Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The American Civil War

75:15

102 - Vilified: Braxton Bragg

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2026/09/30

About this episode: Back in 1969, Columbia University Press published Volume I of a biography written by historian Grady McWhiney. The work chronicled the life of a full general in Confederate service. There was to be a Volume II but, as Civil War historian Richard McMurray reportedly put it, “McWhiney found his subject so nauseous that he abandoned the project.” No question, the subject of McWhiney’s research was stern, intimidating, quarrelsome, a martinet, but despite those flaws, he

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70:52

101 - Political Chess Across the Sea: Civil War...

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2026/08/31

About this episode: The October 1777 victory at Saratoga opened the door for an alliance with France, and that nation's aid was crucial for American independence. All too aware of that fact, Jefferson Davis made European recognition a priority. For as many Southerners put it, this was their second war for independence. Conversely, Abraham Lincoln was just as committed to keeping the Confederacy isolated. This is the story of two governments waging war in the art of negotiation. This is the story

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72:07

100 - The Nation at 100: 1876

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2026/07/30

About this episode: In this, the 250th year of American independence, we look back over time’s shoulder to revisit the nation only eleven years after its great civil war. From Philadelphia, Washington City and the relatively civilized East Coast to the wilds of the territories, Montana, Dakota and New Mexico, we bring to light issues that dominated then and still linger. Our focus: this country as it struggled to come into its own - struggled to establish its identity. For our 100th episode, we

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53:05

099 - First Blood: Big Bethel

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2026/06/26

About this episode: Shots had been fired and mobilization in both North and South began. Many believed it would be over in six months. Only a few anticipated a four-year struggle which would bring political, military and social change. Changes that few could even begin to imagine. In the first months of the conflict, the pieces on the military chessboard were being placed and opening moves calculated. Like so many conflicts over the course of time, there was excitement in the air and

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76:59

098 - The Early Players

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2026/06/01

About this episode: In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5, the title character states that, “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” That line resonates well with many during the opening months of the American Civil War. With war as their stage, many believed the struggle provided opportunity for personal acclaim and glory. Some were successful. Some were not—there at the beginning but not the end. And when

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69:46

097 - "Driving Ol' Dixie Down": Stoneman's Raid

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2026/04/29

About this episode: In 1969 - 104 years after the fact - Canadian Robbie Robertson wrote a song for his group The Band. It was a first-person narrative relating economic and social distress for a poor white Southerner during the last year of the American Civil War. Robertson’s song was voiced by the band’s lone American, drummer and native Arkansan Levon Helm whose haunting rendition opened with, “Virgil Kane is the name And I served on the Danville train 'Till Stoneman's cavalry came And tore

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55:18

096 - Grant's Lieutenants

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2026/03/25

About this episode: In March of 1864, Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to military heights only attained by one other - George Washington. On the 2nd day of that month, the US Senate confirmed Grant’s promotion to Lieutenant General. On the 9th, President Abraham Lincoln officially commissioned him and the next day he was given official authority to take command of the Armies of the United States. Though in overall command of the mighty U.S. military machine, he had to have lieutenants who would

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43:16

095 - After The Sound Of Bugles Faded: The Last Years...

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2026/02/25

About this episode: We begin Part II of our post-war story of R. E. Lee. It is early 1867 and, we remind you that in March of that year, there was to be a fund-raising event for Washington College in, of all places, New York City. 500 were to attend. Men of means and power - all potential donors - and much was expected from this highly anticipated gathering. And yet, a month before the gala, on the 4th of February, a disturbance in Lexington that created dark clouds for not only Lee but the

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44:59

094 - After The Sound Of Bugles Faded: The Last Years...

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2026/01/26

About this episode: We begin a two part presentation that tells the story of a man who never truly sought fame and never wanted to be controversial, and yet his destiny casts such a long shadow that to this day, he may well be one of the most noted generals in American military history, and to more than a few, lurks as one who was and continues to be deemed a traitor. He began his military career at 18 years of age, when he entered West Point in 1825. We pick up his life when, after surrendering

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75:45

093 - Fighting On The Frontier: The American Civil...

