(Five unidentified prisoners of war in Confederate uniforms in front of their barracks at Camp Douglas Prison, Chicago, Illinois. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress). We are going to have to spend a minute on the social issues that went along with the Civil War. I would rather contemplate the remarkable Triple Crown win […]

I was sitting with Barrister Jerry at Willow last night, along with the usual suspects aligned in the usual places at the bar. I asked him if he had heard about the major data breech at the Office of Personnel Management, better known in these parts as OPM. For purposes of efficiency, they share their […]

The words that account for the activities of the 72nd OVI are prety dry. When my cousin Harold and I were doing research about Great Great Grandfather a couple decades ago we saw his service record, but I took notes on paper and they are long gone. The unit diary has the places, but not […]

I always feel a pang of loss on this day, and think of our pal Mac Showers sitting under the pneumatic tube- the “bunny tube” waiting for messages from Main Communications in The Dungeon at District headquarters at Pearl. He was told by Commander Joe Rochefort to wait for notification from the Fleet about whether […]

(The Village of Clifden, in County Galway, where Honora’s odyssey began. The blue eyes in the family came from the Viking raiders who harassed the coast of Ireland in olden days. Original oil by Wayne Wolfe). AUTHOR’S NOTE: As it turns out, this voyage along the river of history has been quite an eye-opener. I […]

(The Siege of Vicksburg. Map by Hal Jespersen). They did not celebrate the 4th of July in Vicksburg for 81 years. Well, there is some controversy over that and there were some ceremonies some years. The times have changed, but the 4th is a day that no one really wants to remember in Vicksburg. Grant […]

(Map of the second half of the Vicksburg Campaign. Great Great Grandfather’s Ohio unit moved from Memphis to Young’s Point, LA, in April and then participated in Grant’s long left hook through Jackson, MS, and then into the siege lines around the Gibraltar of the Mississippi River that resulted in the surrender of the city […]

(This map tells it all. Vicksburg is in the middle- literally- just south of the great blob of the Mississippi Delta. Grant’s Bayou Operations are to the are to the west of the City, which commanded the Mississippi River. The trick was to get to the east and across the water so the Union could […]

(William’s Canal- later Grant’s- on the De Soto Peninsula near Vicksburg, MS.) There is little possibility that either Great-Great Uncle Patrick or Great-Great Grandfather James ever saw Major General Earl Van Dorn in the flesh, though they certainly were not far away from one another. In fact, we are coming to a place in the […]

The 72nd OVI wearily trudged into Memphis at the end of July, 1862. I am hoping that part of the long journey was via the railcars of the Memphis and LaGrange Railroad, but that space was often reserved for the mounds of munitions and supplies necessary to keep thousands of men in the field. In […]