting Reconstruction. By this time during the war, a vast portion of Confederate states were under Federal control and needed reorganization of their governments. His plan proposed that if ten percent of a state's voter population swore allegiance to the future alliance of the United States as well as approving Emancipation, then Reconstruction...

  2. William T. Stockton
    date December 7, 1863 to December 12, 1863map SANDUSKY, Ohiotags Civil War, prisoner

    William T. Stockton was a confederate soldier serving in the Florida Militia during the Civil War, acting as the Major and Lieutenant Colonel for the 1st Florida Calvary Regiment. Before this, he had been elected mayor of Quincy, Florida several times, as well as being married and having 9 children with his wife Julia. He served honorably during the Civil War, even returning from a nasty facial...

  3. Wheeler's Cavalry Checks Foster's Position in Tennessee
    date December 3, 1863map CLAIBORNE, Tennesseetags War, Civil War

    In December of 1863 in Tennessee, as William T. Sherman marched a column of troops to relieve men who were believed to be in peril in Knoxville, J.G. Foster was cut off from Sherman by a division of Confederate cavalry under General Joseph Wheeler. Unable to move, Foster telegraphed Major General Gordon Granger, Commander of the Army of Kentucky and the man responsible for running cavalry operations...

  4. The Battle of Knoxville
    date November 29, 1863map KNOX, Tennesseetags War

    A severely uneven battle, the Battle of Knoxville was almost as done as soon as it began. The battle on November 29, 1863, highlighted incompetent Confederate planning and a very easy victory for the Union. Led by Major General Lafayette McLaws, the Confederate army planned a surprise attack on Fort Sanders in hopes of seizing access to Knoxville. However, in a series of mistakes, the Confederates...

  5. Alfred Bell’s letter to his wife of 23 November 1863
    date November 23, 1863map OTTAWA, Ohiotags Civil War, prison

    Captain Alfred Bell was ailing in late November 1863.  Too sick even to write to his wife, Capt. Bell had his friend G.F. Wilson transcribe a letter for him on 23 November 1863.  Bell and Wilson were both prisoners of war (POWs) at Johnson’s Island, Ohio during this time, and this wasn’t the greatest of periods for Captain Bell.  Aside from the obvious misfortune of being imprisoned, Bell...

  6. North Carolina Heads Toward Bankruptcy
    date December 25, 1863map MECKLENBURG, North Carolinatags Economy, Government

    It did not take long for North Carolina?s credit to drop to the level of the Confederate credit. Faced with the constant necessity to clothe its troops, North Carolina?s state debt continued to grow. Jonathan Worth faced an overwhelming task as North Carolina?s treasurer. Unable to reimburse the state for its expenditures, the Confederacy consequently produced a serious drain on North Carolina?s...

  7. Catherine Wills Wears a Hair Locket to the Dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery
    date November 19, 1863map ADAMS, Pennsylvaniatags religious activity, Civil War, Women, Death

     

    To commemorate the deaths of her two young sons, David Jr., and James, Catherine Wills wore a mourning broach.  The gold broach containing one blonde and one brunette lock of hair with a black ring around it was a fairly generic piece of jewelry during the nineteenth century.  Like many others who attended the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and...

  8. True Love
    date November, 1863 to 1863map FAIRFAX, Virginiatags Love letter, Marriage, Civil War

    During the Civil War era of 1863, Harvey Black, a Confederate surgeon to the Army of Northern Virginia, described in a love letter the great affection he had for his wife Mary.  He wrote about their first encounter when he was seventeen and she just eight years old.  Harvey described, “I became so favorably impressed with her fair face and gentle manners that I frequently said to myself that...

  9. African-Americans Try to Improve the Status of Their Race
    date January 1, 1864map SHELBY, Tennesseetags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Race-Relations, Urban-Life/Boosterism, War

    Beginning in 1863, black communities began to hold large meetings to discuss the articulation and communication of new attitudes towards African-Americans. One such meeting was held in a black Baptist church in Memphis to commemorate the first anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. This meeting was one of the first of black convocations that called for social reforms among the black community...

