Imagine showing up to enlist in the Union Army during the Civil War and being told to open your mouth. The Army wanted to see your teeth. And not just because they were concerned about whether you could chew your dinner. Civil War soldiers carried ammunition in paper cartridges. To load a rifle-musket, a soldier… Continue reading
A few years ago I came across the story of Mary Bowser, a formerly enslaved woman who became a Union spy in Richmond during the Civil War. Bowser reportedly worked inside the Confederate White House, where Jefferson Davis lived with his wife, Varina, and passed information she gathered there to the Union. Naturally, that sent… Continue reading
John Brown remains one of the most complicated figures in American history. A fierce abolitionist who came to believe slavery would never be destroyed peacefully, Brown was willing to use violence against those who defended it. In 1856, during the bloody conflict over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or slave state,… Continue reading
Some family stories are discovered one record at a time. Others practically leap off the page and demand to be told. That was the case when I stumbled across the story of my distant cousins, twin brothers Charles Leslie Seekell (1849-1925) and James Wesley Seekell (1849-1914). In 1861 when most twelve-year old boys are still… Continue reading
Tiny Acorns & Mighty Oaks 