Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchBattle Hymn of the Republic: From John Brown Jokes to Stadium Chants
Episode 12898
This episode follows a single melody across more than two centuries. It began as a call and response tune at frontier camp meetings, built to be lear…
1 day, 3 hours ago
Battle of Mobile Bay 1864: The Tecumseh, the Tennessee and Fort Morgan
Episode 12897
By August 1864, Mobile, Alabama, was the last major Confederate port on the eastern Gulf. Its narrow entrance was covered by Fort Morgan's 46 guns, F…
1 day, 3 hours ago
Wilmot Proviso: Eight Minutes, Two Clocks and the Road to Civil War
Episode 12896
In August 1846, during the Mexican-American War, President James K. Polk asked Congress for $2 million to negotiate with Mexico. Northern Democrats k…
1 day, 3 hours ago
Dorothea Dix: Jail Basements, a Presidential Veto and the Union Nurses
Episode 12895
Dorothea Dix was born in Maine in 1802 to an abusive, alcoholic preacher father and an ailing mother, and at 12 was sent to her wealthy grandmother i…
1 day, 3 hours ago
David Farragut's Life at Sea: Prize Master at 11 to First U.S. Admiral
Episode 12894
David Farragut was born James Glasgow Farragut in Tennessee in 1801, son of Jorge Farragut, a Menorcan who fought in the American Revolution. After h…
1 day, 3 hours ago
David Dixon Porter: Teenage Prisoner, Camel Hauler and Vicksburg Admiral
Episode 12893
David Dixon Porter, born in 1813 into a naval family, grew up alongside his adoptive brother David Farragut. When his father, Commodore David Porter,…
1 day, 3 hours ago
Clement Vallandigham: Copperhead Exile and a Fatal Courtroom Demonstration
Episode 12892
Clement Vallandigham, born in 1820 in New Lisbon, Ohio, left Jefferson College without a degree after a dispute over debate society rules, practiced …
1 day, 3 hours ago
Herman Haupt: The Union Railroad Chief Who Built a Beanpole Bridge
Episode 12891
Herman Haupt was born in Philadelphia in 1817, lost his father at 11, and won an appointment to West Point from Andrew Jackson, only to resign his co…
1 day, 3 hours ago
Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts: The Grave Meant as an Insult
Episode 12890
Robert Gould Shaw was born in 1837 to wealthy Boston abolitionists Francis and Sarah Shaw, who lived beside the Brook Farm commune. He was miserable …
1 day, 3 hours ago
Cornerstone Speech, Savannah 1861: Alexander Stephens and the Great Rewrite
Episode 12889
On March 21, 1861, Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens addressed a crowd at the Athenaeum in Savannah, Georgia, weeks before the bombard…
1 day, 3 hours ago