Civil War
Savage Encounter at Champion’s Hill
By Robert L. DurhamThe 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
Civil War
Kansas Brigadier James Henry Lane
By David A. NorrisAt dawn on August 21, 1863, 450 Confederate Irregulars under William C. Quantrill descended on the town of Lawrence, Kansas. Read more
Civil War
The Creation of the U.S. Sanitary Commission
By Lawrence WeberIn the spring of 1861, a group of influential northern men and women, led by Unitarian minister Henry Whitney Bellows and social reformer Dorothea Dix, met in New York City to discuss the formation of a sanitary commission, modeled after the British Sanitary Commission established during the Crimean War, to provide relief to sick and wounded soldiers in the Union Army. Read more
Civil War
Bloody Assault on Knoxville
By Mike PhiferAt midnight on November 13, 1863, two companies of the Palmetto (South Carolina) Sharpshooters Regiment led by Captain Alfred Foster slipped down to the south bank of the Tennessee River at Huff’s Ferry. Read more
Civil War
City Point Bombing
By William E. WelshBy the Summer of 1864, it was no longer likely the Army of Northern Virginia would invade the North a third time, would launch another major offensive, or even drive Union forces away from Richmond and Petersburg. Read more
Civil War
Costly Confederate Victory at Gaines’ Mill
By John WalkerWith just an hour of daylight remaining on the smoke-shrouded battlefield near Gaines’ Mill six miles northeast of Richmond, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Read more
Civil War
One Gallant Rush: Black Soldiers at Fort Wagner
By Eric NiderostThe 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 PhiferMajor 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
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
Winter Storm on Stones River
By Robert L. DurhamOne 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. ThomsenIn 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
Healers or Horrors: Civil War Medicine
By Richard A. GabrielSafe 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
The Knoxville Campaign: Battle of Fort Sanders
By Arnold BlumbergAfter 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. SandersWhen 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 DereckAt 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 NiderostIt 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
Medal of Honor Recipient Daniel Butterfield
By William F. Floyd Jr.The series of battles that constituted the Confederate offensive against the Union army on the eastern outskirts of Richmond, Virginia, in summer 1862 would thrust a number of Union officers into the limelight. Read more
Civil War
Battle of Mechanicsville: McClellan’s Unexploited Victory
By John WalkerAfter an almost uninterrupted, four-month-long string of Union successes beginning in early 1862, followed by the advance of a 100,000-man enemy army to the eastern outskirts of its capital at Richmond, Virginia, the Confederacy suddenly found itself in a life-or-death struggle for its very survival. Read more
Civil War
James Andrews vs. William Fuller in the Great Locomotive Chase
By Don HollwayBy early April 1862, the Civil War was already closing in on the South, but the trains still ran on time. Read more
