Warfare History Network is your best source for military history online. This is where we bring you our coverage on all aspects of the American Civil War—from the first shots fired at Fort Sumter to Antietam to the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox. In addition to substantial military coverage, we also examine the political climate of the 1860s and how the war influenced civilian life in the North and South. A trove of Civil War photos, maps, and color illustrations complement our written contributions from a team of established writers, including William Welsh, Pedro Garcia, and acclaimed author-historian Roy Morris Jr.
Civil War
Among the historic inventory of the United States Army’s artillery weapons, few pieces have enjoyed a more predominant role or reputation than the Model 1857 12-pounder gun-howitzer, which became a mainstay of the Federal artillery during the Civil War. Read more
Civil War
In the spring of 1861, a group of influential northern men and women, led by Unitarian minister Henry Whitney Bellows and social reformer Dorothea Dix, met in New York City to discuss the formation of a sanitary commission, modeled after the British Sanitary Commission established during the Crimean War, to provide relief to sick and wounded soldiers in the Union Army. Read more
Civil War
At midnight on November 13, 1863, two companies of the Palmetto (South Carolina) Sharpshooters Regiment led by Captain Alfred Foster slipped down to the south bank of the Tennessee River at Huff’s Ferry. Read more
Civil War
Smoke swirled amid the thunderous noise that roared from powerful Dahlgren guns and Brooke rifles. Thousands of spectators along the shore watched the two most dangerous warships in the world at each other at point-blank range. Read more
Civil War
By the Summer of 1864, it was no longer likely the Army of Northern Virginia would invade the North a third time, would launch another major offensive, or even drive Union forces away from Richmond and Petersburg. Read more
Civil War
A signal rocket set off by Confederate pickets streaked skyward in the damp early morning of February 4, 1862. Read more
Civil War
With just an hour of daylight remaining on the smoke-shrouded battlefield near Gaines’ Mill six miles northeast of Richmond, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Read more
Civil War
March 8, 1862, dawned sunny and mild at Hampton Roads, Virginia. To the men of the Union blockading squadron, the day seemed like any other. Read more
Civil War
The sun had already set, but the western sky was still bright from its fiery departure not long before. Read more
Civil War
Major General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne rose to his feet in the early afternoon of November 30, 1864, when he saw the courier galloping toward him. Read more
Civil War
Colonel Benjamin F. Terry, a sugar planter from Fort Bend County on the coastal plains of Texas, raised the 8th Texas Cavalry Regiment. Read more
Civil War
Major General Ulysses S. Grant sat on his horse in late April 1863 next to a narrow bridge over a wide marsh on the west bank of the Mississippi River in northeastern Louisiana. Read more
Civil War
Word spread like wildfire through the camps of the Army of the Potomac during the second week of November 1862: “Little Mac” was out, “Old Burn” was in. Read more
Civil War
One of the most hard-fighting divisions in the Army of the Cumberland, the one led by Maj. Read more
Civil War
In the late hours of April 14, 1865, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton sat at a small table in the Petersen House across the street from Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. Read more
Civil War
Peering through the thick underbrush west of Little Pumpkin Vine Creek, 30 miles northwest of Atlanta, on the afternoon of May 27, 1864, Ambrose Bierce had a bad feeling. Read more
Civil War
Not long after Union Flag Officer David Farragut of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron received the surrender of New Orleans on April 29, 1862, he began pondering his next move. Read more
Civil War
“We have been badly used up,” a sergeant in the 5th New York Volunteer Cavalry Regiment complained in a letter to his wife on May 8, 1864, four days before J.E.B. Read more
Civil War
An angry gloom hung like dust over the 6,000 Confederate cavalrymen trooping up the York Turnpike in the early dawn of July 3, 1863. Read more
Civil War
During the Civil War, the strategic importance of Vicksburg, Mississippi, was readily apparent to both the Union and the Confederacy. Read more
