Category Fort Sumter
Sacred Trust 2023
The Gettysburg Foundation posted the schedule for this year’s Sacred Trust series of lectures at the Gettysburg National Military Park. It kicks off with a musical program on the evening of June 30. The July 1 schedule is: 9:30 a.m. | “Small but Important Riots: The Cavalry Battles of Aldie, Middleburg and Upperville – Thirty […]
Allegiance
This book by Professor David Detzer probes the history of the confederate attack on Fort Sumter, the beginning of the Civil War. After a discussion of Charleston, South Carolina and its African American community, Professor Detzer looks at Major Robert Anderson, commander of the US garrison at Fort Sumter. “His father, Richard Clough Anderson, had […]
Fort Sumter and First Shots of the Civil War
Here’s Mark Maloy, a historian with the National Park Service, giving a presentation on Fort Sumter and the beginning of the Civil War as part of the 2020 Emerging Civil War Virtual Symposium. The video’s description reads, “Located in Charleston harbor, Fort Sumter was still held by Union forces in April 1861, despite South Carolina’s secession […]
Look Away!
This excellent book by the prolific and noted Civil War author William C. “Jack” Davis is a history of the confederacy. He starts by telling us how important slavery’s expansion was to the slave states. “If slavery could not spread as new states were formed, then the exiting lave states would be doomed to perpetual […]
Why the Civil War Came
This excellent book edited by Professor Gabor Boritt is a collection of essays by historians who participated in the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College while Professor Boritt was director. In the introductory essay, titled ” ‘And the War Came?’ Abraham Lincoln and the Question of Individual Responsibility,” Professor Boritt tells us, “Lincoln’s role in […]
Bill Freehling-Did Lincoln’s Late Mistakes Make Civil War Unavoidable?
Here’s Professor William Freehling giving a nice lecture on the mistakes Abraham Lincoln made during the secession crisis leading up to the confederacy starting the war by firing on Fort Sumter and then the Upper South states deciding protection of slavery meant they had to enter the war on the side of the slaveholding states. […]
Lincoln and the Fort Sumter Crisis
Here’s one of my favorite historians, Prof. Craig Symonds, Professor of History Emeritus at the United States Naval Academy, on Lincoln and the Fort Sumter Crisis. Craig is a Navy guy, but we forgive him for that. 😉 He’s an outstanding lecturer. The video’s description reads, “When Abraham Lincoln took office in 1861, he admitted […]
The Genesis of the Civil War
If you want to understand what happened at Fort Sumter to start the Civil War, this book is indispensable. Samuel Wylie Crawford was the surgeon for the Fort Sumter garrison. Afterward, he became an infantry officer and a major general in the war. Not only was he present for the events he details, but he […]
Destiny at Fort Sumter
Here’s another episode of Civil War Journal.
Lincoln and the First Shot
This is, in my opinion, an essential book to read on the Fort Sumter crisis. Hat tip to Andy Hall. Book available to be read online: https://archive.org/stream/lincolnfirstshot00curr#page/n0/mode/2up
Student of the American Civil War 
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