150 Years Ago: Chickamauga

150 years ago today:
The Battle of Chickamauga. Click on the photo below to visit Chickamauga resources at The Civil War Trust, including an outstanding animated map. One veteran of that battle, James A. Garfield -- Chief-of-Staff to Union commander William Starke Rosecrans, went on to become the 20th president of the United States.

132 years ago today:
President Garfield died, 80 days after having been shot twice in the old Baltimore and Potomac railroad terminal (southwest corner of present day Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue, Washington, D.C.). He was two months shy of his 50th birthday.

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, July 11, 1881

Smithsonian article on George Henry Thomas

 (Rudy Ayordoa / David Perry Collection) 

Catching Up With "Old Slow Trot"

by Ernest B. Furgurson
Stubborn and deliberate, General George Henry Thomas was one of the Union's most brilliant strategists. So why was he cheated by history?

Read the full article here: 

Lee was a traitor, Thomas a man of honor -- thoughts from an unreconstructed Yankee

“I think that Robert E. Lee, as a traitor and betrayer of his solemn oath before God and the Constitution, was a much greater terrorist than Osama Bin Ladin… after all, Lee killed many more Americans than Bin Ladin, and almost destroyed the United States. What do you think?”

So wrote Lt. Col. Robert Bateman in an August 14, 2013 Esquire essay entitled, The Meaning of Oaths and a Forgotten Man. You can read the full essay here.