The Great American History Blog

Andrew Johnson      The practice of embalming only came into its own at the time of the American Civil War.   Thomas Holmes was a...

 Martha Washington Sexual relations between masters and slave women were common during the eighteenth century and later.  Famed S...

     Viewers of the political thriller House of Cards will probably not be surprised to learn that political intrigue is as old as the R...

George Washington had a life-long interest in exotic animals, at one time or another in his lifetime commenting on seeing a “Lyoness”, a “...

     Do ghosts from the American Civil War still walk amongst us, or are reported spectral visions and unearthly things that go bump in ...

"Know, whoever you may be who may chance to set foot in this land, that it contains more gold and silver than there is iron is Biscay...

General Gordon The Seychelles are a group of islands and islets in the Indian Ocean . Praslin Island , the second largest of the g...

Rippon Lodge      Richard Blackburn (1705-1757), although little noted in national history, stands out as a kind of “representativ...

Civil War Locomotive       Since the dawn of history, military strategy had been dominated by logistics.  According to an old s...

"Stonewall" Jackson      On July 21, 1861, Federal artillery sent shells showering over raw Confederate troops at Manass...

     Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign began with the Battle of the Wilderness and continued through Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor and on...

     THE NEW YORK TIMES reported the following incident in October, 1926 concerning treasure in Burlington, New Jersey:       "...

     When famed Confederate raider John S. Mosby rode out of Fairfax Court House in March 1863 he took with him a captured Union general...

     April 2, 1865 was a Sunday, and in Richmond Jefferson Davis was at church.  In the midst of the services a courier arrived with a mes...

On August 13, 1812 Major General Isaac Brock and a British force of 400 regular and militia troops supported by 700 lightly armed Native ...

Despite the best efforts of the clergy, European travelers during the second half of the eighteenth century often commented on the widesp...

     After World War I the British Empire was at the height of its world-wide power. The rivalry between the United States and Great Brita...

The grave of the Female Stranger, in Alexandria, Virginia, remains a place of romance and mystery.  In 1816, a young couple arrived in...

The production of cotton in the Deep South demanded labor, and with the termination of the African slave trade, this demand for labor fuel...