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Whitworth rifles
Even Queen Victoria could hit the bulls eye from 400 yards with an English Whitworth sniper rifle. So a Rebel sharpshooter—apparently firing one with a telescope sight on it from the Bleak House...
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Honors for Gen. Sanders
In addition to having the earthwork the Rebels dubbed Fort Loudon named for him, Union Gen. William P. Sanders has had other honors since—including a curious juxtaposition of his historical marker with...
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Sharpshooter
Literary critic and writing professor David Madden’s 1996 novel Sharpshooter is the only other fiction I’m aware of about the Siege of Knoxville and, very briefly, the Battle of Fort Sanders. It’s a...
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Own your own Whitworth
The Rebs fatally sharpshot Fort Sanders’ namesake Union Gen. William P. Sanders, with a thirteen-pound English Whitworth rifle like this one. It was fired more than a mile away, from the tower of the...
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Memorized poetry
The Civil War was fought at the beginning of an age in which memorizing and declaiming popular poetry was fashionable among even those with minimal educations. This was, after all, a time of limited...
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Reprise: Honors for Gen. Sanders
In addition to having the earthwork the Rebels dubbed Fort Loudon named for him, Union Gen. William P. Sanders has had other honors since—including a curious juxtaposition of his historical marker with...
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Sharpshooter glasses
You can buy these orange-colored, nickle-plated wire-frame glasses on eBay with the assurance of several books that they were worn by sharpshooters in the Civil War. Ahem. One sharpshooter (today he...
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Own Your Own Whitworth, part 2
There’s another opportunity to own a rare English Whitworth rifle, the preferred sniper rifle of the Confederacy. It begins on September 12th through the 14th online at the Rock Island Auction Company....
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Where Union Gen. Sanders died
There aren’t many places in Knoxville today reminiscent of the Battle of Fort Sanders. The fort itself disappeared long ago, unless you count the neighborhood and hospital that later assumed its name....
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Was The South Ever Confederate, Anyway?
The old arguments over the Confederate battle flag (pride or racist symbol, or both), intensified after a photograph surfaced of a mass murderer in Charleston, South Carolina, holding one. This war...
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Those sharpshooters
Sharpshooters, like the unknown Rebel one who felled Fort Sanders’ namesake, General William P. Sanders, from more than a mile away, were special troops with their own drill and esprit. It helped that...
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