Civil War Archives

This 1862 lithograph shows Liverpool shipbuilding. The longest unmasted hull may be what eventually became the CSS Alabama.

Civil War

Civil War Spies: James D. Bulloch

By Jim Haviland

Although Confederate commander James D. Bulloch had a well-rounded naval background, he also proved skillful as a secret agent. Read more

Civil War

Admiral David Farragut and the Battle of Mobile Bay

By Pedro Garcia

On the night of August 4, 1864, in the cabin of his flagship the USS Hartford, Admiral Farragut read his Bible, arriving at ultimate assurance that God was on his side. Read more

Federals shoot at Rebel cavalrymen attempting to overwhelm a supply train. The deeper Union armies penetrated into the Southern heartland, the longer and more vulnerable their supply lines. Confederates went after them with gusto and not just to hurt Northern armies; they could luxuriate for a time on the food, clothing, and ammunition they captured.

Civil War

Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler’s 1863 Sequatchie Valley Raid

By Arnold Blumberg

During the evening of September 20,1863, the following message reached Washington and was given to the president of the United States: “We have met with a serious disaster; extent not yet ascertained. Read more

Civil War

Assault on Burnside’s Bridge at the Battle of Antietam

By Rob Willis

Colonel John F. Hartranft surveyed the blue-jacketed ranks to his front with a mixture of frustration and humiliation, and some of the men returned the favor. Read more

Civil War

Civil War Weapons: The Telegraph?

By Jim Haviland

Early in the American Civil War, during the first months of 1862, Union General Henry Halleck, commanding from his headquarters in St. Read more

Civil War

West Virginia: Seceding from the Confederacy

By Don Roberts

During the Civil War western Virginia was crucial to the Union. The region that lay west of the Shenandoah Valley and north of the Kanawha River held nearly a quarter of Virginia’s nonslave population when the war began in 1861. Read more

Civil War

Final Attack at the Battle of Stones River

By Jim Heenehan

Late in the morning of January 2, 1863, Confederate Maj. Gen. John Breckinridge gazed through the brush at newly arrived Union infantry occupying a partially wooded hill to his front near Murfreesboro, Tenn. Read more

Civil War

The Gatling Gun: A Civil War Innovation

By A.B. Feuer

Richard Gatling was born in Hertford County, NC, on December 12, 1818. His father was a prosperous farmer and inventor, and the son was destined to inherit the “invention bug.” Read more

Civil War

Hancock the Superb: Winfield Scott Hancock & the Battle of Gettysburg

By John Deppen

On East Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg National Military Park, an equestrian statue of Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock stands facing west toward the Evergreen Cemetery gatehouse. Read more

The CSS Virginia blasts the USS Cumberland. John Wood was a major factor in the Virginia’s success. Throughout the war he used scarce resources to advantage for the Confederate cause.

Civil War

John Taylor Wood, Hero of the Confederate Navy

By James M. Powles

The epic battle between the Virginia (Merrimack) and Monitor might never have taken place because, as strange as it may seem, the Confederates did not have enough experienced men to man their ship. Read more

“Battle of Cedar Creek,” chromolithograph by Kurz & Allison of Chicago, December 12, 1890.

Civil War

‘A Bad Place for a Fight’

By Mike Phifer

In the early hours of October 19, 1864, fog blanketed the hills and fields along the meandering Cedar Creek in the northern Shenandoah Valley. Read more

Civil War

Rolling the Dice: Robert E. Lee at Petersburg

By Joseph E. Lowry

By the early spring of 1865, the Southern Confederacy was on the cusp of extinction. In every theater of the four-year-old Civil War, the gray-clad Rebels were getting the worst of things. Read more

Civil War

Ambrose Powell Hill: His Greatest Action at the Battle of Antietam

By William E. Welsh

By mid-afternoon on September 17, 1862, the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia were locked in mortal combat on the rolling hills overlooking the sluggish waters of Antietam Creek in northwestern Maryland. Read more

Soldiers construct log huts from nearby trees. One soldier takes a drink (center) while others split timbers (left) as a mounted officer looks on.

Civil War

Union Soldiers in the Civil War: Camping Along the Potomac

Written by: Kevin M. Hymel

Photo Essay By Kevin M. Hymel

Before the fighting even began, before the first impassioned chorus of “On to Richmond!” was raised by the men in blue, the soldiers comprising the Union Army of the Potomac during the Civil War had to create their own precarious living quarters in the forested wilderness of the eastern seaboard. Read more

Civil War

First Rhode Island Detached Militia, 1861

By Paul Loane Artwork by Don Troiani

In the days following the outbreak of war, Northern states scrambled to assemble small militia groups into regiment-size units, recruit additional volunteers and uniform them all in a cohesive manner. Read more

Dwarfed by Lookout Mountain, the Union Army of the Cumberland hunkers down in besieged Chattanooga in this idealized painting. Actual conditions were much worse.

Civil War

Miracle at Chattanooga’s Battle of Missionary Ridge

By Mike Phifer

Peering through a pair of field glasses, Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest perched in an oak tree on Missionary Ridge, overlooking the Tennessee town of Chattanooga, and observed a Union army in complete disarray. Read more

Civil War

When the Earth Moved

Photo Essay by Kevin M. Hymel

The crater that punched a hole in the Confederate lines and threw a 200-foot umbrella of dirt, men, and guns into the air on July 30, 1864, could today be mistaken for a gentle dip in the rolling, slight hills of the Petersburg countryside. Read more

Civil War

Union Disaster: The Battle of Thompson’s Station

By Robert L. Durham

The winter of 1863 was a time of general inactivity for the exhausted armies in middle Tennessee. Read more

Civil War

Day One of the Battle of Stones River

By Mike Phifer

For weeks, Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans had been hearing increased grumblings from Washington about how he should move his army out of Nashville and strike General Braxton Bragg’s Confederate forces 30 miles away in Murfreesboro. Read more