Civil War Censorship: The Arrest & Imprisonment of Wheeling's Democratic Editors

/
Civil War Censorship: The Arrest & Imprisonment of Wheeling's Democratic Editors

On Saturday, July 9th, 1864, Captain Ewald Over of the 6th West Virginia Infantry received an order originating from Major General David Hunter. The order directed Capt. Ewald—the military commander of Wheeling, West Virginia—to arrest the editors of the Wheeling Daily Register and shut the newspaper’s offices down. At three o’clock in the afternoon, Captain Ewald and a small cadre of soldiers entered the offices of the Wheeling Daily Register and placed editors Lewis Baker and O.S. Long under arrest. A soldier was posted outside the Register’s office, and the two prisoners were escorted to Athenaeum on the corner of 16th and Market Streets. A small military prison that housed upwards of one hundred Confederate prisoners, the Athenaeum (christened “Lincoln’s Bastille” by the locals) now confined two United States citizens as well…

Read More

Surrendering to "Genl Intoxication"

/
Surrendering to "Genl Intoxication"

In studying the Civil War, we often remark about the youth (sometimes the extreme youth) of the men who fought it.  Yet while these men were engaged in a serious and deadly endeavor, they did not cease to be young men...capable of all the mishaps, shenanigans, and vices to which people of a young age can be suspecible.  This is, of course, reflected in our own lives as well.  We’ve all had our college parties or midnight soirees or one glass of wine too many. Young soldiers most certainly did, too. These are stories, both light-hearted and somber, of men surrendering to “Genl Intoxication.”

Read More