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A Historian POV – An Interview with Chris Mowery
In the latest episode of Breaking Nation, Scott sits down with Chris Mowery, the creator and host of the hit YouTube channel Vlogging Through History, where more than half a million fans tune in to explore the forgotten corners of the past. From his…
Storming the Southern Coast: The Port Royal Expedition of 1861
The Port Royal Expedition of October 1861 stands as one of the early examples of Union ambition in the Civil War, combining naval and army forces in a bold attempt to seize control of the Southern coastline. The operation targeted Port Royal Sound i…
Connecting a Continent: How the Telegraph Shaped the Civil War
On October 24, 1861, the completion of the Transcontinental Telegraph stitched together the eastern and western halves of the United States with instantaneous communication for the first time. Coming just six months into the Civil War, this achievem…
Disaster on the Potomac: The Battle of Ball’s Bluff
The Battle of Ball’s Bluff, fought on October 21, 1861, along the Potomac River in Virginia, was a relatively small clash by later Civil War standards, but its consequences reverberated far beyond the battlefield. At its core, the fight reveal…
Iron Against Wood: The Manassas Strikes at Head of Passes
In the early months of the Civil War, the Confederacy was eager to test innovative means of offsetting the Union’s overwhelming naval superiority. One of the boldest experiments came on October 12, 1861, when the ironclad ram CSS Manassas laun…
Sherman’s Cumberland Command: Ambition, Pressure, and Collapse
On October 8, 1861, General William Tecumseh Sherman was appointed to command the Union’s Department of the Cumberland, a position that—while short-lived—offers a revealing window into both Sherman’s career trajectory and the…
Jefferson Davis’s October Council: Prelude to the Confederacy’s Strug…
On October 1, 1861, President Jefferson Davis convened a conference on Confederate war strategy with his leading generals—a moment that may not rank with the famous battles of the Civil War, but one that sheds light on how the Confederate high…
Behind the Curtains of Command: Lincoln vs. McClellan
On September 27, 1861, a pivotal moment unfolded in the early days of the Civil War: Major General George B. McClellan engaged in a heated discussion with President Abraham Lincoln over the conduct of military operations. This confrontation was not …
Humility and Hope: How Lincoln Framed a Nation at War
September 26, 1861, holds a unique place in the moral and spiritual landscape of the early Civil War, not because of a battlefield triumph or a strategic maneuver, but as a day formally designated for “humiliation, prayer, and fasting.” …
High Stakes in the Heartland: The Civil War’s Hemp Bale Battle
The fighting around Lexington, Missouri, in September 1861—often called the Battle of Lexington or the “Battle of the Hemp Bales”—was one of the most notable early engagements of the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi Theater…
A General, a Proclamation, and a Cabinet in Crisis
In September 1861, the question of whether to remove General John C. Frémont from command of the Union’s Western Department revealed not just concerns about military strategy, but also deep tensions within President Lincoln’s Cabi…
Cheat Mountain’s Hidden Drama: Lee, Rain, and Retreat
In the fall of 1861, the Cheat Mountain Campaign marked one of the first significant military operations in western Virginia, a rugged region where both Union and Confederate forces sought to secure not just territory, but also vital transportation …
Johnston Takes Command: Can One Man Defend Half a Continent?
On September 10, 1861, Confederate president Jefferson Davis appointed General Albert Sidney Johnston to command the sprawling Western Department, a vast military theater that stretched from the Appalachians to the Mississippi River. The decision ca…
A Historian POV – An Interview with Dr. Robert Tracy McKenzie
In this thought-provoking episode, we sit down with Dr. Robert Tracy McKenzie (Arthur F. Holmes Chair of Faith and Learning and Professor of History at Wheaton College), a renowned historian of the American Civil War and American democracy, to exp…