“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security.“

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Confederate Impressment During the Civil War

Impressment was the informal and then, beginning in March 1863, the legislated policy of the Confederate government to seize food, fuel, slaves, and other commodities to support armies in the field…

Revenue Act of 1861

The Revenue Act of 1861, formally cited as Act of August 5, 1861, Chap. XLV, 12 Stat. 292, included the first U.S. Federal income tax statute (see Sec.49). The Act, motivated by the need to…

Robert Ransom Jr

Robert Ransom Jr. (February 12, 1828 – January 14, 1892) was a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. His brother Matt W. Ransom was also a Confederate general officer and U.S. Senator. Ransom was born…

Battlefield Preservation

Save Tennessee Battlefields

Your help is needed to save two key tracts at Lookout Mountain and Franklin.
The first tract includes 301 acres that played an important role in the “Battle Above the Clouds” at Lookout Mountain. The second tract is a small but crucial parcel at the Franklin Battlefield, which adds a key piece of ground to the land the Trust already worked so hard to reclaim and restore. 

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Confederate Generals (A-D)

Confederate Generals (A-D)

Adams, Daniel Weisiger / Kentucky / Born 31 May 1821 Frankfort, Kentucky / Died New Orleans, Louisiana 13 June 18722nd Lieutenant Mississippi Militia / Lieutenant-Colonel PACS 1st Louisiana Infantry 13 March 1861 / Colonel PACS 30 October 1861 / Brigadier-General PACS 23 May 1862 / Paroled Meridian, Mississippi 9 May 1865 / WIA Shiloh 6…

Alexander W. Campbell

Alexander W. Campbell

Alexander William Campbell (June 4, 1828 – June 13, 1893), was a Confederate States Army Brigadier General during the American Civil War. He was a lawyer in Tennessee before and after the war, mayor of Jackson, Tennessee, 1856, and an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for governor of Tennessee in 1880.…

Old Capital Prison

Old Capital Prison

In November 1861, Secretary of State William H. Seward told Lord Richard Lyons, British Ambassador to the United States, “My Lord, I can touch a bell on my right hand, and order the arrest of a citizen of Ohio; I can touch the bell again, and order the imprisonment of…

The Truth about “Juneteenth”

The Truth about “Juneteenth”

Juneteenth. So what is THAT? In a year’s time, we’ve gone from only a small percentage of people have even heard of that colloquialism referencing one town in Texas’s tradition to now it’s a national holiday? You’ll hear that it’s the date the last slaves were freed, found out they…

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Manson Sherrill “Manse” Jolly

Legendary Rebel Lies In Remote Grave The Dallas Morning News, March 27, 1965 By Thomas E. Turner, Central Texas Bureau Of The News Maysfield, Milam County — The ancient but…

Morgan’s Raid

Morgan’s Raid

Highlighted from the article During his daring raid, Morgan and his men captured and paroled about 6,000 Union soldiers and militia, destroyed 34 bridges, disrupted the railroads at more than 60 places, and diverted tens of thousands of troops from other duties. He spread terror throughout the region, and seized…

Battle of Big Bethel

Battle of Big Bethel

The Battle of Big Bethel, also known as the Battle of Bethel Church or Great Bethel was one of the earliest land battles of the American Civil War (Civil War) after the surrender of Fort Sumter. The battle between Union Army and Confederate States Army forces on June 10, 1861 took place in Hampton and York County, Virginia, (near the present-day unincorporated…

Events leading to the Civil War

Events leading to the Civil War

1619-1865, The Peculiar Institution Slavery arrived in North America along side the Spanish and English colonists of the 17th and 18th centuries, with an estimated 645,000 Africans imported during the more than 250 years the institution was legal.  But slavery never existed without controversy. The British colony of Georgia actually…

Battle of Philippi (West Virginia)

Battle of Philippi (West Virginia)

The Battle of Philippi—also known mockingly as “The Philippi Races”—was fought on June 30, 1861, in and around Philippi, Virginia (now West Virginia) as part of the Western Virginia Campaign of the American Civil War. It was the first organized land action in the war (the impromptu Battle of Fairfax Court House took place two days earlier), but…

Database of Battles

From Native Indians, The American Revolution,
and American Civil War

The Battle of Oriskany

The fight was for the continent. The strategy embraced the lines from Boston to the mouth of the Chesapeake, from Montreal even to Charleston. Montgomery’s invasion of Canada, although St….

The Battle of Brandywine

It was a critical time for George Washington. He had just been soundly defeated in New York and morale was very low. His writings to the Continental Congress tell us…

The Boston Massacre and Tea Party

The Boston Massacre and Tea Party

Townshend Acts Parliament wasted little time invoking its right to “bind” the colonies under the Declaratory Act. The very next year, in 1767, it passed the Townshend Acts. Named after Parliamentarian Charles Townshend, these acts included small duties on all imported glass, paper, lead, paint, and, most significant, tea. Hundreds of thousands of colonists…

The Revolutionary Christmas

The Revolutionary Christmas

It is accepted among some historians that Hessian soldiers who fought alongside the British first introduced the Christmas tree to the colonies during the Revolutionary War. Others claim German immigrants who settled in Eastern Pennsylvania started the tradition. All agree that prior to the Revolutionary War, Christmas was not celebrated…

The French and Indian War

The French and Indian War

The Beginning of the War Unlike the previous wars between European powers in the 1700s, the French And Indian War was begun in North America—in the heartland of the Ohio Valley, where both France and Britain held claims to land and trading rights. Westward-moving British colonists were particularly aggressive in their desire for new…

The Revolution Begins

The Revolution Begins

Committees of Correspondence In 1772, Samuel Adams of Boston created the first Committee Of Correspondence, which was primarily an exchange of ideas in letters and pamphlets among members. Within a few years, this one committee led to dozens of similar discussion groups in towns throughout the colonies. Eventually, these isolated groups came together to…