Cover of Silver Spring and the Civil War

Silver Spring and the Civil War

On July 11, 1864, some residents cheered and others watched in horror as Confederate troops spread across the fields and orchards of Silver Spring, Maryland. Many fled to the capital while General Jubal Early's troops ransacked their property. The estate of Lincoln's postmaster general, Montgomery Blair, was burned, and his father's home was used by Early as headquarters from which to launch an attack on Washington's defenses. Yet the first Civil War casualty in Silver Spring came well before Early's raid, when Union soldiers killed a prominent local farmer in 1862. This was life in the shadow of the Federal City. Drawing on contemporary accounts and memoirs, Dr. Robert E. Oshel tells the story of Silver Spring over the tumultuous course of the Civil War.

Audience
adult
Length
short · 176 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Silver Spring and the Civil War? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Silver Spring and the Civil War. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Midnight in America Shares civil war, USA, 19th century
  2. Images of Civil War Medicine: A Photographic History Shares civil war, USA, 19th century
  3. Fighting in the shadows Shares civil war, USA, 19th century
  4. Billy Yank Shares civil war, USA, 19th century

“If you want more of the same (history), start with these.”

  1. Lee's bold plan for Point Lookout
  2. Out of the storm
  3. The Civil War letters of Henry C. Bear
  4. "Dear friends"

“If it was the civil war that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Battle scars
  2. Civil War! America Becomes One Nation
  3. Murder in the Lincoln White House
  4. To Make Men Free

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler, and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow That Changed the Course of World War II
  2. Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital
  3. A Blaze of Glory
  4. The Siege of Washington: The Untold Story of the Twelve Days That Shook the Union