A great addition to understand the "people" side of the Civil War--Clara Barton's Missing Soldiers Office is now open.

Julia Wilbur attended the dedication of the Sumner School on September 2, 1872. Here's some background.

When Julia Wilbur first came to Alexandria, she boarded at the home of George Seaton. 

Check out the Alexandria Gazette, available online through the Arlington County Public Library. 

In the Manuscript Room at the Library of Congress, I came across the papers of John C. Babcock, who enlisted with Sturgis Rifles in 1861.

Transcriptions of Wilbur's diaries are now online as a searchable PDF. 

Just learned the following: PBS has commissioned at least a six-part series, based on an abolitionist and a "secesh" in Alexandria. 

In 1942, Margaret Leech won a Pulitzer for her book Reveille in Washington 1860-1865. The book was one of the first--maybe the first?--to describe Washington as a living, breathing, and, it would have to be said, smelling place, filled with characters large and small. 

Although officially neutral, France (along with England) was lurking as a possible supporter of the Confederacy. 

When Julia Wilbur first came to Washington in late 1862, a dome to accommodate the expanded Capitol was under construction.

WETA, the local PBS station, broadcast Discovering Alexandria, its 90-minute (that is, 2 hours, with breaks for pledges) documentary on the history of Alexandria, VA, from its early years through the end of the 1800s.

A few weeks ago, I spent an unseasonably warm and sunny Sunday afternoon hearing about Living Hell. 

Thanksgiving, November 1862, a rollicking time for officers and guests at the Parole Prisoners' Camp. The prisoners? Not so much.