Losing the Civil War crushed the South, both physically and psychologically, but the worst blow was yet to come. On June 13, 1866 in Norfolk, Virginia, Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederate States of America was indicted for treason. The physician who attended the imprisoned Jefferson Davis, Dr. John J. Craven, told of Davis' time in Fortress Monroe in his book, The Prison Life...
Written after the passage of an impressments law, explained in General Orders No. 69 on August 27, 1864, this circular from the Confederacy's War Department in Richmond decries the lack of subsistence being provided for the war effort. Essentially, General Orders No. 69 held that “every exempt and detailed agriculturists' (i.e. plantation farmers, mainly) was to provide “100 pounds of...
Issued at the command of Brigadier General T.L. Rosser, this release of general orders is meant to warn against and dissuade poor behavior within the Confederate forces. Quoting the first line of the orders, “the want of discipline has been the cause of additional disaster to this army.' Responding to such indiscretions as breaking rank during battle for the purpose of plundering or desertion...
Medical care in major cities such as New York and Philadelphia was far more advanced due to increased access to education and technology; however, this was not true for many rural areas of the country. During the antebellum period, the practices of medical doctors were not always well regulated. Doctors were considered quite knowledgeable but most of their remedies were local in nature and chosen...
After leaving Richmond on his way to Harper's Ferry, Thomas Jackson quickly wrote his wife Mary Anna on April 27, 1861 telling her of his reassignment. The Governor appointed him Colonel of the Virginia Volunteers; he was honored to hold such an independent position but warned Mary Anna, whom he affectionately called little one, that they would probably not be able to correspond for quite some...
Even a hundred years before Surgeon General Warnings, we already had begun to understand tobacco's effects. On January 11, 1868, HarpWeek published a two-picture political cartoon entitled The Pleasure of Tobacco. The first picture featured a young man in bed enjoying his pipe. The caption under the drawing said, To which young and promising Tom Smudger abandons himself. He wasteth the midnight...
Born to former slaves on July 15, 1867, shortly after the end of the Civil War, Maggie L. Walker would become one of the most influential black females at the turn of the century. From her roots in poverty in the city of Richmond, Walker became the first woman in the United States, black or white, to charter a bank when she opened St. Luke Penny Saving Bank in her hometown: the City of Richmond....
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....
The Currency Act was first introduced as a bill to the “Currency Committee' of the House of Representatives in a secret session. The bill relied on taxation, not on funding, for the reduction of the heavily inflated currency in the Confederate States. It proposed that a tax of 4 percent be levied on the value of property. This bill became an Act of the Confederate Congress on February 27,...
In May of 1860, two major Southern papers, The Charleston Mercury and The Richmond Enquirer, engaged in a fiery debate. The issue of this debate was participation in the Democratic Party National Convention at Baltimore, Maryland-where the party's Presidential nominee was to be decided. The Baltimore Convention was the second such attempt; Democrats had met earlier...