Episodes Around: 18650101 to 18651231

  1. Proud, Patriotic Song of an Arkansas Colored Regiment
    date 1863 to 1865map PULASKI, Arkansastags African-Americans, Agriculture, Arts/Leisure, Church/Religious-Activity, Crime/Violence, Government, Law, Politics, Race-Relations, Slavery, War

    Written in 1863 by the white Captain Lindley Miller, the First Arkansas Colored Regiment of the Union army proudly sang the Song of the First Arkansas to become excited for training and battle.According to Miller's notes, the marching song was sung to the tune of John Brown's Body, which is significant because they honored Brown, the well-known man who attempted a widespread slave insurrection...

  2. Hostile Northern Occupation of Little Rock Yields Friendship
    date September 10, 1863 to 1865map PULASKI, Arkansastags Politics, Migration/Transportation, Urban-Life/Boosterism, War, Women

    New to the Little Rock area, John Levering, a U.S. colonel from Indiana, needed a place for his family to live.Recently re-stationed to the city from New Orleans, he found the best hotel in town uncomfortable and unsuitable for a Union officer.In January 1865, Levering encountered a desirable solution.Levering casually visited a local, celebrated lady of society, a Mrs. S--, and informed her that...

  3. The End of the Civil War in Indian Territory
    date 1864 to 1865map Unorganized, Oklahomatags Native-Americans, Politics, War

    The war in the West went on long after Lee surrendered, and not just because it took a little while for news to travel. The Confederates appeared utterly defeated, and yet some still were willing to fight. But the South was not the only problem for the North. Corruption was rampant in Forts Smith and Gibson (Indian Territory, now Oklahoma); safe havens for both southern and northern refugees, from...

  4. Desolation Leads to a Soldier's Desertion
    date December 4, 1864 to 1865map RAPIDES, Louisianatags Agriculture, Government, Politics, Slavery, War, Women

    On December 5, 1864, John L. Sharitt, Jr., a Confederate soldier, epitomizes the eventual doom of the southern cause.He reflects gloomily upon Abraham Lincoln, the South's lack of supplies, weakening morale, and, more specifically, the barren and ruined physical state of Louisiana.On this day, Sharitt rode with his company seven miles up the Cane River.Throughout the entire ride, all he saw...

  5. One Family's Tragic Loss and Wartime Poverty
    date 1865map CADDO, Louisianatags Agriculture, Crime/Violence, Health/Death, Economy, Government, War

    While aboard a steamer ship headed from Alexandria, LA for Shreveport, LA, J.M. Bundy, a northern soldier, witnessed human cruelty and the outrageous poverty encompassing much of the South. Bundy and his Union comrades were invited to ride up the Red River to Shreveport on the Confederate flag-of-truce boat before a conference with southern officers about terms of surrender. Flying towards this...

  6. Tobacco Business Revives Economy in Durham
    date 1865map ORANGE, North Carolinatags Agriculture, Economy, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    In 1865, John Ruffin Green, a newcomer to Durham, bought a tobacco factory from Dr. Richard Blacknall. Green knew that there was a future in the manufacturing of tobacco because he noticed the extensive amount of its consumption in the Confederate Army and among university students. Green focused on the manufacture of smoking tobacco by buying only the best grades of leaf. Later that year, a terrible...

  7. Enslaving the Free: The Development of Southern Sharecropping
    date 1865map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags African-Americans, Agriculture, Economy, Race-Relations, Slavery

    "We are going to work for ourselves and for nobody else." The newly-freed slaves of Thomas Pinckney took this stand when he called them to start working again after the Civil War ended. Pinckney, a plantation owner in South Carolina, did not expect these men to continue working for free, but he realized that without them, his plantation was destined for failure. He stated simply, "I acknowledged...

  8. The Day in the Life of a Union Prisoner of War: Disease and Deprivation
    date 1865map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Crime/Violence, Government, Health/Death, War

    The United States Sanitary Commission conducted a series of interviews following the conclusion of the Civil War. The Commission focused on the details of Union soldier's imprisonment during their service. The soldiers gave testimony as to their experience as a prisoner of war. The compilation of accounts details the suffering and privations of different soldiers both commissioned...

  9. Argues for a Racially Mixed America
    date 1865map Washington City, District of Columbiatags African-Americans, Race-Relations, War

    Miscegenation stirred the pot in the American courts for much of the nineteenth century. According to historian Warren Sollors, in 1727 a white woman abandoned her husband because she fell in love with a black man. As a result, laws in 1741 called attention to the interracial marriage of whites and blacks in America. A fine of fifty pounds was to be paid in addition to children of these marriages...

  10. Andrew Johnson Provokes the Radical Republicans
    date 1865 to 1867map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Government, Politics, Race Relations, Constitution

    Johnson was impeached for violating a number of laws, but was acquitted. He attempted to accomplish a number of things while trying to get former Confederate states back into the Union, but he did so in an improper manner. In 1868 the House of Representatives brought Andrew Johnson on trial for violating the Tenure of Office Act. According to The New York Times article, "The President's...

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