Civil War

Civil War

Battle of Belmont: Ulysses S. Grant’s First Battle

When the Civil War started in 1861, there were only two officers in the Union Army who had commanded a force in battle larger than a brigade. Read more

Civil War

First Manassas: The Battle of Bull Run

On March 4, 1861, with war clouds threatening the land, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated the 16th president of the United States. Read more

Civil War

Civil War Artillery

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

The Battle of Tupelo, June – July 1864

By Edward Holub and John Marchetti

“For God’s sake, if Mr. Forrest will let me alone, I will let him alone. Read more

Civil War

Civil War Spies: James D. Bulloch

Although Confederate commander James D. Bulloch had a well-rounded naval background, he also proved skillful as a secret agent. Read more

Civil War

Admiral David Farragut and the Battle of Mobile Bay

On the night of August 4, 1864, in the cabin of his flagship the USS Hartford, Admiral Farragut read his Bible, arriving at ultimate assurance that God was on his side. Read more

Civil War

Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler’s 1863 Sequatchie Valley Raid

During the evening of September 20,1863, the following message reached Washington and was given to the president of the United States: “We have met with a serious disaster; extent not yet ascertained. Read more

Civil War

Civil War Weapons: The Telegraph?

Early in the American Civil War, during the first months of 1862, Union General Henry Halleck, commanding from his headquarters in St. Read more

Civil War

On They Came Like an Angry Flood: The Battle of Chickamauga

It had been a little over six months since Major General William S. Rosecrans and his Army of the Cumberland had checked the Confederates at the Battle of Stones River (December 31,1862–January 2,1863). Read more

Civil War

West Virginia: Seceding from the Confederacy

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

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

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

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

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

Civil War

Hancock the Superb: Winfield Scott Hancock & the Battle of Gettysburg

On East Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg National Military Park, an equestrian statue of Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock stands facing west toward the Evergreen Cemetery gatehouse. Read more

Civil War

John Taylor Wood, Hero of the Confederate Navy

The epic battle between the Virginia (Merrimack) and Monitor might never have taken place because, as strange as it may seem, the Confederates did not have enough experienced men to man their ship. Read more

Civil War

‘A Bad Place for a Fight’

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

Civil War

Battle of Richmond, Kentucky: Cannae in the Bluegrass State

On September 7, 1862, Colonel Walter Taylor of General Robert E. Lee’s staff wrote to his sister: “The Yankee papers of the 6th exhibit a gloomy picture for our enemy. Read more

Civil War

Rolling the Dice: Robert E. Lee at Petersburg

By the early spring of 1865, the Southern Confederacy was on the cusp of extinction. In every theater of the four-year-old Civil War, the gray-clad Rebels were getting the worst of things. Read more

Civil War

Rose O’Neal Greenhow: The Spy Who Won Bull Run

“But for you, there would have been no Battle of Bull Run.” When Confederate President Jefferson Davis made that blanket statement in the summer of 1862, he was not addressing Pierre G.T. Read more