For Freedom and HumanityThe Civil War Memorandum of Owen Thomas Wright, 14th Indiana Volunteers
1862: War EscalatesTell Owen's story through Civil War historyUnderstand the Civil War through Owen's story
The recently discovered Journals of Owen Thomas Wright, 14th Indiana Volunteers, provide a fresh perspective on the Civil War through the pen of a young soldier who experienced almost the entire war. You can read the complete summary of Owen's story here:
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1862: War Escalates
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- © 2020 by Brent A. Duncan, PhD
Owen celebrates his 21st birthday on his way to a disaster at Fredericksburg. The 14th Indiana is riddled by artillery fire as it advances up a muddy hill with Confederate troops firing down on them from behind stone walls. Trapped in defensive ditches they dig by hand, they wait until the cover of dark to escape sharpshooter bullets.
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- © 2020 by Brent A. Duncan, PhD
Burnside’s delay gave the confederate troops ample time to gather and confront their enemy. Daily, the Union soldiers watched the Confederate ranks swell to what Burnside would call “a vigilant and formidable foe.” While Burnside stalled, Lee gathered the entire Army of Virginia... President Lincoln and Burnside’s staff advised him to alter his plan. Colonel Rush C. Hawkins said to Burnside, “If you make the attack as contemplated, it will be the greatest slaughter of the war.”
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- © 2020 by Brent A. Duncan, PhD
For four days, the army fought the weather. So heavy was the rain, so thick was the mud that wagons and livestock sank and became stuck and boots were sucked off by the mud. Across the river, the Rebels set up a signboard big enough for the Feds to see: “Burnside’s Army stuck in the Mud.”
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- © 2020 by Brent A. Duncan, PhD
Jackson's troops were firmly entrenched and well protected behind a stone wall and in hedges and rifle pits at the top of the ridge. From their safe positions, the Confederates fired a steady stream of Minnie-balls into the dense lines of Federal soldiers struggling up the muddy slope. The barrage ripped apart the advancing Federals. Hundreds of Union soldiers fell with each volley.
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1864
- Hard fighting to pleasant living: New York draft riot becomes race war
- Captured in the Wilderness
- Coming: Of all of the horrors of the Civil War, prison life is the most terrible
- Escape into the Swamp Wars