Breaking Nation: A Civil War Podcast
When the political system of compromise that had served the United States for decades utterly and epically fails to deal with slavery at a national level, the mid-nineteenth century leaders of the nation and states must choose where their loyalties lie.
Will they save their way of life and solve the sins of cruel bondage before the land and its people are torn apart and shredded by violence and prejudice?
When Abraham Lincoln takes the oath of office as the sixteenth President on March 4, 1861, he faces a crisis unlike any other faced by his predecessors.
The country is on the brink of breaking as a nation…
Breaking Nation: A Civil War Podcast will take you on a revelatory and surprising journey through the years of the American Civil War, as if you had no idea how the events surrounding you would play out.
Recent Episodes
S2E1 – Little Napoleons
Interview with Chris Mowery
Interview with Robert Tracy McKenzie
S1E6 – The Island in the Harbor
S1E5 – Stars and Banners
S1E4 – A Political Free-For-All
Listen On
Recent Blog Posts
Buell’s Department: A Quiet Force in a Tumultuous War
When General Don Carlos Buell assumed command of the newly created Department of the Ohio on November 15, 1861, the Union war effort entered a crucial transitional moment. The early months of the Civil War had been marked by confusion, rivalry among…
Season 2 Episode 1 – Little Napoleons
Season 2 of Breaking Nation: A Civil War Podcast opens in the tense, uncertain spring of 1861—a moment when the fate of the United States hung by a thread. The guns of Fort Sumter have just fallen silent, their smoke still drifting over Charle…
The Trent Affair Uncovered: Britain's Brush with the Union
The Trent Affair, unfolding in November 1861, was one of the earliest and most dangerous diplomatic crises of the American Civil War. It began when the U.S. Navy’s Captain Charles Wilkes stopped the British mail steamer RMS Trent in the Caribb…