Last Best Hope of Earth

Tag: Virginia

  • Grant’s Taking of Fort Henry

    In early 1862, heartened by his troops’ performance at the Battle of Belmont, Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant had determined that he was capable of making inroads into the Confederacy. Securing the network of rivers feeding into the Mississippi River as well as the Mississippi itself would hinder the Confederacy’s mobility and economy, and accomplishing this objective would bring him into two states that did not officially join the Confederacy but parts of which were Confederate-controlled: Kentucky and Tennessee. Bordering those states, on the banks of the Tennessee River, Grant saw a Confederate fort ripe for the plucking: Fort Henry. (more…)

  • The Battle of Ball’s Bluff

    The Battle of Ball’s Bluff

    By the end of 1861, the Union changed its commander but also suffered its third major defeat; this one northwest of Washington at Ball’s Bluff on the banks of the Potomac River. (more…)

  • The First Battle of Bull Run

    Three months after the firing on Fort Sumter, the Confederacy and Union had produced armies capable of fighting and mobilized to northern Virginia; roughly halfway between Washington and Richmond. There, near a “sluggish, tree-choked river” known as Bull Run, the first major battle following the secession of the South would occur.[i]  (more…)

  • On to Richmond

    On to Richmond

    Although the Confederacy had awakened the North’s spirit by initiating hostilities at Fort Sumter, both sides could have still hoped for reconciliation. While some advocated for immediate peace, others wished for a full prosecution of war against the South, viewing its expanding secession as nothing short of treason. By the end of spring 1861, there was a decisive answer to the question of whether there would soon be peace. (more…)

  • The Secession of the Deep South

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    Secession Hall in Charleston, South Carolina. Credit: The Civil War Trust.

    In the wake of the disconcerting result of the Election of 1860, the nature of southern secessionism suggested the imminent secession of at least some southern states from the Union. The timing and execution of states actually seceding from the Union was unclear, but the Deep South was prepared to act first. (more…)

  • The Precursor to the Winter of Secession

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    Washington in 1860. Photographer Unknown.

    Abraham Lincoln’s victory in the Election of 1860 was disconcerting news for the South. It was the most recent event in a string of events that seemingly endangered the southern way of life and the future of the country. At a time when many northerners suspected southern threats of secession were but a bluff, there was evidence that the country had already split and the formalities were soon to follow. (more…)

  • The Election of 1860

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    The United States Capitol in 1860. Courtesy: Library of Congress

    Every presidential election is consequential, but the Election of 1860 would play a significant role in whether the United States would remain one nation. The division of the North and South on the issue of slavery threatened to cause a secession of the South. The result of the election would determine whether that threat would materialize and cause a Second American Revolution. (more…)

  • The Raid on Harpers Ferry

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    Depiction of the Raid on Harpers Ferry.

    For the bulk of the early 19th Century, slaveholders in the South had a deep fear that a slave revolt would erupt and metastasize, leading to an eradication of the institution, similar to what happened in Haiti in the first years of the 19th Century. In 1859, John Brown, one of the instigators in Bleeding Kansas, would attempt to lead such a revolt, starting at a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The immediate effects of his raid would pale in comparison to its impact over the course of the following two years. (more…)

  • The Legalities of Slavery

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    A Depiction of Franklin & Armfield’s Slave Prison in Alexandria, Virginia in 1836.

    By the 1830s and 1840s, slavery had become engrained in the American legal system, enjoying protections and safeguards against its abolition and ultimately ensuring its continuation.

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  • The Spread of Enfranchisement

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    Politics in an Oyster House. By: Richard Caton Woodville.

    Following the War of 1812, enfranchisement broadened in American society considerably.

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