Circa1865

This web blog is a collection of widely-varied viewpoints and focuses on the American War Between the States, or “Civil War,” and years before and after the conflict.  The entries are categorized for easier research of the topics presented, and readers/researchers are encouraged to obtain the cited works for further study and understanding of the site content.

Additions to this blog are generally made weekly, so please check back often. 

The Author:

John Bernhard Thuersam is an historian born and reared near Niagara Falls who received his undergraduate and post-graduate education in New York, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina.  He credits an undergraduate history professor with assigning James G. Randall’s 1937 “The Civil War and Reconstruction” text with opening his eyes to the complexity of the war which fundamentally changed the Founders’ America. He is the author of “Key West’s Civil War: Rather Unsafe for a Southern Man to Live Here” (Shotwell Press, 2022), and “Plymouth’s Civil War: The Destruction of a North Carolina Town” (Scuppernong Press, 2024) – both available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble Books. His second book received the 2024 Douglas Southall Freeman Award of the Military Order of the Stars & Bars (MOS&B). 

The author can be contacted via bernhard1848@gmail.com.