"A Very Spicy Little Sheet": The Knapsack, A Soldiers' Newspaper and the Politics of War

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"A Very Spicy Little Sheet": <i>The Knapsack</i>, A Soldiers' Newspaper and the Politics of War

A Union officer once remarked, “Does not a newspaper follow a Yankee march everywhere?” In the fall of 1863, the soldiers of the Fifth West Virginia Infantry found themselves stationed at Gauley Bridge in their newly-minted home state. It proved to be a relatively peaceful posting and, apparently true to Yankee form, the men promptly set about establishing a regimental newspaper. Forming the rather grandly named Fifth Virginia Publishing Association, the Association soon began issuing copies of the four-page Knapsack every Thursday morning at five cents a copy. Although only published for a few months, the paper illuminates much about soldier life and the politics of war.

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Reforming a Nation, Saving the Union: the Problem of “Fallen” Women in Antebellum U.S. Culture

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Reforming a Nation, Saving the Union: the Problem of “Fallen” Women in Antebellum U.S. Culture

The complicated role that women played in nineteenth-century American culture meant that the case of female crime was more complicated, and that despite the fact that many women were vocal and influential members of reform movements, their counterparts guilty of committing crimes were often left outside of the reformative process. Yet women played a unique role in the breakdown of the systems of control enforced prior to the Civil War, and consequently were responsible for challenging the normative barriers that endeavored to keep them on the margins of public life.

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Confederate Meccas: The Unexpected Legacy of the Civil War in East Tennessee

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Confederate Meccas: The Unexpected Legacy of the Civil War in East Tennessee

So what is the legacy of the Civil War in East Tennessee? The short answer is, not a good one. War came to East Tennessee in the form of guerilla conflicts that harassed the lesser-developed portions of the United States in 1861.

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"Wrap the World In Fire," Part III: Confederate Foreign Policy with Great Britain

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&quot;Wrap the World In Fire,&quot; Part III: Confederate Foreign Policy with Great Britain

"No you dare not make war on cotton.  No power on earth dares to make war upon it.  Cotton is king!" -South Carolina Senator James Hammond

To a certain extent, the Confederacy's foreign policy can be summed up by the bold words of James Hammond above.  As my previous posts have examined examined possible reasons for British intervention in the Civil War and Union efforts to prevent such an intervention, it is time to turn our eyes South and explore Confederate foreign policy with Great Britain.  The Confederacy built much of its policy around "King Cotton," and the result was a foreign policy more disastrous than many could imagine.

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"Wrap the World in Fire," Part II: Union Foreign Policy with Great Britain

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"Wrap the World in Fire," Part II: Union Foreign Policy with Great Britain

Abraham Lincoln and Union leaders realized from the war's outset the grave threat British intervention posed.  Intervention likely meant successful Confederate independence.  No matter what form, be it mediation, recognition, or literal intervention, any attempt by the British to interfere was based upon separation of North and South.  The causes of the Union and Confederacy were mutually exclusive; either the Union remained whole or the Confederacy earned independence.  British intervention effectively destroyed the cause of preserving the Union.

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"Wrap the World in Fire," Part I: The Possibility of British Intervention in the American Civil War

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"Wrap the World in Fire," Part I: The Possibility of British Intervention in the American Civil War

“If any European Power provokes a war, we shall not shrink from it.  A contest between Great Britain and the United States would wrap the world in fire.”  United States Secretary of State William Seward uttered these bold words in the summer of 1861, while his nation tore apart at the seams.  Yet despite the secession of eleven Southern states, Seward pondered the possibility of war with Great Britain, the world's foremost power.  Why?  The answer lies in the high-stakes game of diplomacy that was played by both the Union and Confederacy with Great Britain during the American Civil War.  For the Union, foreign intervention in the conflict was a constant threat, one that might ensure Southern independence.  Conversely, the Confederacy constantly sought and expected foreign recognition and intervention, seeking support and validation for their secession. 

