Civil War
In the shadow of Cedar Mountain on the southern outskirts of Culpeper, Virginia, Major General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson deployed the troops at the head of his column of march against a reinforced Union corps on August 9, 1862. Read more
Civil War
It is a given that troops who are successful in battle are those that have confidence in themselves and in their commanders, and this was the case with the Confederate soldiers serving under Maj. Read more
Civil War
With freshly honed sabers, more than 2,000 Union cavalrymen rode toward the Confederate-held Rappahannock River crossing of Kelly’s Ford in March 1863 with orders to attack and rout or destroy Maj. Read more
Civil War
Union artillery shells burst in the trees at the north end of Cross Timber Hollow as Confederates in gray and butternut-colored uniforms creeped through the tangled underbrush on both sides of Telegraph Road. Read more
Civil War
George Gordon Meade did not want command of the Army of the Potomac when it was thrust upon him on the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg seven months after the Union defeat at Fredericksburg, but he had the distinction of being the division commander who had led the successful Union assault during the bloody battle in December 1862 on the south side of the Rappahannock River. Read more
Civil War
Recently detached from the Army of Tennessee, the Arkansas troops of Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Churchill’s division had not yet met their new commander when the division came under fire at Richmond, Kentucky, on August 30, 1862. Read more
Civil War
Mr. Morris is the author of seven well-received books on 19th Century American history and literature. He has served as a consultant for A&E, the History Channel, and edited a three-book series for Purdue University Press on American Civil War and post-Civil War history, journalism and literature. Read more
Civil War
Word spread like wildfire through Martinsburg in northeastern Virginia that the Yankees were on the move. On July 2, 1861 Maj. Read more
Civil War
Colonel Patrick Kelly, who led the Irish Brigade into the Wheatfield on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, was born in Castle Hackett, County Galway, in 1821. Read more
Civil War
During the September 17, 1862 Battle of Antietam, casualties piled almost too high to count. The culmination of the first invasion of the North during the American Civil War by General Robert E. Read more
Civil War
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln had no military experience and discarded most of Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott’s so-called Anaconda Plan, which critics deemed too conservative. Read more
Civil War
The American Civil War was the tragic culmination of divergent perspectives on the proper conduct of the government of the United States and socio-economic issues that had been frequently at the forefront of American political life for decades. Read more
Civil War
During the Battle of First Manassas, Colonel Francis Stebbins Bartow was carrying the flag of the 7th Georgia Infantry when he fell leading a charge on Captain James Ricketts’ battery of Regular Army artillery. Read more
Civil War
When the Civil War broke out, Robert E. Lee of Virginia was offered command of the Union army. Read more
Civil War
Born in Ohio in 1822, Ulysses S. Grant graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1843. Read more
Civil War
The occasion was, for the North, inauspicious. In the Battle of First Manassas, the Federals were routed, humiliated, and almost utterly crushed. Read more
Civil War
Ward’s Union Brigade faced some of the most formidable troops in General Robert E. Lee’s army on the afternoon of July 2. Read more
Civil War
As the early days of the American Civil War were unfolding and the destiny of the republic was being contested on the battlefield, President Abraham Lincoln was engaged in a no less perilous type of battle. Read more
Civil War
When the sun set on the Confederacy, the stars began to rise and shine, none more brightly for Northerners than that of Abraham Lincoln, and for Southerners than those of Robert E. Read more
Civil War
In 1864-1865 the U.S. Army had some 1,045,000 men in uniform; within a year after Appomattox, the number stood at 57,000. Read more
