An Encyclopedia of Early Civil War Virginia
Looking at old black-and-white photos and illustrations, it’s easy to feel disconnected from the places and events they depict. However, standing in those locations and seeing the landscape in full color makes history feel real. When I first visited Shiloh National Military Park, I was struck by how little had changed in 150 years. The…
I started this digital encyclopedia four years ago to coincide with the 160th Anniversary of the American Civil War, with a goal to focus on the little-known events in Virginia between April and late July 1861. Since then, it's grown steadily, with original research, photos, maps, and illustrations. Our website offers high quality scans of…
We made a few tweaks to the website recently, one of which is the addition of a page for our current and future publications. All new publications (Battlelog, etc.) will be posted here as well as announced in the blog. It's pretty barren right now, but as we release more research, the list will grow.…
You may have noticed that clashes between North and South featured on this website aren't all referred to as "battles". There's the Action at Philippi, Engagement at Gloucester Point, and Battle of Blackburn’s Ford to name a few. Others are called skirmishes. What do these terms mean? Though somewhat arbitrary, these terms do have a…
Continue reading ➞ Action, Skirmish, Engagement or Battle – What Does it All Mean?
This encyclopedia will cover not only the battles and personalities, but also the places that featured importantly in the events of early 1861. Battles may not have been fought there, but they were the focal point of political and military activity, including forts, camps, federal installations, and critical infrastructure. Just a few that come immediately…
This encyclopedia will not only feature information about the battles of 1861, but also the personalities who fought them. Quality images of many of these individuals are hard to come by, since some died early in the war and others had lackluster military careers and were overlooked. So I've commissioned unique illustrations for each profile.…
As I've been steadily updating the battle pages in this encyclopedia, a standard format has emerged that I hope to replicate across all the pages. My idea is to supplement a description of the battle with multimedia--photos, video, and audio recordings (reenactments) of testimony from eyewitness. I want to include graphs, timelines, and transcriptions of…
Last spring, I created a series of blog posts commemorating the 160th anniversary of events in Virginia in April, May, June, and July 1861. Many of these were battles and skirmishes that didn't have complete entries. I've since gone back and updated the battle pages, including: Skirmish at GlenvilleSkirmish at Bowman's PlaceEngagement at Mathias PointSkirmish…
Hello, everyone! I'm back after a long hiatus. I've been working on other projects and couldn't devote as much time and energy to this encyclopedia as I needed to. Hopefully I can continue updating it diligently and regularly now that I'm not tied to getting articles posted in time for 160th anniversaries (exhausting!). There are…
Lately I've been working on filling out the order of battle for George McClellan's Army of the West, and I added stub pages for nine Ohio regiments from his five brigades. Since McClellan oversaw the Department of Ohio, it makes sense that volunteers from Ohio would make up the bulk of his troops. The State…
Spirit of '61 