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Economists Robert Fogel and Stanly Engerman take a financial look at the practice of slavery. Their main argument is that it makes economic sense for a slaveholder to keep his slaves healthy. A healthy slave can do more work than a sick or beaten one…

Admiral David Dixon Porter was born into a family with a rich history of distinguished naval service on July 8, 1813 in Chester, Pennsylvania. Porter was the son of Commodore David Porter, a distinguished United States naval officer. Appointed to the…

February 28th article in the Unionist FayettevilleObserver in which the paper reported that a compromise had been voted for in the House of Representatives and that the House had also defeated a use of force bill. This reporting highlighted several…

This item is an editorial from the Unionist newspaper the FayettevilleObserverin which the paper reports on the 1860 national election results. The paper laments the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, but it stresses the fact that although…

The Fayetteville Observer, a Unionist newspaper, ran an editorial outlining their past advocacy for the cause of the Union and regretted that the nation's had not been solved peacefully, as the paper thought was possible. The editors detailed how…

Startling news from Virginia.-Yesterday’s mail brought us accounts of an outbreak at Harper’s Ferry, Va., accompanied with stories of an abolition and negro insurrection, loss of lives. It is manifest that the accounts so far are mainly guess…

Among the speeches noticed by the Herald, was one by Robert strange, Esq., who argued, as the Herald understands Him, that a seceding State has a right to take the forts and other government property within its limits or on its coast; and that the…

Curiously, historians have tended to understate the importance of slavery within southern consciousness during the war. In part, this may be because in postbellum decades many southerners themselves disavowed slavery as a major cause of the…