Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchZouave Uniforms: Algerian Origins, Papal Volunteers and the Zig-Zag Man
Episode 13080
The Zouaves began in French-occupied Algeria in 1830, named for the Zwawa, Berbers of the Djurdjura Mountains. The first recruits included Kabyles, T…
5 days, 3 hours ago
James Longstreet: Liberty Place, the Sunrise Order and a Smeared Legacy
Episode 13079
James Longstreet, Robert E. Lee's old war horse, was born in South Carolina in 1821 and raised on the Georgia frontier by his uncle Augustus. He fini…
5 days, 3 hours ago
Cold Harbor 1864: Names Pinned to Coats and a Truce That Came Too Late
Episode 13078
Cold Harbor was not a port but a rural Virginia crossroads about 10 miles northeast of Richmond, named for a Burnett family tavern that offered shelt…
5 days, 3 hours ago
Seven Days Battles 1862: Lee's Gamble, Glendale and Malvern Hill's Guns
Episode 13077
In late June 1862 the Union Army of the Potomac was close enough to Richmond to hear its church bells, yet within a week it was retreating to the Jam…
5 days, 3 hours ago
McClellan's Peninsula Campaign: Magruder's Marching Loop and Pinkerton
Episode 13076
George B. McClellan rebuilt the Army of the Potomac after First Bull Run, ringing Washington with 48 forts and 480 heavy guns, and in November 1861 t…
5 days, 3 hours ago
Patrick Gilmore's 1863 Homecoming Song: Pub Tune to Punk and Anime
Episode 13075
In 1863 a piece of sheet music was deposited in the Library of Congress under the name Louis Lambert, a pseudonym for the Irish-American bandleader P…
5 days, 3 hours ago
The Rebel Yell: 1938 Gettysburg Recordings and the Roots of a War Cry
Episode 13074
The Confederate battle cry known as the rebel yell sounded nothing like a cowboy's yee-haw. Soldiers and correspondents described a noise that began …
5 days, 3 hours ago
Ulysses S. Grant: Hardscrabble, William Jones and the Butcher Myth Undone
Episode 13073
Before the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant was selling firewood on a St. Louis street corner and had pawned his gold watch to buy his children Christmas …
5 days, 3 hours ago
Thomas Nast: The Harper's Weekly Cartoonist Who Brought Down Boss Tweed
Episode 13072
Thomas Nast was born in Bavaria in 1840, arrived in New York at age six, and was drawing in reverse onto woodblocks for illustrated newspapers by 15.…
5 days, 3 hours ago
Mary Chesnut's Civil War Diary: Opium, Revisions and a Contested Pulitzer
Episode 13071
Mary Boykin Chesnut was born in 1823 at Mount Pleasant plantation in South Carolina, the daughter of governor and senator Stephen Decatur Miller, and…
5 days, 3 hours ago