Civil War

Civil War

Jefferson Davis in Mexico

On September 20, 1846, Colonel Jefferson Davis and a regiment of untested Mississippi volunteers stood before the fortress of La Teneria at Monterrey in northern Mexico. Read more

Civil War

Long Shadows at Ball’s Bluff

For all his great political skills, Abraham Lincoln was a man who made few close personal friends. He was both too private and too ambitious to court a large number of intimate acquaintances. Read more

Civil War

The Crater: Explosion of Death

It was just after 3 am on Saturday, July 30, 1864. A month of relative quiet along a two-mile stretch of Union and Confederate trench lines immediately east of Petersburg, Virginia, was about to come to an explosive end. Read more

Civil War

A Second Sumter: The Struggle for Pensacola

By Eric Niderost

The election of Abraham Lincoln as president in November 1860 caused a national crisis of unprecedented scope. For years, Southern firebrands had defended slavery and exalted the principle of states’ rights. Read more

Civil War

Fire Over Texas: Galveston in the Civil War

When Texas seceded from the Union on February 1, 1861, it did not take long for the new Confederate government to realize that the state’s 385-mile coastline was extremely vulnerable to enemy assaults. Read more

Civil War

Rebel Fury at Port Republic

Confederate infantry on the northeastern outskirts of Port Republic in the Shenandoah Valley charged up the slopes of a ravine on June 9, 1862, against Union artillery that had been ravaging their ranks all morning. Read more

Civil War

Savage Encounter at Champion’s Hill

The barren summit of Champion’s Hill presented an ideal site for Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton’s Confederate army to deploy artillery batteries on the morning of May 16, 1863. Read more

Civil War

Union General John Pope: Cracking Island No. 10

With its whistle blaring, the Confederate gunboat Grampus steamed into Madrid Bend, where Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas come together on the Mississippi River. Read more

Civil War

The Battle of Pea Ridge: Showdown in the Ozarks

For three weeks in February 1862, Union Brig. Gen. Samuel Curtis led his Army of the Southwest on a 200-mile advance southward across the Ozark plateau in Missouri and into northern Arkansas. Read more

Civil War

Death on a High Bluff

It was almost dark when Captain Chase Philbrick led a reconnaissance party of 20 volunteers from Company H of the 15th Massachusetts Infantry across to Harrison’s Island situated in the middle of the Potomac River. Read more

Civil War

Roar of the Lightning Brigade

Convinced that a major fight was in the offing, 33-year-old Colonel John T. Wilder clambered up the branches of a nearby tree as the sun dipped below the horizon. Read more

Civil War

The Unforeseen Precipice

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

Brandy Station: The Largest American Civil War Cavalry Battle

Major Henry B. McClellan should have had a quiet afternoon. At dawn on June 9, 1863, Union cavalry had launched a surprise attack on Maj. Read more

Civil War

CSS Alabama vs USS Kearsarge: The Greatest High Seas Duel of the Civil War

On August 24, 1862, newly promoted Captain Raphael Semmes of the Confederate States Navy called his largely English crew to the quarterdeck of his new command, the 220-foot battle cruiser Alabama, lying off the coast of Terceira in the Azores. Read more

Civil War

Battle of New Market Heights

Reports of a massive enemy force crossing the James River to assail the paper-thin Confederate lines defending Richmond reached Lt. Read more

Civil War

Conquering the Queen City

The victory at Manassas on July 21, 1861, had made the Rebels overconfident bordering on lethargic. As one observer noted, “It created a paralysis of enterprise that was more damaging than disaster was for the North.” Read more

Civil War

Stand-up Fight at Peachtree Creek

During the early afternoon of July 9, 1864, the 103rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment of Maj. Gen. John M. Read more

Civil War

Edwin Stanton: From Secretary to First in Command

In the late hours of April 14, 1865, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton sat at a small table in the Petersen House across the street from Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. Read more

Civil War

“Keep to your Sabers, Men”: J.E.B. Stuart’s Charge at Gettysburg

An angry gloom hung like dust over the 6,000 Confederate cavalrymen trooping up the York Turnpike in the early dawn of July 3, 1863. Read more

Civil War

James Andrews vs. William Fuller in the Great Locomotive Chase

By early April 1862, the Civil War was already closing in on the South, but the trains still ran on time. Read more