Why did Abraham Lincoln sneak into Washington for his inauguration? was the Gettysburg Address written on the back of an envelope? Where did the Underground Railroad run? Did General Sherman really say, “War is Hell”? If you can’t answer these questions, you’re not alone. Join Ken Davis as he deftly sorts out the players, the politics, and the key events – Emancipation and Reconstruction, Shiloh and Gettysburg, Generals Grant and Lee, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and much more.

Did You Know?

• “Atlantic Monthly paid Julia Ward Howe $5 for the poem that would become “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
• “Sarah Edmonds joined the army disguised as a man and became a Union spy.”
• “Nurse Clara Barton, at President Johnson’s request, located missing soldiers after the war’s end.”
• “Lincoln won 40% of the popular vote despite not being on the ballot in the southern states.”
• “The Union possessed 20,000 miles of railroad, more than the rest of the world combined.”
• “Robert E. Lee’s petition for restoration of citizenship disappeared and was not found until 1975.”
• “Harriet Tubman helped more than 300 slaves escape to freedom through the Underground Railroad.”
• “Ford’s Theatre owner John T. Ford was jailed for 29 days in the aftermath of Lincoln’s death.”
• “Four of President Lincoln’s brothers-in-law served the Confederate cause.”
• “On August 5, 1861, the first income tax was passed to finance the war.”
• “North Carolina suffered the heaviest death toll of any Confederate state.”