One of the more prominent socialites and colorful characters in Richmond society during the Civil War was displaced Marylander Hetty Cary. A descendant of Thomas Jefferson, Cary was born near Baltimore in 1836, and was living in that city when the Civil War began in 1861. Baltimore had a large number of Confederate sympathizers, and after [...]
Continue reading about Magnificent Hetty Cary: Betsy Ross of the South
150 Years Ago in the Civil War As the Civil War entered its first summer, there were several minor actions and skirmishes as both sides ramped up their preparations for war. On June 3rd, Union forces converged on the town of Philippi in western Virginia and launched a surprise attack from two directions against a [...]
150 Years Ago in the Civil War On April 5th 1861, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles ordered a Naval expedition to proceed to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor for the purpose of resupplying the garrison there. At the end of March, President Abraham Lincoln decided that Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens at Pensacola, Florida [...]
On April 15th,1861, President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 troops in response to the rebellion that had commenced three days earlier when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Response to the call in the northern states was immediate. The 6th Massachusetts Infantry, a militia unit that had formed earlier in the year, [...]
Continue reading about The Baltimore Riot of April 19th, 1861
The Civil War was the costliest war in American history in terms of casualties. Statistics for the number of deaths in the Civil War vary somewhat based on the source used, but the total number of deaths on both sides combined was approximately 618,000. Of these, about 204,000 were killed or died from their wounds. [...]
Continue reading about The National Museum of Civil War Medicine
