Lieutenant Nathan Huntley Edgerton, Sgt. Maj. Thomas R. Hawkins, and Sergeant Alexander Kelly of the 6th Regiment U.S. Colored Troops carry forward the regiment's colors as it presses its attack at Chaffin's Farm in a painting titled "Three Medals of Honor" by artist Don Troiani.

Civil War

This mortar battery was erected outside Confederate earthworks at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1862. McClellan slowed his advance to bring mortars up. The Southerners then retired toward Richmond.

Civil War

Civil War Artillery

By John D. Gresham

For much of its history, artillery has been a weapon of mass destruction and attrition, a force designed to cause casualties, destroy fortifications, and wear an enemy down with its noise, explosions, and shrapnel. Read more

Civil War

West Virginia: Seceding from the Confederacy

By Don Roberts

During the Civil War western Virginia was crucial to the Union. The region that lay west of the Shenandoah Valley and north of the Kanawha River held nearly a quarter of Virginia’s nonslave population when the war began in 1861. Read more

Civil War

Final Attack at the Battle of Stones River

By Jim Heenehan

Late in the morning of January 2, 1863, Confederate Maj. Gen. John Breckinridge gazed through the brush at newly arrived Union infantry occupying a partially wooded hill to his front near Murfreesboro, Tenn. Read more

Civil War

The Gatling Gun: A Civil War Innovation

By A.B. Feuer

Richard Gatling was born in Hertford County, NC, on December 12, 1818. His father was a prosperous farmer and inventor, and the son was destined to inherit the “invention bug.” Read more

Civil War

The Battle of Hagerstown

By Daniel Murphy

Late in the evening of July 3, 1863, Major General James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart was summoned to the headquarters of Robert E. Read more

Civil War

Jackson Confounds the Yankees

By Brooke. C Stoddard

Arguably the most celebrated campaign feat of arms of the American Civil War is that of Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley in May and early June 1862. Read more

“Battle of Cedar Creek,” chromolithograph by Kurz & Allison of Chicago, December 12, 1890.

Civil War

‘A Bad Place for a Fight’

By Mike Phifer

In the early hours of October 19, 1864, fog blanketed the hills and fields along the meandering Cedar Creek in the northern Shenandoah Valley. Read more