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Roundtable: The Civil War's Most Influential Event

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Roundtable: The Civil War's Most Influential Event

In Civil Discourse's first ever roundtable question, we asked five of our writers a classic, yet undeniably important, question:  what event most influenced the outcome of the Civil War?  Our authors diverse answers (and non-answers!) may surprise you!

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Seceeding from the Secessionists: Creating West Virginia

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Seceeding from the Secessionists: Creating West Virginia

From the very beginning, there was division between eastern and western Virginia.  Families in western Virginia did not usually own the land on which they lived which excluded those white men from voting, and they generally did not own slaves.  This was very different than eastern Virginia where there was a larger degree of land and slave ownership.  Western Virginia was largely tied to white wage labor in a rapidly industrializing economy and many of the area’s residents supported abolition because they felt slaves were taking jobs that white laborers should be paid to do.  The start of the Civil War brought those tensions to a head.  On April 17, 1861, right after the firing on Fort Sumter, a convention of Virginians voted to submit a bill of secession for a vote of the people.  Many western delegates marched out of the Secession Convention and vowed to create a state government loyal to the Union. 

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A Forgotten Anniversary? The Escape and Capture of Jefferson Davis

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A Forgotten Anniversary? The Escape and Capture of Jefferson Davis

The small town of Irwinville, Georgia would become the setting for one of the greatest and perhaps overlooked episodes of the sesquicentennial story.  In a piece announcing the victorious capture of Davis in Harper’ Weekly, a Union officer commented on the night of May 11, 1865, “a fight ensued, both parties exhibiting the greatest determination…the captors report that he (Davis) hastily put on one of his wife’s dresses and started for the woods, closely followed by our men, who at first thought him a woman, but seeing his boots while he was running, they suspected his sex at once.” And so begins the legend of Davis the cross-dresser.

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“To See What Freedom Meant:” April 9, 1865 (Sesquicentennial Spotlight)

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“To See What Freedom Meant:” April 9, 1865 (Sesquicentennial Spotlight)

Much has been made of the surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia on April 9, 1865. Historians note that myth surrounds those final bedraggled days of the Army of Northern Virginia, the magnanimity with which Union soldiers welcomed their fellow Americans back into a nation at peace, and the causes won and lost in the subsequent years. Though it took months for the rest of the remaining Confederate forces to surrender their arms, no moment stands more clearly in historical memory as marking the end of the United States’ most costly war than the meeting in which Robert E. Lee surrendered his forces to Ulysses Grant. While myth may obscure some of the more concrete realities of that day – what was with Wilmer McClean anyway? – the peace wrought by those two great generals was nothing short of remarkable both for what it ended and what it began.

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Sesquicentennial Spotlight: Richmond Occupied!

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Sesquicentennial Spotlight: Richmond Occupied!

The Union army broke the Confederate lines at Petersburg early on April 2 after the engagement at Five Forks the previous day.  Lee knew the position was lost, and the army’s only hope was to move west to find reinforcements and supplies.  With the Confederate army moving west, Richmond was now exposed to the Union army.  That night the Confederate government and the troops left in the city evacuated in haste, taking the last open rail line to Danville, VA, which would be the last seat of the Confederate government.  Throughout the night into April 3, retreating Confederates set fire to portions of the Confederate capital, hoping to destroy supplies before the Union soldiers could reach them. 

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Could Slavery Have Died a Peaceful Death?

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Could Slavery Have Died a Peaceful Death?

On January 31, 1865, the United States Congress narrowly passed an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery; that this was accomplished thanks to the American Civil War is undeniable. That destroying slavery became a primary goal of the Civil War, however, was not initially expected. Many northerners were extremely reluctant to abolish the institution. Only through the actions of enslaved men and women, a small group of abolitionists, and the interaction of U.S. soldiers with the brutal institution was the North compelled to focus on slavery. Which begs the question: Could slavery have been abolished without the Civil War?

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