Ambrotype of African American Woman with Flag - believed to be a washerwoman for Union troops quartered outside Richmond, Virginia

Home Front: Black Women Unionists in the Confederacy

The resistance and unionism of enslaved and freed Black women in the midst of the Confederacy is an epic story of sacrifice for nation and citizenship.
The Confederate States almanac for 1862

On Harvests and Histories

Almanacs from the Civil War era reveal how two sides of an embattled nation used data from the natural world to legitimize their claims to statehood.
A photograph of a company of Black troops from the archives of the United States Sanitary Commission

The Sanitary Commission’s Other Agenda

The US Sanitary Commission is credited with saving lives during the Civil War, but its leadership hoped it would be remembered for advancing racialized science.
A sanitary-commission nurse and her patients at Fredericksburg, May 1864

The Post-Civil War Opioid Crisis

Many servicemen became addicted to opioids prescribed during the war. Society viewed their dependency as a lack of manliness.
1866 Johnson Map of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware

Emancipation Comes to West Virginia

The Emancipation Proclamation exempted border states from the demand to free enslaved people. But what about West Virginia, which wasn’t yet a state?
A collection of objects from the civil war

Patriotism and Consumerism in the Civil War

For a burgeoning consumer society, store-bought flags and bonnets offered proof that commercialism could go hand in hand with heartfelt emotion.
Ruins at end of Richmond and Petersburg Railroad Bridge, Richmond, between 1861 and 1865

Not Mathew Brady: The Civil War Photos of Andrew J. Russell

Will the real Civil War photographer please stand up?
A line of black civil war soldiers holding their rifles circa 1860

Black Soldier Desertion in the Civil War

The reasons Black Union soldiers left their army during the Civil war were varied, with poor pay, family needs and racism among them.
Berea College sends its extension workers into remote communities

How a Southern College Tried to Resist Segregation

The founder of Kentucky's Berea College was an abolitionist. While he was alive, the school offered a free education for both Black and white students.
Bombardment of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor: 12th & 13th of April, 1861

How the Civil War Got Its Name

From "insurrection" to "rebellion" to "Civil War," finding a name for the conflict was always political.