Best Fred Kiger Podcasts (2025)

1
082 - Resistance By Liberation: The Underground Railroad 46:43

22d ago46:43

46:43

About this episode: Its mission and those who willingly took part in it dared to defy the highest law in the land. And in their desire to do what was right, they wrote, spoke and acted out against a hateful institution that remains to this day, a cross this country must bear. This is the story of brave crusaders who risked much and an organization …

1
081 - Salve For The Soul: Music During The American Civil War 1:00:48

2M ago1:00:48

1:00:48

About this episode: This is an episode about a phenomenon as old as time itself. Something that, throughout the ages, has brought laughter, reflection, made and rekindled memories and even moved men and women to tears. From stirring airs to ballads and everything in between, this is the story of that which has been described as a salve for the soul…

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080 - Moment Of Decision: The Election of 1864 45:33

3M ago45:33

45:33

About this episode: Presidential elections essentially boil down to a popular mandate, either supporting an incumbent’s administration or repudiating it. Never was that clearer than in 1864 when some four million people went to the polls to either re-elect Abraham Lincoln or oust him. At the election’s core: to stay the course and finish the war or…

1
079 - What If The Confederacy Won The American Civil War? 57:28

4M ago57:28

57:28

About this episode: For millennia humans have reflected on historical events. Quite often, one poses the timeless question: what if - had a life been spared or taken, had a candidate won rather than lost and, as it relates to this episode, what if a battle or war ended differently? So, with a degree of trepidation, we address that last question and…

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078 - Drive on the Heart of the Confederacy: The Atlanta Campaign 1:10:59

5M ago1:10:59

1:10:59

About this episode: Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant understood numbers. And, in the spring of 1864, he intended to use the North’s advantage in men and materiel to pressure, stretch and snap the Confederacy at multiple points. And so, he ordered simultaneous campaigns. As Abraham Lincoln put it, “those not skinning can hold a leg.” Three were t…

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077 - "Stirring Violent Passions" - Civil War Prisons and Prisoners of War 1:08:35

6M ago1:08:35

1:08:35

About this episode: Too often, we think only of wild assaults, the terrible collision of armed men, the desperate fighting of soldiers - often, hand to hand - and the killed and wounded but, in the American Civil War, we tend to overlook what happened to another element that comprised battle casualties: Those captured. This is the story about the A…

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076 - Prelude To 1860: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 55:29

7M ago55:29

55:29

About this episode: As we’ve seen in the one presidential debate this election year, a performance has consequences. Although it was not for the office of chief executive, we turn over time’s shoulder to speak of another storied debate - in 1858 and for the office of U.S. senator. This is the story of a series of face-to-face confrontations that ma…

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075 - "It Was Not War; It Was Murder" - North Anna and Cold Harbor 1:16:51

8M ago1:16:51

1:16:51

About this episode: Washington City was buzzing with anxiety. It was the middle of May 1864 and no news had arrived from Virginia for days. Then, finally, in flurries, it came - word from the front and it was most welcome. Grant was posed to strike a mortal blow. Readers clutched papers that, in bold print, screamed “Extra.” Unable to concentrate, …

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074 - Confederate Cavalier: J.E.B. Stuart 1:03:50

9M ago1:03:50

1:03:50

About this episode: With gray cape lined with red satin and ostrich plume in hat, he was the beau ideal of the cavalier South. He rode and campaigned with Sam Sweeney on banjo and Mulatto Bob on the bones. At times, one wondered was it war or just a lark. Despite all the showy display, he was Robert E. Lee’s “eyes and ears” and his reconnaissance s…

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073 - The Confederacy's Last First Lady: Varina Howell Davis 1:05:50

10M ago1:05:50

1:05:50

About this episode: She was witty, intelligent and a great conversationalist: everything that raised the eyebrows of proper Southern women in the mid-19th century. And then, she married the man who became the first and only President of the Confederacy. Wedded to her fate with him and a doomed nation, her life was filled with trying times. She was,…

