Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #thecivilwardoc
Most recents (21)
Join us Thursday, March 23 at 8pm eastern for our next happy hour with @jbrentmorris where he will discuss his new book Dismal Freedom: A History of the Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp (@UNC_Press).
#thecivilwardoc #slavery #historybook #booktalk #bookevent #history #historian
#thecivilwardoc #slavery #historybook #booktalk #bookevent #history #historian
Dismal Freedom is the first book-length study that fully examines the lives of maroons (fugitive slaves) and their communities in the liminal world between slavery and freedom in the swamp along the North Carolina/Virginia border.
To sign up head over to our Patreon page and subscribe! You will also be eligible to attend all future happy hours. Patreon.com/thecivilwardoc
or
If you are a graduate student or contingent faculty member and would like to join, please DM us and we will provide the link for you!
or
If you are a graduate student or contingent faculty member and would like to join, please DM us and we will provide the link for you!
#OTD in 1861 Confederate Vice President Alexander Stevens delivered what became known as the Cornerstone Speech. Stevens stated plainly that the sole purpose of the Confederacy was to create a slave republic and that any threat the institution of slavery justified secession. 
He professed, "Our new government['s]...foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition."
#thecivilwardoc #thecivilwar #civilwar
#thecivilwardoc #thecivilwar #civilwar
Stevens continued, "This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."
Confederates fired on Ft. Sumter approximately three weeks later.
#OnThisDay #onthisdayinhistory #todayinhistory
Confederates fired on Ft. Sumter approximately three weeks later.
#OnThisDay #onthisdayinhistory #todayinhistory
Join us March 23 at 8pm eastern for our next happy hour with @jbrentmorris where he will discuss his new book Dismal Freedom: A History of the Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp (@UNC_Press).
#thecivilwardoc #slavery #historybook #booktalk #bookevent #history #historian
#thecivilwardoc #slavery #historybook #booktalk #bookevent #history #historian
Dismal Freedom is the first book-length study that fully examines the lives of maroons (fugitive slaves) and their communities in the liminal world between slavery and freedom in the swamp along the North Carolina/Virginia border.
To sign up head over to our Patreon page and subscribe! You will also be eligible to attend all future happy hours. Patreon.com/thecivilwardoc
or
If you are a graduate student or contingent faculty member and would like to join, please DM us and we will provide the link for you!
or
If you are a graduate student or contingent faculty member and would like to join, please DM us and we will provide the link for you!
Harriet Beecher Stowe's influential book Uncle Tom's Cabin was published #OTD in 1852. Stowe's anti-slavery novel was a huge success and pushed many Americans to reassess their attitudes toward slavery. Only the Bible sold more copies than Uncle Tom's Cabin during the 19 century.
Although Uncle Tom's Cabin had a profound effect on the anti-slavery movement, it did have flaws. For instance, Stowe developed the characters around negative Black stereotypes that eventually became standard talking points for proslavery supporters and white supremacists.
You can read Uncle Tom's Cabin for free here:
gutenberg.org/ebooks/203
#history #OnThisDay #onthisdayinhistory #TodayinHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #womenshistory #WomensHistoryMonth2023 #uncletomscabin #harrietbeecherstowe #thecivilwardoc
gutenberg.org/ebooks/203
#history #OnThisDay #onthisdayinhistory #TodayinHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #womenshistory #WomensHistoryMonth2023 #uncletomscabin #harrietbeecherstowe #thecivilwardoc
Richard H. Cain passed away #OTD in 1887. Cain represented South Carolina in the US House of Representatives. He was one of six Black men to represent South Carolina in Congress during Reconstruction. Cain was also an abolitionist, newspaper editor, entrepreneur, and minister.
Cain was born to free parents on April 12, 1825, in Greenbrier County, Virginia (modern day West Virginia). He and his family moved to Gallipolis, Ohio, in 1831. Because Ohio was a free state, Cain was provided an education and learned how to read and write.
He became a licensed minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844 and moved to Hannibal, Missouri. He left the Methodist Church in 1848 to join the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church where he became a minister and deacon.
Prominent Black physician and abolitionist James McCune Smith passed away #OTD in 1865. Smith, who penned the introduction of Frederick Douglass' second autobiography My Bondage My Freedom (1855), was the first Black person to receive a medical degree in the United States.
Smith was born enslaved in 1813 in Manhattan and received a formal education as a child under New York's gradual emancipation laws. He was free at the age of 14 on July 4, 1827. He graduated from African Free School in NYC and enrolled at the University of Glasgow.
He received his medical degree in Glasgow in 1837 and moved back to New York to establish a medical practice. According to Bryan Greene of @SmithsonianMag, Smith also opened the first Black-owned pharmacy in the United States.
