Hello and welcome to Civil War Stories. I'm your host, Steve Matthews. Today we're going to explore one of the most extraordinary and mysterious phenomena of the American Civil War - a story that sounds like something from a fairy tale but may very well be grounded in scientific fact. So settle in as we journey to the muddy fields of Shiloh, Tennessee, where wounded soldiers reported seeing their wounds glow with an otherworldly blue light - and where that strange glow may have been the difference between life and death.

Hello and welcome to Civil War Stories. I'm your host, Steve Matthews. Today we're going to explore a fascinating and often overlooked consequence of the American Civil War - how the conflict's end gave birth to one of America's most enduring cultural phenomena: the hobo. So settle in as we journey from the battlefields of 1865 to the railroad tracks of the Gilded Age, where hundreds of thousands of Civil War veterans found themselves riding the rails in search of work, home, and meaning in a rapidly changing America.

Hello and welcome to Civil War Stories. I'm your host, Steve Matthews. Today we're going to explore one of the most innovative yet overlooked aspects of the American Civil War - the Union Army Balloon Corps and the remarkable story of the man who pioneered aerial reconnaissance for the military. So settle in as we journey back to 1861, when a determined aeronaut named Thaddeus Lowe convinced the United States Army to literally rise above the battlefield and see war from an entirely new perspective.