Civil War

Civil War

One Gallant Rush: Black Soldiers at Fort Wagner

By Eric Niderost

The sun had already set, but the western sky was still bright from its fiery departure not long before. Read more

Civil War

“Let Us Die Like Men”

By Mike Phifer

Major General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne rose to his feet in the early afternoon of November 30, 1864, when he saw the courier galloping toward him. Read more

Civil War

Uniform: The 8th Texas Cavalry

By Don Troiani & William Welsh

Colonel Benjamin F. Terry, a sugar planter from Fort Bend County on the coastal plains of Texas, raised the 8th Texas Cavalry Regiment. Read more

Civil War

Grant’s Army of the Tennesee overcame adversity on the roundabout road to Vicksburg.

Major General Ulysses S. Grant sat on his horse in late April 1863 next to a narrow bridge over a wide marsh on the west bank of the Mississippi River in northeastern Louisiana. Read more

Civil War

War So Terrible: The Battle of Fredericksburg

By Arnold Blumberg

Word spread like wildfire through the camps of the Army of the Potomac during the second week of November 1862: “Little Mac” was out, “Old Burn” was in. Read more

Civil War

Winter Storm on Stones River

By Robert L. Durham

One of the most hard-fighting divisions in the Army of the Cumberland, the one led by Maj. Read more

Civil War

Edwin Stanton: From Secretary to First in Command

By Paul A. Thomsen

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

The Crime At Pickett’s Mill

By Roy Morris, Jr.

Peering through the thick underbrush west of Little Pumpkin Vine Creek, 30 miles northwest of Atlanta, on the afternoon of May 27, 1864, Ambrose Bierce had a bad feeling. Read more

Civil War

Siege of Port Hudson: Last Bastion on the Mississippi

By Pedro Garcia

Not long after Union Flag Officer David Farragut of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron received the surrender of New Orleans on April 29, 1862, he began pondering his next move. Read more

Civil War

The Death of a Legend: The Battle of Yellow Tavern

By Arnold Blumberg

“We have been badly used up,” a sergeant in the 5th New York Volunteer Cavalry Regiment complained in a letter to his wife on May 8, 1864, four days before J.E.B. Read more

Civil War

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

By Cowan Brew

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

Sealing Vicksburg’s Fate

By Lawrence Weber

During the Civil War, the strategic importance of Vicksburg, Mississippi, was readily apparent to both the Union and the Confederacy. Read more

Civil War

The Battle of Kernstown: Stonewall’s Victorious Defeat

By Lawrence Weber

Sunday morning, March 23, 1862, was sunny and warm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Confederate general Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, a devout Christian, did not like to fight on the Lord’s Day. Read more

Civil War

Healers or Horrors: Civil War Medicine

By Richard A. Gabriel

Safe behind its ocean barriers, the United States paid scant attention to the wars that raged abroad during the early 19th century, taking little notice of the lessons that might have been learned from the European experience with mass killing. Read more

Civil War

Glory Enough for One Day: Phil Sheridan’s Victory at Cedar Creek

By Roy Morris Jr.

Phil Sheridan had a bad feeling. The bantam-sized Union general always trusted his instincts, and now, in mid-October 1864, those instincts were telling him that trouble was brewing back at the front, where his Army of the Shenandoah was encamped near Cedar Creek, Virginia, resting and relaxing after a busy few weeks burning civilian farms and slaughtering thousands of head of livestock from Staunton north to Woodstock. Read more

Civil War

The Knoxville Campaign: Battle of Fort Sanders

By Arnold Blumberg

After the crushing Union defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln relieved Maj. Read more

Civil War

The Death of General Robert McCook

By Stuart W. Sanders

When the Civil War erupted, so many of Lisbon, Ohio-born Robert McCook’s large extended family joined the Union Army that the clan became known as the “Fighting McCooks.” Read more

Civil War

Wilson’s Creek: Bull Run of the West

By Joshua van Dereck

At the beginning of 1861, Missouri was in turmoil. A slave state since its inception in 1820, Missouri had grown increasingly tied to urban industry. Read more

Civil War

A Spectacle Of Singular Magnificence

By Eric Niderost

It was the afternoon of September 20, 1863, and the right wing of the Union Army of the Cumberland was in full flight at the battle of Chickamauga in northern Georgia. Read more

Civil War

Brandy Station: The Largest American Civil War Cavalry Battle

By David A. Norris

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