William Breedlove, a free Black man and future member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1867, was convicted of harboring a fugitive enslaved man #OTD in 1863. Breedlove was pardoned in December, sparing him the punishment of being sold into slavery.
Breedlove was born free around 1820 in Virginia. His father, James Davis, was white and his mother, Polly Breedlove, was a free Black woman. William became a blacksmith and also captained a ferry that crossed the Rappahannock River
He was able to purchase real estate that in 1860 was valued at $1,500. On November 2, 1863, Breedlove and his ferry employee unknowingly transported a fugitive enslaved man across the Rappahannock.
#OTD in 1868, approx. 300 (mostly) Black Republicans embarked on a 25 mile march from Albany, Georgia, to the town of Camilla. They were protesting the expulsion of 33 Black state congressmen (known as the Original 33). Armed white Democrats were waiting for them in Camilla.
The white mob was incensed by Georgia's new state constitution that was ratified in April of 1868. The new constitution granted Black men the right to vote and hold political office.
Many of the marchers were armed as well. When they reached Camilla the local sheriff, Mumford S. Poore, ordered them to put down their guns or face the wrath of the white mob. The marchers refused to back down and continued to the courthouse lawn to hold a political rally.
#OTD in 1861, Hawaiian King Kamehameha IV declared neutrality after the outbreak of the Civil War. Allying with the United States would have provoked Confederate raids while recognizing the Confederacy would have seriously damaged international relations with the U.S.
King Kamehameha IV died on November 30, 1863, and was succeeded by Kamehameha V Lot Kapuāiwa. He wanted to keep favorable trade deals with the United States and worked diplomatically with the Lincoln administration to negotiate a new treaty of neutrality.
The Hawaiian public skewed toward the United States. Hawaii already abolished slavery in the Constitution of 1852. Many Hawaiian-born Americans (most of whom were the sons of American missionaries) supported the United States over the Confederacy.
Allan Pinkerton was born #OTD in 1819 in Glasgow, Scotland. He headed the Union Intelligence Service during the Civil War and helped lay the foundation for the U.S. Secret Service, FBI, and CIA. He also founded the famed Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which still exists.
Pinkerton emigrated to United States 1842 and founded a cooperage in Dundee, Illinois, just outside of Chicago. He became an abolitionist and operated a safe house for fugitive enslaved people on the Underground Railroad.
Pinkerton was appointed as the first Chicago police detective in 1849 after uncovering a counterfeit scheme. He founded what would become the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1850. The Pinkerton Agency specialized in investigating train robberies.
#OTD in 1862 a #UnitedStates #soldier named John P. Jones wrote his wife while he was deployed in Medon, #Tennessee. Jone's identity has yet to be verified, but he possibly served in the 45th #Illinois. Jones' letter reveals his changing attitudes towards #slavery.
"I am getting to be more and more of an abolitionist. I believe that this accursed institution must go down," he wrote. Jones also realized that he was fighting to destroy slavery. He continued, "We can never have a permanent peace as long..."
"...as this curse stains our otherwise fair insignia. The ruler of nations can never prosper these United States until it blots slavery from existence. He can no longer wink at such atrocities. This must be the grand the final issue."
#OTD in 1863 Andrew Johnson freed the enslaved people at his home in Greenville, Tennessee. Johnson was the state's Military Governor at the time. All enslaved people were emancipated in Tennessee on October 24, 1864. A 🧵 about Jonson's complicated legacy regarding slavery.
Johnson was born into a poor family in Raleigh, North Carolina and grew up resenting the enslaving elite. His resentment did not keep him from enslaving others as an adult when he gained the financial ability to do so. In fact, Johnson very much supported slavery.
According to @flingsarahe, Johnson enslaved at least 5 individuals according to the 1860 slave schedule. Evidence suggests that Johnson was the father of two enslaved people named Liz and Florence. Their mother, Dolly, was listed as "black" while her children were "mulatto."
Edmond Pettus was born #OTD in 1821 in Limestone County, Alabama. He served as an officer in the Confederate Army and as a US senator after the War. He was also active in the Ku Klux Klan, serving as its Grand Dragon in Alabama. He is the namesake of the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Born into an enslaving family, Pettus built a successful law career before enlisting in the Confederate Army when war broke out. While most of his home region of northern Alabama did not support secession, Pettus did. He was a pro-slavery ideologue steered by white supremacy.
During the War he rose to the rank of Brig. General and was captured as a POW three times. He was pardoned by Andrew Johnson on October 30, 1865. Pettus returned to Selma after the War and resumed his law practice.
