I’m Afraid To Go Home
Happy July 4th. We hope you have a great holiday. The cost of freedom is recorded not only in books and photographs, but in poetry and music. Here is a Civil War song by...
Iron Brigader Blog
Alonzo Cushing, Medal of Honor Winner
For a June 2012 update on the status Cushing’s Medal of Honor click here. The anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1st-3rd, is an appropriate time to remember the heroics of the...
The Sinking and Raising of the U.S.S. Cairo
From the very beginning of the Civil War, both sides understood the importance of control of the Mississippi River. To that end, the United States government built gunboats specifically designed for military operations in...
Fort Scott National Historic Site
Fort Scott National Historic Site is located in the southeast Kansas city of the same name. Fort Scott was an important western military base for the Union Army during the Civil War, but it...
John Wilkes Booth Facts and Trivia
John Wilkes Booth was almost 27 years old when he shot President Lincoln on April 14, 1865 — it was about four weeks before Wilkes’ May 10th birthday. John Wilkes Booth was his father’s...
April 12, 1861: Fort Sumter is Fired Upon and the War Begins
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...
John Brown’s Body
They hanged John Brown for treason in Virginia two years before Fort Sumter, and he became a martyr and symbol to some in the North, but a maniacal traitor in the South. He laid down his...
Fort Sumter
Welcome to Iron Brigader, a blog about the Civil War. It seems fitting for our first entry, to post a poem about Fort Sumter. SUMTER (April 12, 1861) Came the morning of that day...