Sharing My Years of Study

Welcome to my California and the Civil War blog, which finally provides me a place to share information I've gathered through years of study and research.

Let's get right to the elephant in the room, shall we? What connection did California have to the Civil War? Although a great deal of distance lies between the main battlefields of the war and the gold fields of the 31st state, California' 16,000-man contribution to the war effort surpassed the total number of men in the pre-war Regular Army. While the majority of California's volunteers manned frontier posts so Regular Army troops could travel east and join the fighting, some Californians saw combat at Gettysburg and on other fields.

Looking at the bigger picture, California was a destination visited by some of the pivotal figures in the war: Henry Wager Halleck, Joe Hooker, Ulysses Simpson Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman and Winfield Scott Hancock passed through the state before the war, as did Albert Sidney Johnston, John Bell Hood, William Dorsey Pender, Richard Brooke Garnett and Lewis Addison Armistead.

California also proved a haven for some old soldiers, including William Starke Rosecrans, Thomas Turpin Crittenden, Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana, Tyree Harris Bell, George Blake Cosby, Henry Brevard Davidson and Edward Higgins.

In this blog, I'll offer information on men and battles, as well as monuments and museums that you can visit to learn more about this overlooked aspect of our country's Civil War history.