A.P. Hill

Battle of Mechanicsville: McClellan’s Unexploited Victory

By John Walker

After an almost uninterrupted, four-month-long string of Union successes beginning in early 1862, followed by the advance of a 100,000-man enemy army to the eastern outskirts of its capital at Richmond, Virginia, the Confederacy suddenly found itself in a life-or-death struggle for its very survival. Read more

A.P. Hill

Mowed Down by the Fifties

By William E. Welsh

As Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his I Corps commander, Maj. Gen. James Longstreet, rode together on horseback along the dust-choked Quaker Road from Glendale to Malvern Hill on the morning of July 1, 1862,  they stopped to confer with Maj. Read more

Looking back at the Battle of Gettysburg

A.P. Hill

Facts About the Battle of Gettysburg

Gettysburg Fact #1: There Were 50,000 Military Casualties, 1 Civilian

Despite roughly 50,000 casualties reported on both sides during the Battle of Gettysburg, there was only one reported civilian casualty: Mary Wade, a seamstress, was hit by a stray bullet while making bread in her kitchen. Read more

A.P. Hill

End Game at Appomattox

By Mike Phifer

Lieutenant Colonel Horace Porter, personal aide to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, maneuvered his mount past ammunition wagons, ambulances, stragglers, and prisoners jamming the muddy roads leading back to headquarters from Five Forks, Virginia, on the evening of April 1, 1865. Read more

A.P. Hill

Dying Civil War Generals’ Last Words

By Roy Morris, Jr.

Although undeniably brave and noble, Union General Robert McCook’s parting comments as he lay dying of a gunshot wound in a stranger’s bed in south-central Tennessee did not achieve the immortality of other famous last words by Civil War generals. Read more

A.P. Hill

Grover’s Savage Attack at the Battle of Second Manassas

By William E. Welsh

The New Englanders crept forward through the thick woods toward the Rebel position at mid-afternoon. Trading volleys with the Confederates behind the natural trench afforded by the unfinished railroad line during the Battle of Second Manassas in summer 1862 had so far proved unsuccessful throughout the scorching hot summer day. Read more