"The ball has opened. War is inaugurated. The batteries of Sullivan's Island, Morris Island and other points were opened on Fort Sumpter at 4 'oclock this morning... The answer to General Beauregard's demand by Major Anderson was that he would surrender when his supplies were exhausted, that is, if he was not reinforced."
- from Amazon
 
Here are the dispatches from Charleston that appeared on the front page of the New York Times on April 13, 1861. An anonymous reviewer tells his readers about the mournful spirit that dominated each room at the Matthew Brady Gallery where he attended a unique exhibit of the photographer's Civil War pictures:
"At the door of his gallery hangs a little placard 'The Dead of Antietam'. Crowds of people are constantly going up the stairs; follow them...there is a terrible fascination about it that draws one near these pictures, and makes you loath to leave them. You will see hushed, reverend groups standing around these weird copies of carnage, bending down to look in the pale faces of the dead, chained by the strange spell that dwells in dead men's eyes."
It was on the first day at Gettysburg that the Confederates made a terrible mistake. Read about it here.
The second portion of Bruce Catton's article (see above) concerning the necessary knowledge required in order to justifiably call your self a "Civil War Buff" was this short piece listing the greatest battles of the war. Accompanying the five brief thumb-nail summaries is a map of the South Eastern U.S., highlighted with red stars, which serve to identify where the blood poured.
The two page article attached herein served to alert the 1922 subscriber-base of CONFEDERATE VETERAN MAGAZINE that Boy Soldiers of the Confederacy (1905) - was no longer in print and isn't that too bad and just in case no one shared the reviewers feelings on this matter, she recalled some of the Civil War experiences of the boys who fought throughout that war.
Read about a boy who fought for the Union...
"During the Civil War many young boys enlisted. In fact, three out of every ten men on the Union side were under 21, and not until 1864 did Congress pass a law forbidding the enlistment of of anyone under 16. But Johnny Clem, who joined up at ten, had them all beaten."
- from Amazon:
 
- Indeed he did. In fact, at the age of 12, Johnny Clem was a hero. Five thumbnail portraits of the most consistently victorious generals of the American Civil War; three Union and two Confederate:
• Ulysses S. Grant
• Phillip Kearny
• George B. Thomas
• Thomas J. Jackson
• Robert E. Lee
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