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2025/12/30

About this episode: For this episode, we’ll take the American Civil War to places that far too many dismiss - west of the Mississippi. Sites and confrontations that may not be as well-known as eastern theater battlefields like Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg or Chattanooga but, nevertheless at locations where national interests were just as great, passions of those involved just as deep and consequences that were just as far-reaching. Three selected stories - each to provide a snapshot of

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49:37

092 - A Man Committed: William Tecumsah Sherman, Part 2

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2025/11/21

About this episode: In the aftermath of the great and bloody battle of Shiloh, we pick up with the life and career of William Tecumseh Sherman. His personal journey continues to be one that spans the vast spectrum that comprises life itself - ups and downs, triumphs and defeats. In this episode, we speak of his command of the Union’s Western Theater and its campaigns, his post-war rise to General-in-Chief and, after retirement, his time as citizen. Through all, he was larger than life and no

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52:08

091 - Finding Himself: William Tecumsah Sherman, Part 1

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2025/10/29

About this episode: It was a Wednesday, August 11, 1880 and some 5000 Union veterans gathered at the Ohio State Fair. President Rutherford B. Hayes had just finished a speech when another was called for. The next speaker was tall, sinewy and long in the neck. His head was large and his face a regular nest of wrinkles. Often animated and mercurial in temperament, on this day, his features expressed determination - especially his mouth. “There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all

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63:11

090 - Rich In "Guns And Butter": The North In 1860

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2025/09/30

About this episode: The year was 1859 and future Confederate Secretary of the Navy, Florida Senator Stephen R. Mallory, trumpeted, “It is no more for this country to pause in its career than for the free and untrammeled eagle to cease its soar.” He had every reason to be optimistic, for the decade of the 1850s had brought the United States of America exceptional growth and prosperity. And, with enormous resources, there was much to look forward to: vast unoccupied lands, a network of navigable

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01:09:48

089 - Colonial Status: The World Of The Antebellum South

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2025/08/29

About this episode: Sometime in 1861, the young Georgia poet Sidney Lanier, a recent Confederate Army enlistee, attended a mock medieval tournament in Kinston, NC. Watching mounted Confederate officers dressed as knights competing for the honor of a local belle, he was moved…even enraptured. To him, the scene was a metaphor for the war itself. The South was a gallant knight battling against dark Northern materialistic forces. Defending hallowed chivalry. As Lanier put it, the Confederacy’s

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01:11:45

088 - Death In The Trenches: The Siege Of Petersburg

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2025/07/31

About this episode: From June 18, 1864 until April 2, 1865, the Union Armies of the James and Potomac laid siege to Peterburg, Virginia - the all-important supply and communication center for Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and Richmond itself. After 45 days of constant bloodletting in the Overland Campaign, the contesting forces began what would mirror warfare five decades later - miles and miles of trenches, denuded landmarks and death not so much by rifled muskets and artillery

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01:04:24

087 - Modernizing War: Science And Technology In The...

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2025/06/26

About this episode: GPS, drones, laser-guidance—all modern marvels that have served mankind in both peace and war. Nothing new, for there were creations and adaptations for a conflict contested in the 1860s; enough so that that confrontation has been called, by many, the first “modern war.” This is the story of enterprising inventors and engineers and their ideas and machines—their taking theory and making it practical. The ongoing marriage between innovation and war, this is the story of

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01:21:14

086 - Sowers Of Dissent: Fire-Eaters Louis T. Wigfall...

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2025/05/29

About this episode: Revolution and civil war require explosive issues and impassioned men more than willing to make change and, if necessary, to do so violently. This is the story of two such Southern men. This is the story of fire eaters Louis T. Wigfall and Edmund Ruffin. ----more---- Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode: Nathaniel Macon Roger A. Pryor John Brown Sam Houston P. G. T. Beauregard James H. Hammond Subscribe to the Threads from the National Tapestry YouTube Channel

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01:31:19

085 - And The War Began...: Fort Sumter Revisited

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2025/04/30

About this episode: It takes a cast to put on a play and our story this day is filled with characters that emoted passions raging from reasoned deliberation to knee-jerk and violent. And not only for the chain of events that led to the first confrontation of the American Civil War but throughout and even beyond the four-year long conflict. Men and women caught in the cross-hairs of history or those that created them. This is the story of the characters and events that led to momentous drama in

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01:17:31

084 - Return To The Confederacy's Gibraltar: Fort...

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2025/03/28

About this episode: Some six years ago, we chronicled the Confederacy’s Gibraltar that allowed Wilmington, NC to be the last major Confederate port open to the outside world. 72 episodes later and in the 160th year of its capture, we, again, turn our attention to the massive earthen fort and those that took part in the campaign to either storm or defend the Confederate Goliath. This is the expanded story of the fort whose fall in January of 1865 hastened, in many respects, Lee’s retreat from

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01:06:25

083 - A Modern-Day Moses: The Life Of Harriet Tubman

Threads From The National Tapestry: Stories From The... ·

2025/02/26

About this episode: She stood only about 5’, yet, in terms of achievement and historical significance, she remains a giant. This is the story of not only a remarkable woman, but human being. This is the story of Harriet Tubman. ----more---- Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode: Charles Nalle Frederick Douglass Thomas Garrett William Seward John Brown Subscribe to the Threads from the National Tapestry YouTube Channel here Thank you to our sponsor, The Badge Maker - proudly carrying

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