This episode surveys Civil War intelligence-gathering and espionage on the Confederate side. We look at the cavalry's role, the Confederate Signal Corps and Secret Service, and introduce a few Rebel spy stories. Part 2 will examine some of the best-known Confederate spies and a few of the strange operations pursued by the Rebel Secret Service. In this Episode: 12:10 - Jedidiah Hotchkiss, Shenandoah Valley Cartographer 16:30 - Confederate spy Antonia Ford 21:30 - Union General Grenville Dodge, Gr...
Jun 16, 2024•1 hr 16 min
President Lincoln called them "fire in the rear." Northern anti-war Democrats--called Copperheads--advocated for a peaceful resolution of the war and sharply criticized the Lincoln Administration's restrictions on civil liberties in the North. This episode explores the Copperhead movement, introduces a few prominent Copperheads, and evaluates their arguments against Lincoln and the war. 11:00 - Copperheads in the Press. 16:00 - Marcus "Brick" Pomeroy. 29:00 - Copperheads in Politics; Ohio Rep. C...
Jan 01, 2024•1 hr 38 min
This is the second half of our look at Union intelligence operations and spies during the American Civil War. This episode finishes up the discussion of Col. George Sharpe's Bureau of Military Information and the big influence Col. Sharpe had on intelligence during and after the war. We then introduce several charismatic Union spies--including Richmond socialite Elizabeth Van Lew, former slave Mary Bowser, actress Pauline Cushman, and Canadian master of disguise Sarah Edmonds. We also meet "the ...
Jul 03, 2023•1 hr 2 min
This episode explores Civil War espionage, starting with the intelligence operation and spies on the Union side. Allan Pinkerton, Kate Warne, Timothy Webster, and Col. George Sharpe feature prominently in this episode. A follow-up episode will be out soon finishing up our look at Union spies with figures like Elizabeth Van Lew, Lafayette Baker, Mary Richards Bowser, Pauline Cushman, and Sarah Emma Edmonds. A future show will discuss Civil War spies on the Confederate side. Thanks for listening! ...
Jun 11, 2023•56 min
The third (and final) episode of our series on the Red River Campaign finishes up the action in Louisiana. We look at the Union withdrawal, an unorthodox cavalry-vs-navy battle at Blair's Landing, the Camden Expedition, and some nifty impromptu dam-building by a Wisconsin engineer named Lt. Col. Joseph Bailey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jan 22, 2023•1 hr 6 min
Part 2 of the Red River Campaign explores the Battle of Mansfield and follow-up Battle of Pleasant Hill--which proved to be the pivotal confrontations of the campaign. Then, we digress into some Civil War trivia. Look for Part 3, which will wrap up the series, in the near future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jan 09, 2023•56 min
Part 1 of our Red River Campaign episode explores the dichotomy between political generals and hard-nosed professional soldiers before surveying American Civil War action in Louisiana. We also get to meet Union General (and former Speaker of the House) Nathaniel Banks and U.S. Navy hero Admiral David Dixon Porter--along with Rebel Generals Richard Taylor and Kirby Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Nov 14, 2022•1 hr 37 min
Portraits of Blue & Grey makes its triumphant return with a look at the New Mexico Campaign's good intentions, bad logistics, and ugly results. While we're at it, we'll explore civil war in Ol' Mexico, Napoleon III's imperialist opportunism, and figure out how a Habsburg archduke briefly became Emperor of Mexico. "General Sibley. He looks dead." I definitely should have re-watched the movie before recording the episode. If you have questions or comments about the show, you can reach us at bl...
May 01, 2022•1 hr 31 min
In this episode, we start with what was supposed to be a short discussion of the James Gang--particularly their involvement in the Missouri guerilla fighting. Then, we look at one of the most unusual happenings of the Civil War: the Confederate raid on the sleepy town of St. Albans, Vermont. As Civil War raids go, though, the St. Albans Raid stands out. And not so much because of the setting but because the purpose of the raid was good, ol' fashioned bank robbery. Learn more about your ad choice...
Aug 13, 2021•1 hr 20 min
By early 1864, POW populations in Civil War prison camps had exploded, and conditions in the camps were abysmal. In an attempt to liberate captured Union soldiers held at nearby Belle Isle prison, Gen. Judson Kilpatrick and Col. Ulric Dahlgren plan a daring raid on Richmond. When the raid doesn't go as planned, suspected ulterior objectives lead to the Dahlgren Affair -- one of the most enduring controversies of the Civil War. Historians still debate whether the Dahlgren Affair was a sinister, u...
