Civil War
Although several overzealous Union Army field commanders organized African Americans into ad hoc militia units early in 1862 and several black regiments were mustered into service later that year, it wasn’t until after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, that the federal government began actively recruiting and enlisting black soldiers and sailors. Read more
Civil War
The American Civil War may well have been the first major conflict in which soldiers felt the need to wear some sort of a personal identification badge in the event that they were killed or wounded in battle. Read more
Civil War
While there is no discounting a solid analysis of the strategy and tactics behind a great battle or battles, such as the climactic twin battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic on June 8-9, 1862, from Maj. Read more
Civil War
Even more than most people, Union general William Rosecrans was often his own worst enemy. Hot-tempered, emotional, and frequently given to speaking—or shouting—before he thought, the Ohio-born commander of the Army of the Cumberland made enemies easily, even if he usually forgot in an instant what had made him angry in the first place. Read more
Civil War
Along with five other Confederate generals of the Army of Tennessee, Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne lost his life in the futile Confederate frontal assault at the Battle of Franklin fought November 30, 1864, in central Tennessee. Read more
Civil War
Few Mexican War generals fought more battles than Tennessee-born Gideon Pillow—the problem was that many of those battles were with his own superiors. Read more
Civil War
The young captain of engineers who discovered the dangerous bulge in the “Mule Shoe” salient at Spotsylvania, Ranald Slidell Mackenzie, would go on to make a name for himself during the Civil War and the subsequent Indian campaigns out West. Read more
Civil War
When Abraham Lincoln signed into law the first conscription act in American history in March 1863, one of the most unpopular parts of the widely unpopular act was the provision allowing draft-eligible males to hire substitutes to take their place in the army. Read more
Civil War
With the fall of Vicksburg in the first week of July 1863, the strongest remaining Confederate presence in Mississippi was a recently thrown together force of 26,000 soldiers under General Joseph E. Read more
Civil War
Teams of horses from four Confederate batteries churned the ground with their hooves as they pulled artillery onto the southern crest of Benner’s Hill just east of Gettysburg at 4 pm, July 2, 1863. Read more
Civil War
The men who wore Confederate gray were notoriously high-strung and quick to anger—none more so than Stonewall Jackson and Ambrose Powell Hill. Read more
Civil War
In 1863 the tide was running against the South—except in Texas. A new Confederate commander, John Magruder, chased the Yankees out of both Galveston and the Rio Grande Valley. Read more
Civil War
Our cause is on the advance—our star in the ascendant. The tide is swelling in our favor: shall we take it at its flood…? Read more
Civil War
Confederate President Jefferson Davis considered his old West Point classmate Albert Sidney Johnston “the greatest soldier, the ablest man, civil or military, Confederate or Union, then living,” and it is safe to say that no other general in either army began the Civil War with a more glittering—or fleeting—reputation. Read more
Civil War
Union General William T. Sherman, not the easiest man to please, always held Colonel Benjamin Grierson in high regard. Read more
Civil War
“Every war will astonish you,” American general Dwight D. Eisenhower said after World War II. As the leader of the Allied forces that successfully landed on D-Day and marched into Berlin 11 months later, Eisenhower obviously knew what he was talking about. Read more
Civil War
Most history books teach that the War between the States began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate batteries ringing Charleston harbor fired on Fort Sumter and forced its surrender the following day. Read more
Civil War
For the citizens of western Missouri, the Civil War effectively began with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. Read more
Civil War
Union General Benjamin Butler was baffled. Every night a picket guard went to an outpost 1½ miles from Fort Monroe, Virginia. Read more
Civil War
The city of New York provided more regiments than did many states during the Civil War, and the deeds of several of its regiments, such as the 9th New York “Hawkins’s Zouaves,” 39th New York “Garibaldi Guard,” and 42nd New York “Tammany Regiment” are well known. Read more