  10. Cleburne Recommends Enlistment of Blacks into Confederate Army
    date January 2, 1864map WHITFIELD, Georgiatags African-Americans, Race-Relations, War

    In mid-1863, the Confederate Army and Confederate Congress decided that steps needed to be taken toward strengthening the Confederate Army. In a meeting with other Confederate officers in early January 1864, Gen. Cleburne suggested something that seemed like a logical and rational solution to the problem: enlist African-Americans into the Confederate Army. Out of this idea grew the proposal to...

  11. Article about the Execution of a Rebel Spy
    date January 6, 1864map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Crime/Violence, Health/Death, War

    The same article was printed twice (in the Charleston Mercury and the Southern Recorder) regarding the execution of a twenty-one year-old rebel spy named Samuel Davis. The actual execution took place on November 27, 1863 in Pulaski, Tennessee at 10 o'clock a.m. Davis had been captured on November 19, 1863 carrying dispatches and mail for to Union Gen. Braxton Bragg. These documents had been...

  12. Rebel General Gantt Tells Arkansas to Return to the Union
    date November 8, 1863 to November 9, 1863map PULASKI, Arkansastags Health/Death, African-Americans, Race-Relations, Government, Politics

    Confederate Brigadier General E.W. Gantt spoke to his fellow citizens of Arkansas, but also to all of the citizens of the South in his 1863 address.  The message in this address is that the Confederacy was fighting a war that they could never win and that the southern states would have more power and property if they would just return to the Union.  The General blamed several of the problems in...

  13. Hanging of Ephraim E. Dodd
    date January 8, 1864map KNOX, Tennesseetags Crime/Violence, Health/Death, War

    Ephraim E. Dodd was hung on January 8, 1864 in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was a rebel spy from Texas who had been working for Gen. Longstreet's army. He had used the name “Williams' and had claimed to belong to the 3rd Tennessee. It seems that many people in Tennessee thought that this execution was justified because of all of the “cold-blooded murder' that had taken place...

  14. Outrage about Enlistment of African-American Soldiers
    date January 9, 1864map KNOX, Tennesseetags African-Americans, Race-Relations, War

    An article was printed in Brownlow's Knoxville Whig that discussed the enlistment of African-American soldiers into the Federal Army. The article claimed that a portion of the Federal Army was enlisting black soldiers because it would be a great insult and wrong to the South. However, this article also focuses on the issue of enlisting African-American soldiers into the Confederate Army, which...

  15. The Western Sanitary Commission Requests Approval to Support Freed Slaves
    date November 6, 1863map ST LOUIS, Missouritags African-Americans, Health/Death, Economy, War

    Since the beginning of the Civil War, the Western Sanitary Commission served armies west of the Mississippi by providing service and supplies to wounded soldiers. On November 6, 1863, the commission looked to broaden its mission. Five representatives from the organization wrote to President Lincoln expressing concern that the state of freed slaves in the Mississippi Valley was daily becoming worse....

  16. A Wait For Battle Evokes Emotion
    date November 5, 1863map HAMILTON, Tennesseetags Civil War, Art/Leisure

    On the November 5, 1863 Matt Turner wrote his mother a letter as he waited for the next battle.  Turner explained that the waiting had been on going since the previous charge where the “Yankees” had gained a lot of ground.  With the continuation of his letter, Turner wrote of his feelings of foreshadowing, when he said they had not seen the last of war and that another gory battle would occur...

  17. Testimony on the Impressment of a Slave
    date January 12, 1864map NEW KENT, Virginiatags African-Americans, Health/Death, Slavery, War

    On January 12, 1864, A.K. Tribble offered a testimony in a New Kent County courthouse concerning the death of a slave, Ephraim. After Tribble's sworn statements, the County Clerk affirmed the verity of his account, but added that he could not set the official seal of his office because the Union Army had stolen it.

