Alstroemeria

Extract from 1892 map of the subject area. The Blackwater River flows north-south in left of the image.

The Joint Expedition Against Franklin was a joint engagement between the United States Army and Navy against the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. The engagement was intended to move Union forces into an area where Confederate forces were gathering as they prepared to move on Suffolk, Virginia. Originally planned as a coordinated two-pronged attack with a naval flotilla supporting an infantry advance on Franklin, Virginia, communications delays caused the Union Navy to start the mission before the Army was ready to support it. Instead, October 3, 1862 (1862-10-03) found Union Naval forces on the Blackwater River greatly outnumbered by Confederate infantrymen and ultimately forced to retreat. The naval action alone is also known as the Action at Crumpler's Bluff or the Battle of Crumpler's Bluff.

Simultaneously, a nearby Army reconnaissance team conducted a failed assault on the town on the basis that the audibly nearby Naval forces—which they did not know were then in retreat—would bring support. The outcome left the Union forces with a combined 5 casualties and 21 wounded. Dialogue between officers following the conflict left the Union navy questioning the usefulness of gunboats in joint expedition settings in which they would not be capable of supporting themselves. (Full article...)

The state of New Jersey in the United States provided a source of troops, equipment and leaders for the Union during the American Civil War. Though no major battles were fought in New Jersey, soldiers and volunteers from New Jersey played an important part in the war, including Philip Kearny and George B. McClellan, who led the Army of the Potomac early in the Civil War and unsuccessfully ran for President of the United States in 1864 against his former commander-in-chief, Abraham Lincoln. (Full article...)

James Longstreet (January 8, 1821 – January 2, 1904) was a Confederate general who served during the American Civil War and was the principal subordinate to General Robert E. Lee, who called him his "Old War Horse". He served under Lee as a corps commander for most of the battles fought by the Army of Northern Virginia in the Eastern Theater, and briefly with Braxton Bragg in the Army of Tennessee in the Western Theater.

After graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point, Longstreet served in the United States Army during the Mexican–American War. He was wounded at the Battle of Chapultepec, and during recovery married his first wife, Louise Garland. Throughout the 1850s, he served on frontier duty in the American Southwest. In June 1861, Longstreet resigned his U.S. Army commission and joined the Confederate Army. He commanded Confederate troops during an early victory at Blackburn's Ford in July and played a minor role at the First Battle of Bull Run. (Full article...)

• ... that actor George Kunkel portrayed in blackface the character of Uncle Tom, using it at first to promote slavery during the American Civil War but later to attack it, after his views had changed?
• ... that The Land We Love, a little magazine that merged into Southern Magazine, printed American Civil War recollections, poetry, agricultural material, and many works by female authors?
• ... that singer Frank Croxton performed a duet with his father for the unveiling of a monument to a Confederate States Army general?
• ... that Emma Dean Powell received a pass from General Ulysses S. Grant to accompany her husband to battlefield camps during the American Civil War after he lost his arm?
• ... that Francis Orray Ticknor was a country doctor whose fame as a poet relies on "Little Giffen", a poem about one of his patients who died in the American Civil War?
• ... that some historians believe that Steele's Greenville expedition marked a shift in the Union's war policy?