May 04, 2021•1 hr 21 min
Part B takes us through the end of the short life of rebel cavalier Jeb Stuart. Then, Chambersburg meets its unfortunate fate, courtesy of Jubal Early. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Apr 06, 2021•55 min
For the most part, towns north of the Mason-Dixon line sustained a lot less damage during the Civil War than their counterparts down South. Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, though, may be the single most glaring exception. Jeb Stuart paid a visit in 1862 and was a fairly polite guest, as military occupiers go--even taking the time to sign the guestbook at the small town's most high-brow hotel. But when Jubal Early's men came calling two years later, the stay was much less cordial. In Part A of Raider...
Mar 27, 2021•56 min
Part 4 of our series on Nathan Bedford Forrest picks back up with Forrest continuing to frustrate William T. Sherman and the series of Union cavaliers dispatched to neutralize him. As Union might becomes overwhelming, Confederate armies are forced to surrender, and the danger of Forrest assuming the role of guerilla leader looms large. Instead, he tries to quietly slip back into the life of a planter and businessman. Along the way, Forrest dips his toes into post-war politics and becomes the fir...
Dec 23, 2020•1 hr 28 min
"His eyes, usually mild in their expression, were blazing with the intense glare of a panther’s springing upon its prey....So fierce did his passion become that he was almost equally dangerous to friend or foe.." --Major David Kelly, C.S.A. Part 3 recounts two confrontations with fellow Confederates. First, the killing of Lt. Andrew Gould by his commanding officer, Nathan Bedford Forrest. Though probably self-defense, the incident underscores the centrality of violence in the life of the famed c...
Sep 07, 2020•1 hr 23 min
In Spring, 1862, Nathan Bedford Forrest's military acumen began to reveal itself, as he became a thorn in the side of Union operations in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. Part 2 includes Forrest's impressive display of physical courage at Fallen Timbers, a chaotic escape at Parker's Crossroads, and a story of equine heroism at Thompson's Station--before concluding with an in-depth look at the April, 1863, Union mule raid led by Col. Abel Streight and opposed by Forrest's Confederate cavalry....
May 10, 2020•1 hr 9 min
Nathan Bedford Forrest was perhaps the most despised, though begrudgingly respected, Confederate military leader. After growing up poor on the frontier, Forrest ascended the ranks of Southern society and had amassed considerable wealth by the time the Civil War began in 1861. Although he was involved in numerous business ventures, the bulk of his fortune was derived from the slave trade. When the war began, Forrest's value to the Southern cause was immediately apparent--initially as a recruiter ...
Apr 05, 2020•1 hr 1 min
Sherman's famous March to the Sea is one of the most well-known and noteworthy campaigns of the U.S. Civil War and probably contributed more than anything else to the hatred of Sherman that flourished in the South for 100 years after the war. After capturing Savannah, Sherman turned north, headed for Columbia, SC. Where Savannah survived occupation relatively unscathed, Columbia would not be so lucky. By the time Sherman reunited with Grant, the war was all but over, with only some relatively li...
Jan 01, 2020•1 hr 56 min
After Shiloh, Sherman got the opportunity to try his hand in civic administration as the military governor of Memphis. And it was from Memphis that he embarked on a mission, with good friend U.S. Grant, to solve the riddle that was Vicksburg. After months of frustration, Vicksburg fell in July, 1863. The Sherman - Grant team's next test, which they passed with flying colors, was to save the Army of the Cumberland besieged at Chattanooga. Now commanding Union forces in the West, Sherman then set ...
Aug 26, 2019•1 hr 25 min
Part 2 of our look at the life of William Tecumseh Sherman begins with Col. Sherman commanding NY volunteers at Manassas. The battle goes poorly for the Union, but Sherman shows strong, earning a promotion to Brigadier and a transfer to Kentucky to serve as second in command to Gen. Robert Anderson. Anderson's health problems leave Sherman in charge in Kentucky, and the resulting stress leads to mental health struggles for Sherman. The press, which Sherman already detests, piles on, and Sherman ...
Jun 03, 2019•1 hr 3 min
William Tecumseh Sherman is one of the U.S. Civil War's most controversial figures. A "Fierce Patriot" (in the words of Sherman biographer Robert O'Connell), Sherman deserves more credit for holding the United States together than anyone save Lincoln and Grant. His tactics left the South in smoldering ruins. Yet, in the years leading up to the war he resided in the South, helped to found the Louisiana Military Academy, and sympathized with Southerners politically - except on secession. How could...
