Civil War news stories on Newser

Civil War Vet Finally Gets Proper Burial

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:27:23 CDT

A Civil War veteran whose ashes sat for decades forgotten in storage will likely be the final soldier to be buried from that war. Peter Jones Knapp, who fought for the Union and survived the Andersonville prison camp in Georgia, was being laid to rest today in Oregon's Willamette National...

Civil War Death Toll Boosted 20%

Rob Quinn — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 05:00:00 CDT

The deadliest war in American history was even more devastating than long believed, especially for the South, according to a historian. The Civil War death toll of 618,222—360,222 from the North and 258,000 Southerners—has been in history books for more than a century. But J....

2nd 'Underground Railroad' Ran South for 100 Years

Neal Colgrass — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 13:34:28 CDT

Turns out there was another Underground Railroad that helped Southern slaves escape their masters before the Civil War—only it ran the other way and relied partly on help from American Indians. Reporting on an upcoming conference in St. Augustine, Fla., the AP describes a lesser-known railroad that once shuttled...

Experts Rebuild Faces of Civil War Sailors

Neal Colgrass — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 14:43:29 CST

Talk about a cold case: Forensic scientists have reconstructed the faces of two sailors who drowned in the USS Monitor 150 years ago in the hope someone will identify them, the AP reports. Experts at Louisiana State University built the faces around skulls of two skeletal remains recovered from the...

Black Spies Helped Union Cause in Civil War

Sarah Whitmire — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 11:47:36 CDT

With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War upon us, experts on African-American history are hoping that a group of under-appreciated spies will finally get proper recognition for years of dangerous service, reports the AP . Some of the most useful intelligence-gatherers during the Civil War were black men and women...

Confederate Group Wants Flag on 3 More States' Plates

Matt Cantor — Tue, 10 May 2011 15:50:31 CDT

With an eye to the American Civil War’s sesquicentennial, a Confederate organization wants the Confederate flag to adorn license plates in Texas, Florida, and Kentucky—and critics aren’t happy about it. Sons of Confederate Veterans has already adorned plates in nine states with the flag; the group says the images...

Robert E. Lee Is No Hero

Evann Gastaldo — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:12:05 CDT

Robert E. Lee was a brilliant general, but he "commanded a vast army that, had it won, would have secured the independence of a nation dedicated to the proposition that white people could own black people and sell them off, husband from wife, child from parent, as the owner saw...

Civil War's Lessons Still Relevant 150 Years Later

John Johnson — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:36:05 CDT

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, and Ken Burns thinks modern America is still learning its lessons. We like to boast of a post-racial world, for instance, but "we are continually brought up short by the old code words and disguised prejudice of a...

25% of Us Have More Sympathy for Confederacy

Kevin Spak — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 11:04:05 CDT

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, and it looks like the conflict is still dividing the country. In a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released today, roughly 25% of Americans said they sympathized with the Confederacy more than the Union. Among white Southerners, that figure...