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072 - The Dawning Of A New Age: The Fight Between The USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia 1:09:17

11M ago1:09:17

1:09:17

About this episode: For those aboard the fifty-gun USS Congress, it had been a quiet morning. Its crew, as usual, prepared the twenty-year-old vessel for inspection which would be held the next day. Meanwhile, the ship’s quartermaster gazed out over Hampton Roads which glistened under a late winter sun. All seemed normal. And then, at 12:45 p.m., a…

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071 - Edwin McMasters Stanton: Lincoln's "Unloved" Secretary Of War 1:10:39

12M ago1:10:39

1:10:39

About this episode: When exercising power, the 16th President’s stocky and sphinxlike Secretary of War could demonstrate a Jekyll and Hyde personality. Personally honest, he could be unforgiving and given to histrionics when he thought them necessary. And again, when required, warm hearted, selfless and patriotic. In charge of the Union’s land-base…

1
070 - Combatting The Invisible Enemy: Medicine During The Civil War 1:00:44

1y ago1:00:44

1:00:44

About this episode: For most of us, our mental snapshot of 19th-century battlefield medicine is captured when Union Major General Carl Schurz recorded a ghastly scene at Gettysburg: “There stood the surgeons, their sleeves rolled up to their elbows … [One] surgeon snatched his knife from between his teeth …, wiped it rapidly once or twice across hi…

1
069 - Fredericksburg Revisited 1:09:28

1y ago1:09:28

1:09:28

About this episode: Back in December of 2018, we told the story of an engagement that took place along the banks of the Rappahannock and detailed events that took place afterwards. Now, five years later, we return to that story but with greater detail, and the addition of first person accounts. Once again, we would like to take you back to November…

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068 - The Confederacy’s Last Salvo - The Career of the CSS Shenandoah 1:08:02

1y ago1:08:02

1:08:02

About this episode: By 1864, a desperate Confederacy realized it must resort to desperate measures. Measures not only confined to land battles and trying to break the Union blockade, but the procuring and use of commerce raiders which would scour the oceans to wreak havoc on the North’s vast merchant marine. Anything to create economic hardship. An…

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067 - Return to the ”Daughter of the Stars” - The Valley Campaign of 1864 57:58

1+ y ago57:58

57:58

About this episode: The Native Americans referred to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley as “Daughter of the Stars.” Yet, both the Federal Union and the Confederacy knew it to be the “Breadbasket of Virginia” - and that made it a theater for military operations. Both sides very aware of “Stonewall” Jackson’s assessment in 1862, “If the Valley is lost, the…

1
066 - Waging War: Strategy, Tactics, Arms and Technology in the American Civil War 1:08:24

1+ y ago1:08:24

1:08:24

About this episode: This time around, a different delivery, a different approach. Rather than anecdotes and stories from a biography, battle or campaign, this time a series of facts, figures, theories and themes that set the stage for waging civil war. This session: Strategy, Tactics, Arms and Technology - a basis for understanding why our civil co…

1
065 - The Soldier’s Friend: Clara Barton 56:11

1+ y ago56:11

56:11

About this episode: It was over 140 years ago that the American Red Cross was founded. Though most know its founder, few know the details of her lifetime of charity, sacrifice and service. This is an attempt to correct that. This is the story of an American pioneer - an American hero. This is the story of Clara Barton. ----more---- Some Characters …

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064 - Taking Down The Citadel: The Siege of Vicksburg 56:32

1+ y ago56:32

56:32

About this episode: In the first days of the American Civil War, Winfield Scott, the then 74-year-old Union General-in-Chief, advised a strategy that he believed was key in putting down the Southern rebellion. Derisively tabbed the “Anaconda” Plan, Scott believed: one, the Border States had to be held and used as avenues for invasion; two, Southern…

