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South Carolina is in the news right now as it readies itself for Saturday’s Republican Primary election in which voters will help select a presidential candidate for this fall.

As one of the longest continuously settled areas in America, South Carolina has a long history of dealing with presidents as we find in this 1883 book celebrating the city of Charleston’s first century of Incorporation.  This is an exchange of letters between the city leadership and President George Washington.

It is indicative of the era that the city’s letter sounds as though it is addressing a supreme monarch while President Washington’s reply stresses the importance of democratic ideals as the source and foundation for national ‘happiness’.

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2012 will mark the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War’s second year: 1862.

That year ushered in the bloodiest fighting America had ever seen.  As compared to the fighting of 1861, battles like Shiloh, Gaines’ Mill, Second Manassas, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Stones River shattered thoughts of a short war with modest sacrifices.  1862 also saw the rise of new central figures on both sides.  Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and George McClellan all rose to national and international attention in 1862.

To expand your knowledge of the American Civil War why not make a resolution to learn more about this pivotal year?  Check out our list below for a range of 1862 subjects and topics to pursue in this coming year.

New Year’s Resolution: Learn More about Civil War 1862.

The Civil War Trust has an extensive reading list online here.  Here at Accessible Archives we will be  sharing primary source news coverage from the war as well as reflections by soldiers and officers who fought from our Civil War Collections.

President Lincoln Visiting the Battlefield, General McClellan and 15 members of his Staff are in the Group - Antietam, MD, October 3, 1862

About The Civil War Trust

The Civil War Trust is America’s largest non-profit organization (501-C3) devoted to the  preservation of our nation’s endangered Civil War battlefields. The Trust also promotes educational programs and heritage tourism initiatives to inform the public of the war’s history and the fundamental conflicts that sparked it.

The Civil War Trust has worked to save and preserve more  than 32,000 acres of battlefield land at 110 battlefields in 20 different states.

You can stay on top of their activities on Twitter by following @civilwartrust today.

This story is one of many interesting tales in a new additions to our American County Histories Collection. It can be found in A History of Elizabethtown, Kentucky and its Surroundings.

This book, a continuation of an earlier history of the area, was published by The Woman’s Club of Elizabethtown, Kentucky in 1921.

A Spunky Deputy Sheriff

Edward Rawlings, son of Stephen, was then a young man, afterwards Captain Rawlings. He was a slender, tall man, with but little surplus flesh, nearly all muscle, very active, and prided himself on his manhood and high sense of chivalric honor. A warrant was placed in his hands to arrest “Bill Smothers,” who was a rollicking kind of outlaw, and frequently guilty of personal outrages. He infested the lower end of the county—now Daviess county (which I omitted in my first number to set down as part of Hardin), about 130 miles from the present Court House. Rawlings, by strategem and some help, arrested Smothers, tied him on a horse and started with him on a long journey for the jail. When on the road between Hartford and Hardin’s settlement, Smothers addressed Rawlings something after this manner:

“Ned, I have heard of you, and that you boast yourself to be much of a man. Is it fair if you are a better man than me? I promised to go with you untied, and if I prove to be the better man then let me go.”

Rawlings was too high strung and chivalric to stand that, immediately dismounted and untied his prisoner, and at it they went.—and, like James Fitz James and Rhoderic Dhu, without a spectator to behold the contest, they were well matched. Their brawny arms encircled each other, and every power of muscle, sinew and bone was put in requisition and it would have afforded a rare chance for a special artist. The contest was long and doubtful. But Smothers, being as accustomed to hardships and lying in the woods as the wild beasts, outwinded the Deputy and came off the victor, and accordingly went his way, and Rawlings considered that the matter had been settled by the code of honor, fist and skull, and was content with the issue. His fee in case of success would have been three shillings in tobacco at a penny ha-penny per pound.

This time of year we are all busy getting ready for the holidays but that is no reason to stop learning about history.

These three sites provide audio and video material ranging from expert lectures from professionals to engaging conversations with passionate, self-described, History Chicks.

If you have an iPod you can subscribe to these directly but all of them also provide a mechanism to listen in your web browser so tune it, crank up the volume, and listen while you bake, wrap gifts, or just relax from the hectic schedule so many of us have this time of year. (more…)

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, many of the African American papers in the north as well as abolitionist papers frequently published eye witness accounts of how slaves were treated in the south.

In addition to that type of story, they also sometimes published excerpts from the various state’s legal code as it applied to slaves. These are not the complete legal documents since they focused on the specific laws and rules that would keep the injustice inherent in slavery alive in the minds of their readers.

This is part one of a two part article focused on the slavery laws of Lousiana compiled by an anonymous contributor from Maryland specifically for the National Era newspaper. This was a major endeavor in the days before Wikipedia and online legislative databases.

Information below has been abridged for the web. To view the complete article, please access the Accessible Archives database and search using the data at the end. (more…)