Civil War

Photo Credit: Indiana Military Museum

Well-led and well-equipped, Union cavalrymen in the western theater of the war were able to match their Confederate opponents in both firepower and audacity. Premier Union cavalry leader Phil Sheridan got his start in Mississippi.

Civil War

Grierson’s Raid: Wrecking the Railroad With the Butternut Guerrillas

By Mike Phifer

Union Colonel Benjamin Grierson stuck his left foot into the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. Orders were quickly given, and soon a column of 1,700 blue-jacketed troopers of Grierson’s 1st Brigade, along with a battery of artillery, trampled southeast from La Grange, Tennessee, in the early dawn of April 17, 1863. Read more

Civil War

Grant Takes D.C.

By Arnold Blumberg

On March 8, 1864, a rainy Tuesday, President and Mrs. Lincoln held a reception at the White House in Washington. Read more

Civil War

Battle of Antietam: Clash in the Cornfield

By Michael E. Haskew

The White House was a somber place in the summer of 1862. The Civil War was in the midst of its second costly year, and the Union armies had yet to win a significant victory in the eastern theater. Read more

Civil War

Morgan’s Ohio Raid

By Joshua Shepherd

“It was a sad, sorrowful day,” recalled Confederate Major James McCreary, “and more tears of grief rolled over my weather beaten cheeks on this mournful occasion than have before for years.” Read more

Civil War

Battle of the Hemp Bales

By Steve Lilley

Brigadier General James S. Rains’s Confederate cavalry rode confidently toward the prosperous little town of Lexington, Missouri. Dressed in Missouri homespun, Rains’s men hardly looked the part of a flying military column, but most of the hard-riding horsemen had known only victory during their short service. Read more

Civil War

The Days of Shoddy: Worst Manufacturers of the Civil War

By Timothy Koenig

“For sugar the government often got sand; for coffee, rye; for leather, something no better than brown paper; for sound horses and mules, spavined beasts and dying donkeys; and for serviceable muskets and pistols, the experimental failures of sanguine inventors, or the refuse of shops and foreign armories.” Read more

Civil War

Chasing Jefferson Davis

By Don Hollway

When the end came, on April 2, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was sitting in his customary pew at St. Read more

U.S. Marines photographed during the Civil War

Civil War

John Freeman Mackie: First Marine Medal of Honor Recipient

By Melanie Savage

On May 15, 1862, a five-ship Union Navy squadron that included the ironclad USS Galena, gunboats Aroostook, Port Royal, Naugatuck, and the famous Monitor neared a bend in the James River known as Drewry’s Bluff, where Confederate Fort Darling commanded the passage. Read more