Civil War History – Old Magazine Articles

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
Recalls Little Round Top

The New York City Draft Riot
(Harper’s Weekly, 1863)

“The attempt to enforce the draft in the city of New York has led to rioting. Men have been killed and houses burned; worst of all, an orphan asylum – a noble monument of charity for the reception of colored orphans – has been ruthlessly destroyed, and children and nurses have lost everything they had in the world.”

Lincoln is Elected and the Markets Tank
(Harper’s Weekly, 1860)

“…It is said that the panic grew out of the fears aroused by the ferment in the Southern States. Although at New Orleans all is quiet, and everybody seeks peace, throughout the states of Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Georgia, great excitement prevails; and if any reliance can be placed upon the assertions of the politicians and the newspapers of those states, the election of Lincoln will not be tolerated without a struggle. What that form of struggle may take remains to be seen.”

Appomattox Court House
(Richmond Dispatch, 1896)

This 32 year-old reminiscence of the closing moments of the Civil War, told from a Southern perspective, recall it all in the simplest terms – the letters exchanged between the commanders, the McLean House secured, agreeing to terms and Lee’s exit. The intended audience for this article was the young men of the South who came after the war.

“Is it strange that the world wondered when 7,892 infantry, 63 pieces of artillery, and 2,100 cavalry was all that was left to surrender to an army of more than 75,000 men?”

General Lee’s Farewell Address
(Richmond Dispatch, 1896)

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The Closing Letters Between Generals Grant and Lee
(The Rebellion, 1867)

These are the letters written between April seventh and ninth, 1865, by Union General Ulysses S. Grant (1822 – 1885) and his Confederate counterpart, General Robert E. Lee (1807 – 1870), that established the terms of surrender and cleared the way for that famous meeting near Appomattox Courthouse.

Lincoln’s Truest Mourners
(Harper’s Weekly, 1865)

“[To the liberated slaves] the name Abraham Lincoln meant freedom, justice, home, family, happiness. In his life they knew that they lived. In his perfect benignity and just purpose, inflexible as the laws of seed-time and harvest, they trusted with all their souls, whoever doubted. Their deliverer, their emancipator, their friend, their father, he was known to them as the impersonation of that liberty for which they had wept and watched, hoping against hope, praying in the very extremity of despair and waiting with patience so sublime that fat prosperity beguiled us into the meaness of saying that their long endurance of oppression proved that God had created them to be oppressed.”

General Sherman and the Surrender in the West
(Harper’s Weekly, 1865)

General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820 – 1891), U.S. Army, found himself in hot water at war’s end when he accepted the surrender of Confederate General Joseph Johnston (1807 – 1891) after having provided far more lenient terms than President Lincoln preferred.

Lee’s ”Victory” at Gettysburg…
(Harper’s Weekly, 1863)

Here is a tongue-and-cheek piece of creative writing in which a New York-based scribe writes as if he is reporting on the Southern press and the joyous glee that was widely generated as a result of General Lee and his magnificent victory at Gettysburg…

The Battle of Bull Run
(Harper’s Weekly, 1861)

Here is an eyewitness report of the Union rout from the first battle of the Civil War, Bull Run (July 21, 1861):

“Leaving my carriage, I went to a high point of ground and saw, by the dense cloud of dust that rose over each of the three roads by which the three columns of the [Federal] Army had advanced, that they were all on the retreat. Sharp discharges of canon in their rear indicated that they were being pursued.”

The Lincoln Blood Line Ends
(Pageant Magazine, 1963)

Here is an account of the painful life of Robert Todd Lincoln (1843 – 1926), the only son of President Abraham Lincoln:

“He witnessed the death of his father, the untimely deaths of his three brothers, the mental deterioration of his mother and the passing of his own 17-year-old son, who was the last hope for carrying on the Lincoln name.”

Click here to read about General Grant’s son.

A Boy in the Union Army
(Coronet Magazine, 1960)

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.

– Indeed he did. In fact, at the age of 12, Johnny Clem was a hero.

The Missing Confederate Gold
(Literary Digest, 1912)

For many it will come as no surprise that the Confederate States of America entered it’s twilight with the same hubris and cupidity that gave it life. This 1912 article solved a mystery: what had become of the gold and silver from the vaults of the CSA when it finally became clear to all that the rebellion was over.

Click here to read a memoir of the Union victory parade in 1865 Washington.

The Victory Parade Down Pennsylvania Avenue
(Literary Digest, 1919)

Here is a reminiscence of the grand parade following the close of America’s bloody Civil War. It took two days; with the Army of the Potomac marching on the first day followed by General Sherman’s Army of the West on the next. The Grand Review was the brain-child of Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton and was attended by (so it was believed) over one hundred thousand people from the victorious Northern states.

From Amazon: Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War

The Jokes of Abraham Lincoln
(Pageant Magazine, 1954)

Lincoln could use humor as an explosive weapon as well as employing it as a constructive force… For Abraham Lincoln never told a story except with a purpose. He himself pointed this out often. His anecdotes were the precision tools of a highly skilled and intelligent wit… ‘I laugh because I must not cry: That’s all, that’s all.’

Click here to read another article about Lincoln’s use of humor and story-telling.

Click here to read the back-story concerning the Star-Spangled Banner…

Abe Lincoln: Short Story Writer…
(Gentry Magazine, 1956)

Reagan was the first actor to become president, Buchanan the first tailor, Jefferson the first architect and Abraham Lincoln was the first writer to move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:

The world has long known that Lincoln liked an occasional back-room story. Here is the only record – in his own handwriting – of that earthy side of the Great Emancipator.

The War Begins
(NY Times, 1861)

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.

Here are the dispatches from Charleston that appeared on the front page of the New York Times on April 13, 1861.

Was Mrs. Surratt Innocent?
(Newsweek Magazine, 1943)

Here is the book review for The Case For Mrs. Surratt (1945) by Helen Jones Campbell. The review narrates how the landlady who had the misfortune of renting a room to the Lincoln conspirators soon found herself swept up in the pervasive Confederate hatred that enveloped the capital city following the assassination. In no time at all she sat among the plotters in a military tribunal where she was quickly judged guilty and sentenced to hang. The book is still in print.

More on the assassination can be read here