Civil War
By mid-afternoon on September 17, 1862, the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia were locked in mortal combat on the rolling hills overlooking the sluggish waters of Antietam Creek in northwestern Maryland. Read more
Civil War
Before the fighting even began, before the first impassioned chorus of “On to Richmond!” was raised by the men in blue, the soldiers comprising the Union Army of the Potomac during the Civil War had to create their own precarious living quarters in the forested wilderness of the eastern seaboard. Read more
Civil War
In the days following the outbreak of war, Northern states scrambled to assemble small militia groups into regiment-size units, recruit additional volunteers and uniform them all in a cohesive manner. Read more
Civil War
Peering through a pair of field glasses, Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest perched in an oak tree on Missionary Ridge, overlooking the Tennessee town of Chattanooga, and observed a Union army in complete disarray. Read more
Civil War
The crater that punched a hole in the Confederate lines and threw a 200-foot umbrella of dirt, men, and guns into the air on July 30, 1864, could today be mistaken for a gentle dip in the rolling, slight hills of the Petersburg countryside. Read more
Civil War
The winter of 1863 was a time of general inactivity for the exhausted armies in middle Tennessee. Read more
Civil War
For weeks, Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans had been hearing increased grumblings from Washington about how he should move his army out of Nashville and strike General Braxton Bragg’s Confederate forces 30 miles away in Murfreesboro. Read more
Civil War
Following the completion of Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s unsuccessful Peninsula campaign earlier in the month, General Robert E. Read more
Civil War
One of the smoothbore cannons in Captain Merritt B. Miller’s Third Company of the Washington Artillery deployed west of Emmitsburg Road just south of the town of Gettysburg fired a single round at 1:07 p.m. 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
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
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
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
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
Safe behind its ocean barriers, the United States paid scant attention to the wars that raged abroad during the early 19th century, taking little notice of the lessons that might have been learned from the European experience with mass killing. Read more
Civil War
At the beginning of 1861, Missouri was in turmoil. A slave state since its inception in 1820, Missouri had grown increasingly tied to urban industry. Read more
Civil War
It was the afternoon of September 20, 1863, and the right wing of the Union Army of the Cumberland was in full flight at the battle of Chickamauga in northern Georgia. Read more
Civil War
The series of battles that constituted the Confederate offensive against the Union army on the eastern outskirts of Richmond, Virginia, in summer 1862 would thrust a number of Union officers into the limelight. Read more
Civil War
For four breathlessly hot days in mid-July 1863, New York City became the northernmost battleground of the Civil War. Read more
