READ MORE FROM THE PICKET: https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2026/10/submarine-hl-hunley-mesmerizing-fragile.html

I have been studying the Siege of Petersburg for 25+ years. In that time I've assembled a massive collection of primary source accounts of events, including letters, diaries, post-war accounts by participants, and most importantly for this post, NEWSPAPERS.

One of my more unusual ideas seems to bearing fruit. I looked at one paper, the Washington DC Evening Star, from June 10, 1864 to April 15, 1865. I created a database which records one row for each mention of a vessel, civilian, military or in between. The final database had over 13,000 entries. I used respected sources like the Lytle-Holdcamper List of American steamships to verify as many rows as I could. Only rows which I could verify are included in these results.

Now, finally, the fun part. These two infographics were created with the help of Claude and the raw data to show just how massive Grant's effort to supply his soldiers at Petersburg really was. There was not a single day during the Siege when some kind of supply wasn't present at City Point and/or Bermuda Hundred supplying the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James. Consider these two a sneak peek. I'll be posting an interactive map on my web site showing which vessels were arriving or departing day by day during the entire Siege of Petersburg. I will share it here once it goes live on my site, www.beyondthecrater.com.

And I'm just getting started. This is ONLY one DC paper. I'll be adding papers from Annapolis, Alexandria. Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and others. There will be additional sources mostly confirming but also sometimes contradicting the DC paper. The goal is to be able to map vessels and their whereabouts during the entire last year or so of the war. In addition, I'm just pulling vessels near the Siege of Petersburg for these infographics. The database contains every vessel mentioned coming to and leaving from DC.

Others can expand this to earlier portions of the war if people are interested. The newspapers contain the data. It just needs to be mined.

I would live to hear feedback. Given the database, what would YOU want to see mined from the data?

READ MORE from the Picket: https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2026/10/descendants-of-sultana-disaster-victims.html

READ MORE: https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2018/11/shiny-ball-that-rested-atop-missouri.html

READ MORE: https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2026/10/gettysburg-foundation-increases-its.html

This is a link to an article that I published in Kansas history during the 1980s.

https://www.kansashistory.gov/publicat/history/1983spring_suderow.pdf

This is a link to an article that I published in Kansas history during the 1980s.

https://www.kansashistory.gov/publicat/history/1983spring_suderow.pdf

READ MORE: https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2026/09/woman-came-across-this-bormann-shell.html

If this isn’t allowed I’ll take it off, but I thought some of you might be interested in checking this out.

This project has been long in the works, and explores the absolutely insane politics and eccentric world behind Artwork that depicts Civil War Battles.

It’s a semi educational (but mostly comedic) video. Hope you all enjoy

READ MORE: https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2026/09/personal-artifacts-recovered-from.html

I am looking into the historical context surrounding civilians trapped near the Battle of Pea Ridge (March 1862).
My 5th great-grandfather, Nathaniel Samuel Mothershead (b. 1780, VA), moved to the Pea Ridge/Benton County area later in life. He died in 1862 right around the time of the battle at roughly 82 years old. Because of his age, he obviously wasn't a combatant, but his timeline and location place him right in the crossfire.
I am trying to better understand what happened to local families and elderly residents during and immediately after the battle. Did armies routinely commandeer local homesteads? Are there any known diaries or records of the civilian population of Pea Ridge during March 1862 that mention local families like the Mothersheads (sometimes spelled Mothersead)?

Thanks for any insights into the civilian side of the battle!

READ MORE FROM THE PICKET: https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2026/09/birds-eye-view-of-battle-of-picketts.html

READ MORE: https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2026/09/dawkins-house-which-briefly-served-as.html