Drunk is probably the best way to be during this particular period of history, but comedy is a good fallback for the teetotals among us. Here’s Donald Trump’s less-than-eloquent take on the Civil War reenacted by the Daily Show.

Source: President Trump’s Civil War History | Military.com

Some rare good news when it comes to preservation: Lawmakers in Georgia are debating expanding some of the states’ Civil War sites, including the Kennesaw Mountain battlefield!

The only site in metro Atlanta is Kennesaw Mountain, which had 2,593,725 visits in 2017 — making the Civil War battleground the 37th most-visited federal park site, ahead of Mount Rushmore, Bryce Canyon, Mount Rainier and Death Valley.

Source: Effort to expand Kennesaw Mountain, other Georgia parks faces hike

I mentioned Douglas Blackmon in a previous post. Turns out his research is newly relevant again – a graveyard from one of Texas’ bigger prison farms has been unearthed during new construction. The Houston Chronicle spoke to Blackmon and other experts to discuss the history of these farms, what life was like, and some first-person accounts from afflicted inmates.

The convict-leasing system began in Texas and other southern states shortly after the Civil War, when officials realized they had a large population of prisoners to care for and very little money, according to author Donald R. Walker in “Penology for Profit,” a book about the Texas system.

The main income for the state came from property taxes, but poor collection and Texans’ hesitance to pay meant little money was coming in, according to Walker. When the Civil War ended, the state treasury showed a balance of over $3 million but only about $145,000 was considered valuable currency.

Politicians thought leasing the prison to outside parties could be profitable. Private individuals would make regular payments to the state for the services of convicts, while the state would oversee inmate care and supervision.

Source: ‘Human lives were not of value’: African-American remains awaken history of convict-leasing system – Houston Chronicle

Here’s a name I’d not heard much before, but whose memoirs I am excited to find, now: Albert Chandler was one of Lincoln’s “Sacred Three” telegraph operators, and given the anecdotes proferred in this article, he was party to many of Lincoln’s tall tales and humourous stories. There’s a novel to be written (or possibly has been already) about Lincoln’s time in the telegraph office!

The Sacred Three deciphered each message and wrote it out in longhand, using a piece of carbon paper. The originals were dispatched to the appropriate offices and the carbon copies filed in a drawer in the order they arrived.

Lincoln kept abreast of all communications by reading the messages from the top down, in reverse chronological order. When he hit a message he had already read, Lincoln would say, “Well, I guess I have got down to the raisins.” When Chandler asked Lincoln what he meant, the president said it was the punch line of a story he’d heard about a girl who had overeaten one day. The binge had started with some raisins and ended with the girl becoming ill and starting to throw up. Eventually the girl exclaimed that her suffering was almost at an end, as she had “got down to the raisins.”

Source: Then Again: Randolph’s Albert Chandler had inside view of Lincoln’s war – VTDigger

Exploring the rift between Christian teaching and evangelical practice in America is a topic that is back in the news, but slavery was one of the first instances of this religious doublethink. Civil War buffs in the Boston area can partake in this interesting, student-run exhibit on now at Harvard.

Another work on display is Josiah Priest’s “Slavery, as it Relates to the Negro, or African Race.” Published in 1843, the book defends slavery using narratives from the Book of Genesis. Priest argued that God created black people to be slaves, citing Noah’s curse on his son Ham, who Priest claimed had black skin.

“It was quite the read,” said Richmond, who chose the book. “When I think of Noah, I think of Noah’s Ark and the flood. I don’t think of how Noah would be used to justify slavery in America. That was something that was really different for me.”

Source: A Harvard exhibit on Christianity and slavery – Harvard Gazette

Some of my favourite history books on the war are the ones dealing with daily life for soldiers or on the homefront. Here’s a fun article that would fit right in there, about the coffee addiction that fuelled the Union army.

Jon Grinspan, a curator at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American History, notes that coffee fueled the war between North and South. “Soldiers drank it before marches, after marches, on patrol and during combat.” Grinspan quotes a Union cavalryman who wrote that in the final month of the war, “We are reduced to quarter rations and no coffee, and nobody can ‘soldier’ without coffee.”

Reading through diaries and journals of Union soldiers, Grinspan found the word coffee was more prevalent than the words war, bullet, cannon, slavery, mother or Lincoln.

I particularly enjoyed this early version of the “troops on speed” practices such as were employed by the Nazis.

Grinspan states that Union General Benjamin Butler was aware of the effect caffeine had on soldiers and ordered his men to carry coffee in their canteens. He planned his attacks, in part, when his men were most caffeinated. Butler told a senior officer prior to a battle in October 1864 that “if your men get their coffee early in the morning, you can hold.”