1
063 - Then And Now: The Lost Cause 1:01:34

1+ y ago1:01:34

1:01:34

About this episode: It was January 1872. In Lexington, Virginia and on the campus of recently re-named Washington and Lee College, former Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Anderson Early was on a mission: a mission to venerate Robert E. Lee, and to give Southerners a positive spin on their defeat - not only to address the recent past, but to arm…

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062 - ”...Hell Can’t Beat That Terrible Scene”: Spotsylvania Court House 1:07:04

1+ y ago1:07:04

1:07:04

About this episode: It was May 1864 and Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign was underway. After two days of violence in the Wilderness and a swing to the southeast, weary men from the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac found themselves eyeball to eyeball yet again. The fighting to come: savage, up close, personal, hand to hand. …

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061 - Duty, Honor, Countries: The West Point Class of 1846 1:01:31

2y ago1:01:31

1:01:31

About this episode: The United States Military Academy has a long and distinguished history. Established in 1802, its stated mission continues to be “to educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country and prepared for a career of professional…

1
060 - Desperate Times, Desperate Battle: The Battle Of Bentonville 1:07:59

2y ago1:07:59

1:07:59

About this episode: It was March of 1865 and the men under William Tecumseh Sherman had punched their way into North Carolina. In this, the Carolinas Campaign, over 60,000 battle-hardened veterans marched, as they had since they left Atlanta, in two columns. To confront the blue surge, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston boldly planned to throw …

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059 - Connecting The Coasts: The Building Of The Transcontinental Railroad 1:22:00

2y ago1:22:00

1:22:00

About this episode: It was early 1863 and in the very midst of a civil war that challenged the continued existence of the Union, an event that looked to its future. Indeed, a daunting enterprise – the breaking of ground for the Central Pacific Railroad. This is the story of a great undertaking. This is the story of the building of the transcontinen…

1
058 - Breaking The Chains: The Passage Of The 13th Amendment 50:55

2y ago50:55

50:55

About this episode: Shockingly brief given the lives lost, cost, and national trauma, but the American Civil War’s two greatest significances are that the nation was preserved and that slavery was ended. This is the story of a major step in ridding this country's association with “the peculiar institution.” This is the story of the labored steps fo…

1
057 - Jefferson Davis: First and Final Confederate President 1:21:50

2y ago1:21:50

1:21:50

About this episode: There are some sixteen accounts about the life of the President of the Confederacy. Unlike his counterpart, Abraham Lincoln, this President, from the perspective of most historians, has not fared well. Brittle, ill-tempered, one who held grudges, possessed poor political skills. In short, a second-rate leader who loved bureaucra…

1
056 - Abraham Lincoln: Commander-In-Chief 1:12:13

2y ago1:12:13

1:12:13

About this episode: It was a Thursday, March 10, 1864, when the brand-spanking new General-in-Chief of all US forces arrived at Brandy Station, Virginia where Major General George Gordon Meade made his headquarters. Fully aware the most pressing military matter was for the Army of the Potomac to forcefully campaign, Lieutenant General U. S. Grant a…

1
055 - Bound To Duty: The Post-War Life Of Robert E. Lee 1:17:54

2+ y ago1:17:54

1:17:54

About this episode: The former Confederate general entered the ruined city of Richmond from the south and in the midst of a heavy April shower. His route took him through the portion of city that was most thoroughly burned in the evacuation fires of April 2nd. People stopped and stared or pointed as he made his way up Main Street. To them, he tippe…

1
054 - ”The River of Death”: The Battle Of Chickamauga 1:09:53

2+ y ago1:09:53

1:09:53

About this episode: Just some fifteen miles south of Chattanooga - there in the northwest corner of Georgia - there runs a creek with a harsh name. Indeed, its Cherokee or Creek origin means “River of Death.” That name was never more appropriate than in mid-September 1863 when Union and Confederate armies fought as if the entire war hinged on its o…

1
053 - The Hero And The Humorist: The Friendship of U.S. Grant and Mark Twain 1:00:19

