Random Thoughts on History

When I drive to eastern Kentucky to work on a Teaching American History grant every few months, I drive through Wolfe County and the ti...

In those pension records that I had ordered from the National Archives so long ago were also ones from another Union ancestor, Robert F. ...

Elizabethtown, Kentucky resident Samuel Haycraft wrote to Abraham Lincoln several times in the spring, summer, and fall of 1860 gathering ...

Lately I have been studying quite a bit about slave insurrections, both those that were only conspiracies and those that were realized. Ma...

On August 16, the Kentucky Historical Society launched a new educational technology that is accessible through a smart phone via a free a...

What's better than reading history about your local community? Well, the only thing I can of is reading history about your local commu...

I've gotten a little behind on my posting of books recently read. I suppose that I should either slow down my reading of pick up my po...

When I began my fascination with the Civil War many, many years ago, one of the personalities that I couldn't get enough of was Stonew...

Recently while looking for some old photographs I ran across some pension records that I had ordered about 12 years ago from the National...

Married couple or sweethearts? Or, possibly brother and sister? They do look a lot alike, don't you think? There doesn't appear t...

The Haitian Revolution's influence on the American Civil War is finally getting the scholarly attention it deserves. Along with Edward...

Several months back I read Professor Anne E. Marshall's excellent article, "The 1906 Uncle Tom's Cabin Law and the Politics ...

When I first saw the image of the man at left I was astounded that he could have been a slave. But, such was the fate of Lewis Clarke who ...

At the recent Society of Civil War Historians meeting in Lexington I came real close to buying a couple of books on the destructive nature...

On the way to visit family in Madison, Indiana yesterday, I stopped at a cemetery in Eminence, (Henry County) Kentucky to search for a ...

Every once in a while I get outside of my reading comfort zone - not too far mind you - but a little outside. Such was the case with my la...

When I was in Washington D.C. back in June I took the above picture at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. I forgo...

Kentucky House Bill 36, "An Act to prohibit and punish rebellion by citizens of Kentucky and others in this State, " proposed...

The immediate post-Civil War period in the Commonwealth of Kentucky has often been referred to in historical accounts as "Readjust...

I had this particular book on my wishlist for several months when I saw it for 40% off at the Society of Civil War Historians meeting last...