We at The Civil War and the Fight for the Soul of America seek to educate people about the REAL history of the mid-nineteenth century and the Civil War, through the film itself, public history, and social media. We need your help to continue with this vitally important project!
For far too long our history has been white-washed, made to fit a Lost Cause narrative. The North may have won the Civil War, but the white South won the cultural war - a crisis that continues to plague America today.
We have set up a @gofundme page to aid fundraising efforts with a goal of $23,000!
With your donation you create jobs for M.A. and Ph.D.-level historians to work as research assistants: every single dime goes to paying them!
You can find our page here: gofund.me/fa492df5
With your donation you create jobs for M.A. and Ph.D.-level historians to work as research assistants: every single dime goes to paying them!
You can find our page here: gofund.me/fa492df5
#OTD in 1852 Frederick Douglass recited "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" before the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society at Corinthian Hall. Douglass attacked slavery by highlighting how white Americans could celebrate freedom while enslaving others.
Douglass referenced the Bible, Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution to argue that as long as slavery existed that Independence Day would be a day of mourning for African Americans, especially the enslaved.
He proclaimed "...justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”
The Battle of Gettysburg ended #OTD in 1863 halting Confederate General Robert E. Lee's second invasion of the North. There were 51,112 casualties at Gettysburg, more than any battle during the Civil War. Check out our 🧵 about General Meade here:
The battle effectively ended after Pickett's Charge, a full frontal Confederate assault on the Union's strongest position on Cemetery Hill. Lee was forced to retreat back to Virginia and abandon planes to attack Washington via Pennsylvania.
Approximately 12,500 men participated in Picket's Charge. Of those, almost 60% became casualties during the assault.
#OTD in 1862 Newton Knight reenlisted in the Confederate Army after being on furlough. He originally enlisted in July of 1861. He deserted in October of 1862 and headed home after he received word the Confederate Army had taken his family's horses for the war effort.
There is much debate and mystery surrounding Knight, his actions during and after the war, and what motivated him. However, Knight's life provides insight into conflicting ideas of race, class, and politics in Mississippi and the South writ large during the Civil War.
Knight was a yeoman farmer in Jones County, Mississippi when the war broke out. According to historian @vikki_bynum, only 12% of the county's population was Black and most whites were subsistence farmers like Knight.
The Battle of Palmito Ranch was fought in Texas #OTD in 1865. The Confederate victory is widely considered the last battle of the Civil War. The battle occurred over one month after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox and two days after Jefferson Davis was captured.
Both sides knew the war was virtually over, but a small contingent of Confederate forces refused to surrender near Brownsville, Texas. Many of the men serving under the Union Army there were members of the United States Colored Troops.
A fragile cease fire had been agreed to between the two sides on May 11. However, Confederate Lt. Gen. Edmund Smith of the Trans-Mississippi Department refused to accept the inevitable end of the war.
#OTD in 1864 the House passed the Wade-Davis Reconstruction bill. The House version of the bill was written by Rep. Henry Davis of Maryland. By this time Congress attempted to preemptively take control of post-war policy, creating a rift with President Lincoln.
Lincoln issued the "Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction" on December 8, 1863. It required only 10 percent of a seceding state's population to take an oath of loyalty before a new state government could be formed. These states would also be required to abolish slavery.
Radical Republicans in Congress felt Lincoln's plan was too lenient and began crafting legislation of their own to address the issue. They asserted that Confederate states were not states, but conquered territory. Lincoln maintained that those states never legally seceded.
Last night at the Met Gala, Sarah Jessica Parker wore a dress designed in homage to Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley. Keckley was the first Black female fashion designer to work in the White House. She was First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln's dressmaker. Here is a thread about her life.
Keckley was born an enslaved woman in Dinwiddie County, Virginia in February of 1818. As a child she worked with her mother as a house servant for Colonel Armistead Burwell and took care of his infant child. Burwell was also Keckley's biological father.
Keckley was routinely subject to severe physical punishment under the orders of Burwell's wife. Keckley remembered the first time she was whipped and wrote, "The blows were not administered with a light hand, I assure you, and doubtless the severity of the lashing has made..."
#OTD in 1865 President Andrew Johnson put out a reward of $100,000 dollars (Approximately $2 million in today's money) for the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Davis and a small group of close advisors had fled Richmond in early April.
They initially fled to Danville, Virginia but had to quickly leave because the Union Army was hot on their tail. They arrived in the town of Washington, Georgia in Wilkes County of May 3rd. He held his last meeting the next day.
Davis reunited with his family on May 7th and they arrived in Abbeville on May 8th. During this time, it was believed by the United States Government that Davis played a role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