    James B. Floyd of Newberry District, South Carolina owned Ephraim and,...

  18. Diary of Belle Edmondson, January-November, 1864
    date January, 1864 to 1864map FRANKLIN, Tennesseetags Race Relations, african americans, Civil War, Slavery

    In the midst of the Civil War, one woman remained behind the scenes of the battlefield documenting the war and experiencing the fighting first hand.  Belle Edmondson kept a diary from January to November of 1864 in which she detailed occurrences in West Tennessee such as the Union and Confederate battles, tragic accidents of friends, visitations by friends and family, travel to various southern...

  19. Union Sentiment in Arkansas
    date October 29, 1863map PULASKI, Arkansastags Politics, War

    By the fall of 1863, the Union army began a series of successful campaigns along the Mississippi Valley. Following the Union capture of Little Rock, Colonel C.C. Andrews wrote a letter to President Abraham Lincoln regarding Union sentiment in Arkansas. On October 29, 1863 he wrote, The loyal sentiment of the people [was] gaining, though slowly. Andrews wrote that Union officials would hold a meeting...

  20. Louisiana Lady Battles with Regional and Human Attraction
    date October 17, 1863 to November 5, 1863map DE SOTO, Louisianatags Agriculture, Politics, Migration/Transportation, War, Women

    As a young twenty-two year old Louisiana woman, Miss Sidney Harding was completely caught off-guard when her prosperous family had to flee their plantation because of Yankee pressure and become Civil War refugees in DeSoto Parish, LA.Harding was not unlike other southern women: she faced internal and external conflicts throughout her years as a refugee.OnOctober 17, 1863, Harding commented on the...

  21. The Battle of Bristoe Station
    date October 14, 1863map PRINCE WILLIAM, Virginiatags War

    After the Battle of Gettysburg, Union General George G. Meade and Robert E. Lee of the Confederates headed south to Virginia in a footrace to gain a position in the Blue Ridge Mountains. At Bristoe Station, Virginia, Federal and Confederate corps crossed paths, and battle ensued. Confederate General A.P. Hill underestimated the size of the Union army and attacked an overwhelmingly large Union...

  22. The Establishment of the United States Colored Troops
    date October 13, 1863map Washington City, District of Columbiatags African-Americans, Race-Relations, War

    In the midst of the Civil War, with its end undetermined, the War Department in Washington, D.C., requested the Lieutenant Colonel George Wagner to serve as the Captain for the Eighth Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops. The U.S. Colored Troops had been established only a month before Wagner received this request. Many of the men within the Colored Troops had originally escaped into Washington where...

  23. Disaster on the James River
    date February 11, 1864map ISLE OF WIGHT, Virginiatags Government, Law, Politics, War

    On a cold day in February a Union expedition composed of gunboats Smith Briggs, Flora Temple, Gen. Jessup, and a transport Long Branch headed up the James River from Norfolk commanded by General Graham. The Long Branch had one hundred and fifty soldiers aboard on this particular expedition. Capt. Lee marched down the banks of the Nansemond River to meet up with the fleet of boats. The troops penetrated...

  24. The Anticipation of War News
    date October 3, 1863map ITAWAMBA, Mississippitags War

    In 1863 the state of Mississippi found itself entrenched in a massive war of attrition against its northern neighbors. Men from the South donned gray and marched off to battle, leaving those who did not join the ranks to fend for themselves on the home front. Rev. Samuel Agnew of Lee, Mississippi was one of these individuals. Agnew and others like himself found that they could not easily keep the...

  25. Advances In Education For Women
    date October 1, 1863map PRINCE EDWARD, Virginiatags Women, Education, Published Women

    The document entitled "The Next Term of This Institution will commence Thursday, October 1st, 1863" was a notice, authored by A. Preot, that described Farmville Female College. The information in the notice pertains to the term that was scheduled to begin on October 1, 1863. The notice included the subjects that were offered by Farmville Female College, as well as the courses of study that students...