Union Army
When Abraham Lincoln signed into law the first conscription act in American history in March 1863, one of the most unpopular parts of the widely unpopular act was the provision allowing draft-eligible males to hire substitutes to take their place in the army. Read more
Union Army
With the fall of Vicksburg in the first week of July 1863, the strongest remaining Confederate presence in Mississippi was a recently thrown together force of 26,000 soldiers under General Joseph E. Read more
Union Army
Teams of horses from four Confederate batteries churned the ground with their hooves as they pulled artillery onto the southern crest of Benner’s Hill just east of Gettysburg at 4 pm, July 2, 1863. Read more
Union Army
Our cause is on the advance—our star in the ascendant. The tide is swelling in our favor: shall we take it at its flood…? Read more
Union Army
Confederate President Jefferson Davis considered his old West Point classmate Albert Sidney Johnston “the greatest soldier, the ablest man, civil or military, Confederate or Union, then living,” and it is safe to say that no other general in either army began the Civil War with a more glittering—or fleeting—reputation. Read more
Union Army
Out of the mist on the rolling ground of the Shenandoah Valley the bulk of the Confederate Army bore down on the Union left flank on the morning of October 19, 1864. Read more
Union Army
Tall, handsome, and ramrod-straight Winfield Scott Hancock perfectly embodied his flattering nickname, “Hancock the Superb.” His performance on Civil War battlefields from Antietam to Gettysburg underscored that sobriquet. Read more
Union Army
Twenty-five-year-old Mississippi River pilot Samuel Clemens (not yet known by his famous pen name, Mark Twain) was in his home port of New Orleans in late January 1861 when word reached the city that Louisiana had seceded from the Union. Read more
Union Army
Dawn on July 1, 1862, ushered in a hot summer day. After having assumed the offensive five days earlier, General Robert E. Read more
Union Army
Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside was prone to dithering. The vanguard of his 120,000-strong Union Army had arrived in Falmouth on the north bank of the Rappahannock River opposite Fredericksburg on November 14, 1862. Read more
Union Army
While many Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw Indians threw in their lot with the Confederacy, fighting alongside southern troops at the Battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862, a more northern-based tribe—the Ottawa—chose to remain loyal to the Union, in the forlorn hope that its willingness to fight for the white men’s country would help preserve its increasingly imperiled way of life. Read more
Union Army
An hour before the sun reached its zenith on September 20, 1863, on the second day of a hard-fought battle on a sluggish stream in the north Georgia woods, Union Brig. Read more
Union Army
On a warm morning in July 1861, the Union Army marched forth with bands playing and regimental flags flying. Read more
Union Army
General George McClellan was a key figure in the prosecution of the American Civil War, particularly during 1862, when he led the Union Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign, a failed offensive to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond in the spring, and the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day in American history, on September 17, 1862. Read more
Union Army
Walking along the Union line of battle at Gettysburg, whether on Little Round Top, Cemetery Hill, Culp’s Hill, or elsewhere is at times overwhelming. Read more
Union Army
Newly promoted Captain Raphael Semmes of the Confederate States Navy called his crew—largely English—to the quarterdeck of his new command. Read more
Union Army
In the early morning of December 16, 1944, 80-man German shock companies from the 5th Panzer Army slipped toward the American lines in the Ardennes region under the cover of heavy fog. Read more
Union Army
The first thing that strikes a visitor to Henry Hill at Manassas National Battlefield Park is the spectacular view. Read more
Union Army
In 1862, Confederate forces in Virginia were enjoying a number of campaign successes, but the decisive advantage in naval power enjoyed by the Union enabled it to advance down the Mississippi, capture river forts, and conduct many coastal attacks. Read more
Union Army
Two days after the unparalleled bloodletting at Antietam, a bushy-bearded Scottish photographer and his pudgy, clean-shaven assistant rolled onto the battlefield with their bulky stereoscopic cameras and portable darkroom. Read more