Mar 19, 2019•1 hr 18 min
John Brown's 1859 raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry brought abolitionism and slavery to the forefront of the national conversation. The support for Brown's raid voiced by influential Northerners increased sectional tensions and support for secession in the South. After his execution and the subsequent election of President Lincoln, secession became a reality, and Civil War followed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 09, 2018•1 hr 8 min
In Part 2A of our portrait of John Brown, we pick up in the aftermath of Bleeding Kansas and follow John Brown as he recruits, fund-raises, and prepares for his game-changing raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. We look at the political situation going into the raid and see Brown continue to build a reputation as the nation's foremost militant abolitionist. Though we had originally intended to finish up the series with this episode, it ended up a little longer than originally p...
Nov 23, 2018•1 hr 3 min
A throwback to old-school Puritanism, John Brown brought passion - and violence - into the abolitionist movement. Work with the Underground Railroad gradually gave way to more radical methods, as "Osawatamie Brown" demonstrated that abolitionsts didn't have to be pacifists. And Kansas bled. Part 1 of our portrait of John Brown looks at his early life, the growth of abolitionism in the young United States, and the opening act for the American Civil War known as "Bleeding Kansas." By 1858, John Br...
Sep 26, 2018•1 hr 28 min
The CSS Alabama continued preying on Yankee shipping throughout 1863, prowling off coasts from Brazil to South Africa to Singapore. The success of the raider, skippered by wily Captain Raphael Semmes, inflamed Anglo-American tensions to dangerous levels. But shrewd diplomacy by the Lincoln administration eventually convinced John Bull to turn his back on the rebels, leaving Semmes and the Alabama with few ports capable of providing much-needed maintenance and repairs. After a long-shot voyage to...
Jul 16, 2018•1 hr 15 min
After the outbreak of the Civil War, the Union blockade crippled Southern commerce. Hoping to ease the pressure on blockade runners (and turn the tables on Northern shipping), the Confederate Navy contracted with British shipbuilders to construct commerce raiders - warships designed to prey on merchant shipping while evading opposing naval vessels. Denounced as a pirate in the North, Maryland-born Raphael Semmes captained the most effective commerce raider, the CSS Alabama, as the ship terrified...
Jun 03, 2018•58 min
After the failure on the Peninsula, it appeared that McClellan would lose his command. But, things changed after the disaster that was Second Manassas, and McClellan was restored over the protests of Lincoln's cabinet. After the indecisive victory at Antietam, McClellan refused to press his advantage, and President Lincoln determined that the time had come to place the Army of the Potomac under new leadership. A general without a command, McClellan was recruited into Democratic politics and made...
May 04, 2018•1 hr 46 min
George Brinton McClellan left the army at the rank of captain but, upon the start of the Civil War, soon found himself a major general in overall command of all Union operations. He was called to Washington to restore order after the disaster at First Manassas, and he built the Army of the Potomac into a first-rate fighting force. But before long, due to his overly cautious nature, the administration began to run out of patience. In the Spring of 1862, he took his army to the Virginia Peninsula ...
Mar 28, 2018•1 hr 32 min
George McClellan is one of the most oft-criticized figures from the Civil War, but has he been treated fairly? Our series on "Little Mac" will look at the important contributions McClellan made to the Union war effort but also point out his failures. In part 1, we examine his childhood, time at West Point and academic prowess, service in Mexico, observatory trip to the Crimean War, and career as a railroad executive. With the outbreak of war in 1861, McClellan is compelled to return to the U.S. ...
Feb 27, 2018•1 hr 1 min
Following the success at Second Manassas, Stonewall Jackson finally gets the northern invasion for which he has been lobbying since the Civil War began. The bloody draw at Antietam precedes the quiet Fall of 1862. Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville bring rebel victories, but the Confederacy pays a high price for the latter - the loss of the Army of Northern Virginia's spiritual leader. Stonewall Jackson's untimely death only further cements his status as a legend after the war. Email us with an...
Jan 21, 2018•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 13
Part 2 of our series on Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson begins with a review of Jackson's famous Valley Campaign, one of the most famous campaigns of not only the Civil War, but in all of American military history, and a campaign still studied by students of military strategy today. We then turn to the Seven Days' Battles, where Stonewall had his poorest showing of the war, before concluding with Jackson's instrumental role in the Confederate victory at Second Manassas. Thank you to all of you who...
Dec 12, 2017•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 1
