Brooklyn and the Civil War

While Manhattan was the site of many important Civil War events, Brooklyn also played an important part in the war. Henry Ward Beecher auctioned off slaves at the Plymouth Church, raising the money to free them. Walt Whitman reported news of the war in a Brooklyn paper and wrote some of his most famous works. At the same time, Brooklyn both grappled with and embraced unique challenges, from the arrival of new immigrants to the formation of one of the nation's first baseball teams. Local historian Bud Livingston crafts the portrait of Brooklyn in transition--shaped by the Civil War while also leaving its own mark on the course of the terrible conflict.

E.A. Bud� Livingston is a past president of the Civil War Round Table of New York and has edited its newsletter for the past fifteen years. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he has taught and lectured more than four hundred times on the American Civil War, Sherlock Holmes, the Brooklyn Dodgers (1939, 57) and baseball in 1941. He is a graduate of Brooklyn College with a master's degree in history from Queens College.