2+ y ago1:00:19

1:00:19

About this episode: The two were quite famous. One went to war with weapons and men, and the other could do the same with words and wit - yet their separate paths became one. During this country’s great and terrible civil war, U. S. Grant saved the nation. After the war, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) would save U. S. Grant. This is the story of their…

1
052 - ”Let Us Have Peace”: The Post-War Life Of U.S. Grant 1:19:52

2+ y ago1:19:52

1:19:52

About this episode: Since its creation, this nation has so embraced several of its victorious generals that it elected them as presidents. Up until the American Civil War, most notably George Washington, Andrew Jackson and Zachary Taylor come to mind. This, in the aftermath of war, is the story of another - a man who, like the president he served, …

1
051 - ”Beat To Quarters!”: The C.S.S Alabama 54:59

2+ y ago54:59

54:59

About this episode: It was a Sunday, January 11, 1863 when the incredible tedium of blockade duty suddenly lurched into frenzied electricity. Five Federal Navy blockaders off Galveston, Texas had sighted a three-masted ship and, although it was some twenty miles from the fleet, the five-gun USS Hatteras moved to investigate. At about 100 yards, Lt.…

1
050 - Lee’s Finest Hour: Chancellorsville 1:06:17

2+ y ago1:06:17

1:06:17

About this episode: In mid-April of 1863, Major General Joseph Hooker oozed with confidence. So assured was he about his offensive preparations to defeat and, in his mind, destroy the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, he remarked to a group of his officers, "My plans are perfect, and when I start to carry them out, may God have mercy on Genera…

1
049 - Concealed Stories: Sex in the American Civil War 42:53

3y ago42:53

42:53

*Listener discretion advised* About this episode: There have been more works written on the American Civil War than there have been days since it ended, and the number of topics can be overwhelming. However, one aspect of the military experience has largely been overlooked. Hidden from families and posterity, a topic as timeless as war itself. This…

1
048 - The Trent Affair 56:00

3y ago56:00

56:00

About this episode: James Murray Mason was a Virginian. As a former member of the U.S. Senate, he once served as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. His credentials made him a natural selection for a diplomatic mission to London as a representative for the Confederate States of America. Then there was John Slidell, a native New Y…

1
047 - ”Into the Belly of the Beast” - Sherman’s Carolinas Campaign 58:51

3y ago58:51

58:51

About this episode: In July of 1863, Major General Henry Halleck posed a question to a fellow Major General, one who was encamped along the Big Black River down in Mississippi. Asked about the continued depth of Confederate resistance after the fall of Vicksburg, William Tecumseh Sherman answered that he felt Confederate belligerence would continue…

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046 - Reaping the Whirlwind: Sherman’s March to the Sea - Part 2 39:22

3y ago39:22

39:22

About this episode: On Wednesday, November 16, 1864, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman initiated a campaign that, as one military publication would put it, was either “one of the most brilliant or one of the most foolish things ever performed by a military leader.” Only eight days after Abraham Lincoln was re-elected, some 62,000 left behind a…

1
045 - Reaping the Whirlwind: Sherman‘s March to the Sea - Part 1 33:17

3y ago33:17

33:17

About this episode: In the same month that Abraham Lincoln was re-elected, Major-General William Tecumseh Sherman began a campaign that cut a swath through the very heart of Dixie. Severing his supply line and committed to living off the country, he hoped to break the will of Southern resistance and knock Georgia out of the war. This episode, Part …

1
044 - Five Fateful Hours: The Battle of Franklin 45:25

3+ y ago45:25

45:25

About this episode: Major-General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne was a native of the green jewel that is Ireland and commanded a division in the Confederate Army of Tennessee. For his military prowess, he was tabbed the “Stonewall of the West”, yet the warrior was often reserved and sentimental. That surfaced the day before the Battle of Franklin when he…

1
043 - The ”Rock”, The ”Sledge”: George Henry Thomas 51:28

3+ y ago51:28

51:28

About this episode: While most history enthusiasts are aware that Virginia was the leading theater of the war, many of those same people are surprised when they learn that Tennessee was second. Indeed, the Western Theater of the American Civil War is shamefully neglected, despite the fact that it was in that theater where battles were fought and wo…

