Civil War-SC

Our guest this week, Steve Procko, tells us the true story of nine Union prisoners-of-war who escaped from a Confederate prison in Columbia, South Carolina, in November 1864, and traveled north in brutal winter conditions more than 300 miles with search parties and bloodhounds hot on their trail. On the difficult journey they relied on the help of enslaved men and women, as well as Southerners who sympathized with the North, before finally reaching Union lines in Knoxville, Tennessee, on New Years Day 1865.

“B” is for Bee, Barnard Elliott (1824-1861). Soldier.

“B” is for Bee, Barnard Elliott (1824-1861). Soldier.

Stephen Atkins Swails is a forgotten American hero. A free Black in the North before the Civil War began, Swails exhibited such exemplary service in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry that he became the first African American commissioned as a combat officer in the United States military. After the war, Swails remained in South Carolina, where he held important positions in the Freedmen’s Bureau, helped draft a progressive state constitution, served in the state senate, and secured legislation benefiting newly liberated Black citizens. Swails remained active in South Carolina politics after Reconstruction until violent Redeemers drove him from the state.Gordon C. Rhea tells Swails' story in his new biography, Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction (2021, LSU Press. Rhea talks with Walter Edgar about the saga of this indomitable human being who confronted deep-seated racial prejudice in various institutions but nevertheless reached significant milestones in the fight for racial equality.

Stephen Atkins Swails is a forgotten American hero. A free Black in the North before the Civil War began, Swails exhibited such exemplary service in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry that he became the first African American commissioned as a combat officer in the United States military. After the war, Swails remained in South Carolina, where he held important positions in the Freedmen’s Bureau, helped draft a progressive state constitution, served in the state senate, and secured legislation benefiting newly liberated Black citizens. Swails remained active in South Carolina politics after Reconstruction until violent Redeemers drove him from the state.Gordon C. Rhea tells Swails' story in his new biography, Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction (2021, LSU Press. Rhea talks with Walter Edgar about the saga of this indomitable human being who confronted deep-seated racial prejudice in various institutions but nevertheless reached significant milestones in the fight for racial equality.

In February 1864, the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley became the first submarine to sink an enemy ship in combat, in Charleston Harbor.

Stephen Atkins Swails is a forgotten American hero. A free Black in the North before the Civil War began, Swails exhibited such exemplary service in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry that he became the first African American commissioned as a combat officer in the United States military. After the war, Swails remained in South Carolina, where he held important positions in the Freedmen’s Bureau, helped draft a progressive state constitution, served in the state senate, and secured legislation benefiting newly liberated Black citizens. Swails remained active in South Carolina politics after Reconstruction until violent Redeemers drove him from the state.Gordon C. Rhea tells Swails' story in his new biography, Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction (2021, LSU Press. Rhea talks with Walter Edgar about the saga of this indomitable human being who confronted deep-seated racial prejudice in various institutions but nevertheless reached significant milestones in the fight for racial equality.

Stephen Atkins Swails is a forgotten American hero. A free Black in the North before the Civil War began, Swails exhibited such exemplary service in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry that he became the first African American commissioned as a combat officer in the United States military. After the war, Swails remained in South Carolina, where he held important positions in the Freedmen’s Bureau, helped draft a progressive state constitution, served in the state senate, and secured legislation benefiting newly liberated Black citizens. Swails remained active in South Carolina politics after Reconstruction until violent Redeemers drove him from the state.Gordon C. Rhea tells Swails' story in his new biography, Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction (2021, LSU Press. Rhea talks with Walter Edgar about the saga of this indomitable human being who confronted deep-seated racial prejudice in various institutions but nevertheless reached significant milestones in the fight for racial equality.

In celebration of Walter Edgar’s Journal at 21, this week's episode is an encore from 2012. In Ric Burns’ American Experience documentary, Death and the Civil War, he explores the 19th century idealization of a “good death,” and how that concept was brutally changed by battles like that at Gettysburg.With the coming of the Civil War, and the staggering casualties it ushered in, death entered the experience of the American people as it never had before -- permanently altering the character of the republic and the psyche of the American people.Burns joins Dr. Edgar to talk about the film, and the ways in which the Civil War forever changed the way Americans deal with death. Also taking part in the discussion are David W. Blight, Professor of American History at Yale University, and the Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale; and Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, the Lincoln Professor of History in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Her Pulitzer-Prize-winning book, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008) forms the basis for Burn’s documentary.

In celebration of Walter Edgar’s Journal at 21, this week's episode is an encore from 2012. In Ric Burns’ American Experience documentary, Death and the Civil War, he explores the 19th century idealization of a “good death,” and how that concept was brutally changed by battles like that at Gettysburg.With the coming of the Civil War, and the staggering casualties it ushered in, death entered the experience of the American people as it never had before -- permanently altering the character of the republic and the psyche of the American people.Burns joins Dr. Edgar to talk about the film, and the ways in which the Civil War forever changed the way Americans deal with death. Also taking part in the discussion are David W. Blight, Professor of American History at Yale University, and the Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale; and Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, the Lincoln Professor of History in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Her Pulitzer-Prize-winning book, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008) forms the basis for Burn’s documentary.