Civil War
Amid the fog of powder smoke in the north-Georgia forest, the frayed remnants of the Union’s Army of the Cumberland faced determined Confederate troops who sensed an impending victory. Read more
Civil War
The Union Army’s ambitious Overland Campaign began on May 4, 1864. It was the fourth year of the Civil War, and Lt. Read more
Civil War
An unrelenting rain soaked the gray-clad troops of Maj. Gen. George Pickett’s reinforced division of Confederate soldiers on the morning of March 30, 1865. Read more
Civil War
The night of April 14, 1865, was one of celebration in Washington, D.C. Just a few days earlier, on April 9, Confederate General Robert E. Read more
Civil War
The Union officer saw it quite clearly across the Rappahannock River: a hand-painted sign held up by a Rebel soldier that read, “Burnside and his pontoons stuck in the mud. Read more
Civil War
The guide shook uncontrollably when the gray-clad general pointed his pistol at him in the backwoods of central Georgia on the evening of July 21, 1864. Read more
Civil War
Historians began writing about the Civil War even before it had become history. Battlefield accounts by traveling correspondents were a staple of Northern and Southern newspapers during the war, and a flood of memoirs, letters, official records, and unit histories followed in the decades after the war. Read more
Civil War
By William E. Welsh
Private Augustus Du Bois marched forward at daybreak on June 3, 1864, along with hundreds of other members of the 7th New York Heavy Artillery regiment to a thin belt of timber a mile south of the key road junction of Cold Harbor. Read more
Civil War
The celebrated 2nd U.S. Cavalry, like its brother regiment the 1st U.S. Cavalry, was formally created by an act of Congress in March 1855. Read more
Civil War
Major General James Ewell Brown Stuart was in all his glory. It was June 8, 1863, and the Confederate cavalry commander was putting on a grand review of his horse soldiers on a plain west of the Rappahannock River near Brandy Station, Virginia, for none other than General Robert E. Read more
Civil War
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
The two Union generals faced each other on the afternoon of May 1, 1863, at the large house by the Orange Turnpike that had been chosen as the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac. Read more
Civil War
On Saturday, September 26, 1863, six days after the Battle of Chickamauga, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet wrote Confederate Secretary of War James A. Read more
Civil War
Major General John Brown Gordon guided his horse past fields where stalks of waist-high corn glistened in the sun. Read more
Civil War
Everyone in Washington, D.C., knew the reason Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant was in town. He had a hard time moving around without people applauding him everywhere he went. Read more
Civil War
On the morning of July 3, 1863, Confederate Brig. Gen. Wade Hampton III led the troopers of his brigade south along the York Road. Read more
Civil War
After just one month of training, the men of the 27th New York Infantry nervously sensed they would be in the middle of a real fight within minutes. Read more
Civil War
Lieutenant William B. Cushing’s Union Navy steam launch chugged up the dark Roanoke River late in 1864. Read more
Civil War
In the shadow of Cedar Mountain on the southern outskirts of Culpeper, Virginia, Major General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson deployed the troops at the head of his column of march against a reinforced Union corps on August 9, 1862. Read more
Civil War
It is a given that troops who are successful in battle are those that have confidence in themselves and in their commanders, and this was the case with the Confederate soldiers serving under Maj. Read more