1
042 - The Southern Home Front 50:26

3+ y ago50:26

50:26

About this episode: While actual combat was, indeed, nightmarish, being at home - helpless, constantly wondering about loved ones, fending for one’s selves - proved to be equally harrowing. That particularly was the case in the American South - the Confederacy - which served as the primary stage for the four-year-long conflict. And so we return to …

1
041 - The Northern Home Front 46:56

3+ y ago46:56

46:56

About this episode: While fighting raged at the front, loved ones back home waged their own battles. While worried about those in uniform, each day brought the additional burden of trying to cope with and find meaning to the all-consuming consequences of civil war. Here: the efforts, the people, and personalities of those on the Northern home front…

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040 - July 3, 1863 - Climax - The Third Day at Gettysburg 58:30

3+ y ago58:30

58:30

About this episode: In 1948, the Southern novelist, William Faulkner, wrote in Intruder in the Dust, ”For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready i…

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039 - July 2, 1863 - A Rolling Thunder - The Second Day at Gettysburg 1:03:47

3+ y ago1:03:47

1:03:47

About this episode: On Thursday, July 2, 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg tumbled into its second day. What on Wednesday, the 1st, had been a meeting engagement was now a set battle - one with far more men on the scene and still much at stake. On this day, Robert E. Lee and George Gordon Meade would experience the crushing weight of responsibility an…

1
038 - July 1, 1863: A Meeting Engagement - The First Day at Gettysburg 1:02:58

3+ y ago1:02:58

1:02:58

About this episode: From the Battle of Gettysburg, there are as many stories as participants. For this episode, selections from the first day: stories about the first shot, the arrival and instantaneous death of a Union corps commander, the desperate struggle for a flag, an unlikely 69-year-old volunteer, and two infantry regiments savagely engaged…

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037 - The Confederacy's "Greatest" Surrender - The Bennett Place 50:59

4y ago50:59

50:59

About this episode: It was a Tuesday, April 11, 1865 - only two days after Robert E. Lee had surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia. Down in North Carolina, with Major General William T. Sherman’s relentless blue wave only some 30 miles to the southeast of Raleigh, NC, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston’s men of the Army of Tennessee began t…

1
036 - Avenging Angel - John Brown 53:05

4y ago53:05

53:05

About this episode: The stage: the town of Alton in southern Illinois. The date of the act committed: the 7th of November, 1837. On that Tuesday, an angry mob murdered Elijah Lovejoy, the Presbyterian minister who was the founder of the Illinois State Anti-Slave Society. Two days later, some 500 miles east in Hudson Ohio, a church congregation held…

1
035 - Nathan Bedford Forrest - Part 2 43:36

4y ago43:36

43:36

About this episode: Thus far, we have offered anecdotal insight as to Bedford Forrest’s humble origins: his makeup and antebellum experiences. We’ve detailed his entrance into the great conflict and his meteoric rise to command - his fights at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Fallen Timbers, and his dogged, relentless pursuit of Colonel Abel Streight’s Union…

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034 - Nathan Bedford Forrest - Part 1 36:05

4y ago36:05

36:05

About this episode: Major General William T. Sherman, the officer who disemboweled the Confederacy with his marches across Georgia and through the Carolinas, understood the nature of total war. That uniquely qualified him to offer assessment of one of the most remarkable and yet controversial officers in all of the Confederacy. During the war, Sher…

1
May We Suggest - Bullets And Bandages: The Aid Stations and Field Hospitals at Gettysburg 9:55

4y ago9:55

9:55

About: Through our continuing research on The Civil War, we here at Threads From The National Tapestry will come across some truly remarkable works that deserve to be shared with you, our loyal listeners. Our first such sharing sets a high bar for all future recommendations to match: the book Bullets And Bandages: The Aid Stations and Field Hospita…

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