Historian Karen Needles has undertaken quite the task. Since 2002 she has been digitalizing all executive, legislative, judicial and military federal records created during the presidency of our 16th President. We’re talking 30 million records that are being scanned and housed in one place. To date, about 60,000 have been uploaded, including newspapers, documents, maps, … Read more
On April 25, 2019, BGES celebrates 25 fantastic years of fronting Civil War education and preservation. In that time, we’ve scoured related sites both large and small with our premier study tours, and branched off into other important areas of American history as well. We’ve launched some important legacy preservation projects, grown our Wounded Warrior … Read more
Few military commanders in U.S. history have reached the notoriety and adulation achieved by William Tecumseh Sherman. But not everyone is aware of some of Sherman’s personal struggles. For example, this Southern leader resigned his first commission in 1853 to enter for a spell the field of banking; and he thought about leaving the Army … Read more
In our studies of the Civil War, we often focus on the pivotal importance of the Battle of Gettysburg, its strategies and tactics that ended the Confederate’s chance for a quick victory in the North. But how did the armies get there in the first place? Acclaimed historian Bert Dunkerly, who leads BGES’ “Great Invasion, … Read more
On April 25, 2019, BGES celebrates 25 fantastic years of fronting Civil War education and preservation. In that time, we’ve scoured related sites both large and small with our premier study tours, and branched off into other important areas of American history as well. We’ve launched some important legacy preservation projects, grown our Wounded Warrior … Read more
The Civil War has produced a staggering amount of fodder for literature, both fiction and nonfiction. Sorting through the good, the bad, the great, and the life-changing isn’t easy. So rather than identify the ten best Civil War novels, here’s a list of some that shouldn’t be missed. Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier (1997) One … Read more
Andrew Jackson. Our nation’s seventh president. Known as “Old Hickory” for his legendary toughness—though the original nickname coined by those under his command was simply “Hickory.” That’s one of many interesting facts about this favorite son of the South and one of American history’s more colorful figures. Here are 11 more. 1. Jackson’s birthplace is … Read more
As Dixie’s largest city, New Orleans buzzed during the Civil War with commercial, shipping, and manufacturing verve. The Union coveted it for all of the above, resulting in the Farragut-led Battle of New Orleans and subsequent Union occupation. In his upcoming tour on April 5-8, 2019, “Civil War New Orleans and the Gulf Coast,” BGES’ … Read more
It may look like any other mid-19th-century courtroom, but this third-floor room in Fort Lesley J. McNair’s Grant Hall, in Washington, D.C., is like no other. For it was here, between May and July 1865, that eight co-conspirators in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination–including a woman–were tried and convicted, and four were sentenced to death by hanging. … Read more
Interview by Barbara Noe Kennedy Andrew Jackson is one of our nation’s most colorful characters and presidents. Beloved by many for being a self-made frontiersman, he was fiery and passionate and derisive. After the War of 1812 broke out, he gave up his job as attorney to don the uniform of a major general, going … Read more