Category Archives: Uncategorized

Civil War, Uncategorized

200th Post – Manassas, Poll Results and Our Future Plans

For our 200th post I wanted to show what I thought was an amazing sight. This picture was taken at Manassas National Battlefield Park at the location of the Confederate artillery line during he battle.  If you follow the cannon you will see they go off into the distance, I believe there were thirteen total. The Civil War was fought before we had movie cameras that could capture events and often accounts of the battle would take days or weeks to reach the families of those that participated. For the men that fought them there was always a struggle to tell their story.

Some men of course were good with the words and that is how we know what we know, but many more never got to tell the story of their experiences. It is those that feel that I always feel for the most when I stand at one of these historic locations. North and South combined totaled about 870 killed in action on the day of what would be the first of many battles. A little more than a year later at Antietam almost 23,000 died. The scale was just amazing.

So on this day I stood on the Confederate line trying to imagine what they saw and heard as cannons roared and men shouted. It is important to never forget those that died or those that lived. For 200 post I have tried to tell their stories from all of America’s wars. The mundane and the extraordinary. I hope that you have found it entertaining and worth while and that you would be willing to share this blog with your friends and family.

So the pool that I put up a couple of weeks ago regarding new features for the blog is closed and oddly enough we ended up with a three-way tie. You voted for more book reviews, military movie reviews and shorter articles. So as we move into the 200 this is what we are going to do.

One week a month will be considered review week. The Tuesday post will be a book review, the Thursday post will be a movie review. As always we will stick to the theme of American Military History. Wednesday we will have a little fun and post a word of military origin and a brief look at its etymology (word history). They’ll be brief but will add a little flavor.

So that is our plan moving forward. Thank you all for helping us grow our audience. Here is to another 200!

Uncategorized

Welcome!

We have had a lot of new people join us on Facebook the last couple of weeks. Thanks for coming out and “Liking” the page.

If you get the time come on over to the website to see even more.

In fact you will find a lot of articles that were not posted to Facebook because of a technical glitch for a couple of months. Plus you can also take a look at the Gallery and our book recommendations in the Gift Shop.

Most importantly on the Images & Credits page you will find links to all the wonderful museums, historic sites and institutions where many of the pictures were taken at. Supporting them makes sure we all have places to go on our vacations.

Thanks and again and enjoy. Remember, new posts come out Tuesday and Thursday around noon.

 

SDHatfield

Uncategorized

Thanksgiving Week

We are taking the week off for the holiday, but will be back next week with more great pictures and articles. In the meantime, for your pleasure, is President Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation that officially established the holiday.

Have a safe and happy holiday.

 

October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States
A Proclamation

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Abraham Lincoln