Sally Field has been cast as Mary Todd Lincoln in director Stephen Spielberg’s upcoming biographic film about Abraham Lincoln’s Civil War presidency. Daniel Day-Lewis will portray Lincoln in the film, which is based on the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The film is to be released in the fourth quarter of 2012. Day-Lewis [...]
The Civil War was in the news as 2010 drew to a close. Here’s a summary of three events that attracted the attention of the media. Booth Descendants Approve Exhumation of Edwin Booth for DNA Testing After assassinating President Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth escaped to Virginia, where he was cornered in a tobacco barn [...]
150 Years Ago in the Civil War This is the first of a series of overviews of the events of the Civil War in chronological order. These overviews will cover varying lengths of time depending on the number of events that occurred within the time frame covered. In this first post, I’ll cover November and [...]
Continue reading about Lincoln’s 1860 Election and Secession: November and December 1860
John Wilkes Booth turns up in an early 20th century poem, ever the villain, playing the sax in hell
John Wilkes Booth was almost 27 years old when he shot President Lincoln on April 14, 1865 — it was two weeks before Wilkes’ May 10th birthday. John Wilkes Booth was his father’s favorite child (out of 10 children), according to his brother, Edwin. Junius Booth died 9 days before John Wilkes Booth’s 14th birthday [...]
On December 20th, 1860 representatives at the South Carolina Secession Convention voted 169-0 in favor of seceding from the United States. It was the first state to do so. Tensions were running high in Charleston, S.C. where the U.S. Government maintained a small military presence. Seeing problems ahead, Major Robert Anderson of the United States [...]
Continue reading about April 12, 1861: Fort Sumter is Fired Upon and the War Begins
