Killing Dixie: The Complete Rise and Fall of the Confederate States of America

A new podcast on the day-to-day account of the Confederacy during the American Civil War

Stay tuned for podcast episodes on the day-to-day account of the Confederacy during the Civil War from its birth to its downfall. Listeners can take a journey and follow Confederate leaders, soldiers, and citizens, military tactics including key battles on land and at sea as well as strategy and policies.

Though it existed for just four years, the Confederate States of America has had a long, lasting impact on the history of the United States. From the Confederacy's inception in 1861 to the conclusion of the American Civil War in 1865, the Killing Dixie trilogy will offer a comprehensive day-to-day examination of the Confederacy's key people, places, and battles. From the year of secession and the pivotal event that led to the beginning of the Civil War at the Battle at Fort Sumter in 1861 to the end of the war with the surrender at Appomattox in 1865 and beyond, listeners will get a thorough overview of the history of the Confederacy and the American Civil War.  Meet fascinating Confederates, including President Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee, and Lincoln's infamous assassin, John Wilkes Booth. Experience the bloodiest battles ever fought on U.S. soil, and learn about the military leaders who led their forces to victory and defeat. The podcast will boast an abundant amount of archival information and will provide links to resources such as photographs, detailed works of art, maps, and historic reproductions, including original Confederate manuscripts and notes.

The facts of the history of the Confederacy have been at the mercy of many temporary historians and academia throughout the years. The facts of history have been either confounded with sensational rumors or discolored by violent prejudices. For the most part, with this condition, they are not facts of history but false schools of present public opinion. By composing a severely just account of the Confederacy on the basis of contemporary evidence by ascertaining the facts, combining them in compact narrative, and illustrating them by careful analysis of the spirit of the press, the author aspires to place the history above political misrepresentations and to make it complete. The record of facts and the accounts of public opinion existing with them is used to provide the lessons their context should convey and inspire. The author hopes to succeed in what he proposes and will have no reason to boast that he has produced any great literary wonder but to claim that he has made an important contribution to truth, to satisfy curiosity without “sensation,” and to form public opinion without violence.

It is impossible to cover history as an intelligible whole and to secure its ends without preserving a certain dramatic unity in the narrative. It is by such unity that the lesson of history is conveyed and its impression properly affected; and to do this it becomes necessary to include in the narrative many small incidents, either episodic in their nature or of small importance in the logical chain of events. With this view, the podcast will pay great attention to small occurrences of history which in a way have affected its general fortunes and has measured his accounts of battles and other events by the actual extent of their influence on the grand issues of the contest.  Instead of a confused chronological collection of events, this podcast seeks to prepare for the listener a compact and logical narrative that will keep his attention close to the main movement of the history, and put instruction as to causes hand in hand with the information of events.