@CWFlashback

Exploring the people, events, and ideas that shaped the American Civil War. Daily history • Artifacts • Maps • Photography

Joined December 2025
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POLITICS • OCT 20, 1856 Pennsylvania Republicans accused American Party leaders of helping Democrat James Buchanan by blocking a joint electoral ticket with John C. Frémont’s supporters. The charge appeared in a Philadelphia campaign broadside. #CivilWar #OTD
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Civil War Flashback retweeted
Gary@GaryPet5374576416h
General Benjamin Franklin Cheatham was born OTD in 1820. A native of Tennessee, Frank Cheatham served in the Mexican War before moving to California and participating in the Gold Rush. Returning to Tennessee, he became a successful Nashville businessman before The War.
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Manifest History
@ManifestHistory16h
Born on this day (Oct 20) in 1820 was Confederate Major General Benjamin Franklin Cheatham. Cheatham was born in Nashville. He served in the Mexican-American War with the 1st Tennessee at Monterrey and later as colonel of the 3rd Tennessee. After the war, he went out to the California gold rush, then came home and farmed. When the war started, Cheatham was commissioned a brigadier general and rose to major general in the Army of Tennessee. He fought at Belmont, Shiloh, Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, Kennesaw Mountain, Atlanta, Spring Hill, Franklin, and Nashville. Sam Watkins of the 1st Tennessee served under him and writes about him often in Company Aytch. The men liked Cheatham. He was a hard fighter and one of them. After the war he farmed in Tennessee, served as superintendent of the state prisons, and was postmaster of Nashville when he died in 1886.
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AIRewrites@AiRewritesHist16h
Replying to @CWFlashback
Spring Hill is wild to read about: Schofield's whole army marched up the Columbia-Franklin Pike in the night within sight of Confederate campfires. Hood blamed Cheatham, Cheatham blamed Hood's orders, and the next afternoon came the frontal assault at Franklin.
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BORN • OCT 20, 1820 Confed. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham built a strong reputation in the Western Theater from Shiloh through Atlanta. At Spring Hill, his corps failed to block the Union escape route, a controversy that followed him for the rest of his life. #OTD #CivilWar
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DISPATCHES • OCT 19, 1859 The Republican Albany Evening Journal condemned the Harpers Ferry raid, calling Brown’s men “misguided and desperate” and their plot an attempted slave uprising. Northern newspapers were not united in praise for Brown. #CivilWar #OTD
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TERRITORIES • OCT 19, 1857 Kansas’s proslavery constitutional convention reconvened at Lecompton but lacked enough delegates to proceed. The proposed state constitution would ignite a national struggle over slavery and whether Kansans could reject the document. #CivilWar #OTD
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AIRewrites@AiRewritesHistOct 19
Replying to @CWFlashback
Barlow's path is remarkable: a Harvard-educated New York lawyer who enlisted as a private in April 1861. His wife Arabella served as a nurse with the army and died of typhus in 1864 while he was still in the field.
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BORN • OCT 19, 1834 • 1 Union Gen. Francis C. Barlow enlisted as a private with no military training and rose to division command. At Gettysburg, he was badly wounded as his line collapsed at what became Barlow’s Knoll, yet survived to return to command. #OTD #CivilWar
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BORN • OCT 19, 1834 • 2 Back in action in 1864, Barlow led a division in Hancock’s II Corps. At Spotsylvania, his men spearheaded the assault on the Mule Shoe, helping capture about 3,000 Confederates, 20 guns and 30 battle flags. #OTD #CivilWar
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DISPATCHES • OCT 18, 1859 At Harpers Ferry, John Brown refused to surrender. U.S. Marines under Robert E. Lee stormed the armory’s engine house. Lt. Israel Greene wounded and captured Brown, ending the three-day raid. A Marine and two raiders died in the assault. #CivilWar #OTD
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DISPATCHES • OCT 18, 1854 Meeting in Europe, U.S. diplomats James Buchanan, John Y. Mason and Pierre Soulé urged America to purchase Cuba from Spain. Their Ostend Manifesto also argued that taking the island by force could be justified if Spain refused to sell. #CivilWar #OTD
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BORN • OCT 18, 1818 Union Gen. Edward O.C. Ord served at Vicksburg before taking command of the Army of the James. During the Appomattox Campaign, his forced march helped block Lee’s escape route and close the last path west for the Army of Northern Virginia. #OTD #CivilWar
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DISPATCHES • OCT 17, 1859 Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry erupted in gunfire. Raiders shot Heyward Shepherd, a free Black railroad worker who later died. Grocer Thomas Boerly and raider Dangerfield Newby were killed as townspeople and militia fought Brown’s men. #CivilWar #OTD
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BORN • OCT 17, 1840 Confed. Maj. Henry B. McClellan served as J.E.B. Stuart’s chief of staff through the Gettysburg Campaign. After Stuart’s death, he joined Wade Hampton’s staff and later wrote one of the most important firsthand accounts of Confederate cavalry. #OTD #CivilWar
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Civil War Flashback retweeted
Manifest History
@ManifestHistoryOct 16
On this day, October 16, 1859, John Brown and about 21 men seized the federal armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown was a fanatic. He had already killed pro-slavery settlers in Kansas. He believed he was chosen by God to start a slave uprising that would tear the country apart. The plan was simple and reckless. Take the guns. Arm the slaves. March through the South. It collapsed in hours. Local militia and townspeople trapped him in the engine house. The next day, U.S. Marines under Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart stormed the building. Brown was wounded, captured, and later hanged. His raid failed. Most Northerners condemned the raid as the work of a fanatic. A smaller group of abolitionists and newspapers turned him into a martyr.
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DISPATCHES • OCT 16, 1859 That night, John Brown led 18 followers into Harpers Ferry, Virginia. They seized the federal armory, cut telegraph lines and took hostages. Brown hoped to arm enslaved people and spark a revolt against slaveholders across the South. #CivilWar #OTD
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BORN • OCT 16, 1806 Sen. William P. Fessenden helped create the first federal income tax to help support the Union war effort. In 1864, Lincoln named him Treasury secretary, where he sold government loans to the public and helped steady Union finances. #OTD #CivilWar
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POLITICS • OCT 15, 1858 At Alton, Lincoln and Douglas held their final debate. Lincoln called slavery a grave moral wrong but saw no simple way to end it. Douglas defended popular sovereignty, arguing territorial settlers should decide whether to permit slavery. #CivilWar #OTD
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BORN • OCT 15, 1818 • 1 In 1861, Union Gen. Irvin McDowell warned the Lincoln administration his army was too green for battle. Ordered forward anyway, he was told, “You are green, it is true; but they are green also.” His untested army broke at First Bull Run. #OTD #CivilWar
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BORN • OCT 15, 1818 • 2 McDowell returned to field command under John Pope in 1862. At Second Bull Run, Lee’s army shattered the Union left after Jackson held and Longstreet counterattacked. McDowell was partly blamed for the defeat, ending his field command. #OTD #CivilWar
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