Army of the Potomac

Prisons of the Civil War: An Enduring Controversy

The June 19, 1861, editorial in the Charleston Mercury newspaper warned: “War is bloody reality, not butterfly sporting. Read more

Army of the Potomac

Pickett’s Charge: “We Gained Nothing But Glory”

By Eric Niderost

July 3, 1863, dawned clear and bright, the warm sun promising even greater heat to come. By noon, temperatures were already in the low 90s, a typically hot and humid summer day in southern Pennsylvania. Read more

Army of the Potomac

Stonewall Jackson’s Hard Defeat At The Second Battle of Manassas

As the bright red sun was slowly setting over their shoulders on the balmy evening of August 28, 1862, Union troops marching east along the Warrenton Turnpike knew nothing of what awaited them. Read more

Army of the Potomac

Admiral David Farragut and the Battle of Mobile Bay

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

Army of the Potomac

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

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

Army of the Potomac

Assault on Burnside’s Bridge at the Battle of Antietam

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

Army of the Potomac

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

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

Army of the Potomac

Rolling the Dice: Robert E. Lee at Petersburg

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

Army of the Potomac

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

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

Army of the Potomac

Union Soldiers in the Civil War: Camping Along the Potomac

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

Army of the Potomac

Healers or Horrors: Civil War Medicine

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

Army of the Potomac

Longstreet’s Hammer Blow at Manassas

In the rolling fields on the south side of the Warrenton Turnpike, the men of the 5th New York of Colonel Gouverneur K. Read more

Army of the Potomac

Colonel Patrick Kelly at the Battle of Gettysburg

Colonel Patrick Kelly, who led the Irish Brigade into the Wheatfield on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, was born in Castle Hackett, County Galway, in 1821. Read more

Army of the Potomac

Robert E. Lee: Confederate Icon

When the Civil War broke out, Robert E. Lee of Virginia was offered command of the Union army. Read more

Army of the Potomac

Ulysses S. