During the American Civil War, April lived up to the moniker later bestowed by T.S. Eliot as the “Cruelest Month.” The start of hostilities at Fort Sumter in 1861 initiated the war that defined America and President Lincoln’s assassination in 1865 both occurred in April. The Battle of Shiloh and the Fall of New Orleans…

This Good Friday, Mark goes back to Good Friday of April 1865 and President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theatre in Washington with Dorothea Barstow, the curator of the Dr. Samuel Mudd House and Museum. Later that night, assassin John Wilkes Booth, on the run and in desperate need of medical attention for his broken leg,…

General Jack Mountcastle (USA-Ret.), Ph.D., a history professor at the University of Richmond, joins Mark to discuss the role of women in the American Civil War. While we often focus on the pivotal battles, the armies and the leaders, we tend to overlook the important roles that women played. Whether breaking new ground to serve…

Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, died in New Orleans on December 6, 1889. Nearing the anniversary of his death, Mark talks with Mrs. Gladys LeBreton, whose grandfather was a friend of Davis’. As a child, Mrs. LeBreton’s mother lived in the Garden District home where Davis stayed and was there when he passed away. Mrs. LeBreton…

What was the environmental impact of the Civil War? Considering that a battle was a major man-made disaster, someone had to take care of the biological mess that resulted. Countless dead bodies of men, horses and mules and amputated limbs were left behind. Whole armies encamped and left spills of gunpowder, lead and other substances….

Shortly after organizing on October 22, 1861, John Bell Hood took command of the Texas Brigade. By the end of the Civil War, this unit had fought in all the battles engaged in by the Army of Northern Virginia except Chancellorsville. Mark and Susannah J. Ural, a professor of history at the University of Southern…