Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Chasing Jefferson Davis

When the end came, on April 2, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was sitting in his customary pew at St. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

The Dakota War of 1862: What Caused the Great Sioux Uprising

Shortly after midnight on the morning of Monday, August 18, 1862, an uneasy group of Santee Sioux warriors arrived at the simple frame home of Taoyateduta, known to the whites as Little Crow. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

Crossroads of Destiny: The Battle of the Wilderness

The year 1864 was shaping up to be a critical one in the three-year-long Civil War. During the previous year, Federal armies had gained control of the Mississippi River and consolidated their grip on Tennessee. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

Black Soldiers, Blue Uniforms

Although several overzealous Union Army field commanders organized African Americans into ad hoc militia units early in 1862 and several black regiments were mustered into service later that year, it wasn’t until after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, that the federal government began actively recruiting and enlisting black soldiers and sailors. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address & Pericles’ Funeral Oration

At a time long ago, and in a place far away, a man stood up before his countrymen to console them if he could for the loss of their sons in battle for a righteous cause. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

The Conscription Act and Abraham Lincoln’s Civil War Substitute

When Abraham Lincoln signed into law the first conscription act in American history in March 1863, one of the most unpopular parts of the widely unpopular act was the provision allowing draft-eligible males to hire substitutes to take their place in the army. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

Words To Bayonets, Bayonets to Bombs: How the Civil War Escalated

“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

Abraham Lincoln

Civil War Spies: Timothy Webster

Spying is a dangerous game.

Even the best spies sometimes get caught, as Confederate raider John Yates Beall, “the Mosby of the Chesapeake,” learned the hard way in 1865, and the consequences are never pretty to contemplate. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

American Civil War Timeline – Southern Offensives Turned Back

Confederate offensives into two border states, Maryland and Kentucky, formed the key highlights of the second half of 1862 for the Confederacy. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

John Pope vs. Little Crow: The Sioux Uprising

John Pope’s second campaign as an army commander went considerably better than his first. Not that it did his reputation—or Abraham Lincoln’s, for that matter—any particular good. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

The Curse of the Whig Party

The short-lived Whig Party had a fair degree of success electing candidates for president, winning two of the five presidential elections in which it fielded a candidate. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

Mark Twain Joins the Marion Rangers

Twenty-five-year-old Mississippi River pilot Samuel Clemens (not yet known by his famous pen name, Mark Twain) was in his home port of New Orleans in late January 1861 when word reached the city that Louisiana had seceded from the Union. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

The Mystery Behind Custer’s Last Stand & The Battle of Little Bighorn

A single cavalryman burst from the copse in mid-afternoon on June 25, 1876, riding hell-bent for the swift flowing river. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

John Chivington: From Glorieta Pass to the Sand Creek Massacre

Major John M. Chivington, Colorado’s “fighting parson,” played a large role in the Union victory at Glorieta Pass, New Mexico, in 1862. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

American Writers Who Avoided the Civil War

When Mark Twain “lit out for the territory” in July 1861 from his erstwhile role as the world’s worst Confederate ranger, he joined a small but distinguished list of future American literary greats who similarly decided, as had Twain, that they were “not rightly equipped for this awful business.” Read more

Abraham Lincoln

Senseless Slaughter at The Battle of Fredericksburg

Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside was prone to dithering. The vanguard of his 120,000-strong Union Army had arrived in Falmouth on the north bank of the Rappahannock River opposite Fredericksburg on November 14, 1862. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

After the Lincoln Assassination: The World-Wide Manhunt for John Surratt

On the evening of April 14, 1865, noted actor John Wilkes Booth entered Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., Read more

Abraham Lincoln

The Battle of Champion’s Hill: Prelude to Vicksburg

The Battle of Champion’s Hill was a pivotal event in the American Civil War. Ulysses S. Grant would pursue the retreating Confederate army to an area 20 miles east of Vicksburg, bringing about the Siege of Vicksburg and the Confederates’ surrender. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

President Abraham Lincoln & The American Civil War

The 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln was elected to the highest office in the land in November 1860, and the event prompted the secession of numerous southern states beginning with South Carolina the following month. Read more

Abraham Lincoln

Union Generals of the American Civil War: George McClellan

General George McClellan was a key figure in the prosecution of the American Civil War, particularly during 1862, when he led the Union Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign, a failed offensive to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond in the spring, and the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day in American history, on September 17, 1862. Read more