Civil War
The recollections of Virginia-born John O. Casler of the famed Confederate Stonewall Brigade offer considerable insight into the nature of the fighting, as well as the thoughts and actions of the enlisted men, at Spotsylvania Court House in mid-May 1864. Read more
Civil War
In June 1861, two months after Confederate artillery fired on Fort Sumter to begin the Civil War, 44-year-old, Louisiana-born Henry H. Read more
Civil War
For Union Lieutenant Harrison Millard, it was an unsettling development. An aide on the staff of Brig. Gen. Read more
Civil War
The citizens of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, awoke one morning in late June 1863 to find the Civil War literally at their doorsteps. Read more
Civil War
The Civil War was fought out in the open on battlefields across the United States. But beginning in early 1864, the highest levels of the Confederate government decided that another, more clandestine war would be fought behind the lines in the North. Read more
Civil War
Spying is a dangerous game.
Even the best spies sometimes get caught, as Confederate raider John Yates Beall, “the Mosby of the Chesapeake,” learned the hard way in 1865, and the consequences are never pretty to contemplate. Read more
Civil War
When Mark Twain “lit out for the territory” in July 1861 from his erstwhile role as the world’s worst Confederate ranger, he joined a small but distinguished list of future American literary greats who similarly decided, as had Twain, that they were “not rightly equipped for this awful business.” Read more
Civil War
Confederate offensives into two border states, Maryland and Kentucky, formed the key highlights of the second half of 1862 for the Confederacy. Read more
Civil War
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
Civil War
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
Civil War
John Pope’s second campaign as an army commander went considerably better than his first. Not that it did his reputation—or Abraham Lincoln’s, for that matter—any particular good. Read more
Civil War
When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, the great American poet Walt Whitman was a man on the skids, personally and professionally. Read more
Civil War
The short-lived Whig Party had a fair degree of success electing candidates for president, winning two of the five presidential elections in which it fielded a candidate. Read more
Civil War
When Confederate General Robert E. Lee learned on the morning of April 9, 1865, that Union infantry was both in front and behind of his meager army of 12,500 effectives as it approached Appomattox Court House in central Virginia, he resigned himself to the sad task before him. Read more
Civil War
The River Mersey was fog shrouded on the morning of November 6, 1865, and the city of Liverpool was scarcely visible from the deck of the CSS Shenandoah. Read more
Civil War
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
Civil War
Living in Chattanooga is a little like living inside a museum. American Civil War reminders are all around: many of us remember going as students on field trips to Point Park and Chickamauga Battlefield and spending long Sunday afternoons driving with our families along the winding, monument-strewn Crest Road on Missionary Ridge. Read more
Civil War
As the early days of the Civil War were unfolding and the destiny of the republic was beginning to be contested on the battlefield, Abraham Lincoln was engaged in a no less perilous type of battle. Read more
Civil War
Like the tall hills that surround it, the history of Harpers Ferry has many layers. While some of the nearby Civil War battlefields, most notably Antietam National Battlefield, are picturesque, they can’t compete with the grandeur of Harpers Ferry. Read more
Civil War
A single cavalryman burst from the copse in mid-afternoon on June 25, 1876, riding hell-bent for the swift flowing river. Read more
