American Civil War
Corporal William Hawkins, 38th Wisconsin Infantry
In a recent trip to Galena, Illinois I discovered monuments to Civil War soldiers. One monument is located in Monroe, Wisconsin and the other is located in Grant Park in Galena. I had not thought to make this entry political but I could not help to think how long before some woke mob tears down […]
Brother’s of War-The Iron Brigade at Gettysburg.
The Iron Brigade (also known as the Black Hats because they wore the hats of the US Regulars) in the Union Army of the Potomac initially consisted of the 2nd, 6th, 7th Wisconsin Infantry and the 19th Indiana Infantry. Battery B, 4th US Artillery was attached to the brigade. The brigade after severe losses at Antietam was brought […]
Bloody Hill
The Battle of Wilson’s Creek (called Oak Hills by the Southerners) was fought ten miles southwest of Springfield, Missouri on August 10, 1861. Named for the stream that crosses the area where the battle took place, it was a bitter struggle between Union and Southern forces for control of Missouri in the first year of […]
Frozen in Time
If you look closely toward the bottom left of the picture you will see at least two Confederate soldiers looking up toward the camera. The picture is said to be dated to around September, 1862 during Lee’s first invasion of the North. The picture features a column of Confederate soldiers marching somewhere in Maryland, presumably […]
Battle of Allegheny Mountain, December, 1861
I recently did a solo ACW game. You can find the details at the link below. The scenario is earlier in the war and the battle occurred in what is now West Virginia. A Union army led by Brigadier Robert Milroy attempted to drive a Confederate Army led by Colonel Edward Johnson (later nicknamed Allegheny […]
A More Perfect Union
The Battle of Gettysburg ended on July 3rd, 1863. On July 4th, 1863 the river city fortress of Vicksburg fell to Union General US Grant. The loss of both battles meant the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. Had Lee won at Gettysburg and Vicksburg held out longer it’s entirely possible that one of […]
U. S. Grant and N. B. Forrest
One of the more disturbing aspects of the woke Cancel Culture is judging people (and history) of the past by contemporary woke social justice standards. This is troubling because as Victor Davis Hansen puts it; Once a cultural revolution gets going, there can be no contextualization of the past, no allowance for human frailty, no […]
Perryville, The Civil War Most Obscure Battle 2
Maney’s Brigade at Perryville In September of 2019 my wife and I traveled to South Carolina to visit her sister. While there we took in some Civil War sites which included Fort Sumter. On the way home we stopped in Kentucky to visit the largest Civil War battlefield in the state, Perryville. I plan to […]
History and Hobbies 
On Renaming Army Bases
I was doing a little research for a blog post on the 21st WI Infantry-a unit that fought in the American Civil War. I found out they were mustered in at Camp Bragg in Fond du Lac County. The name of the camp intrigued me since a fellow by the name of Braxton Bragg was […]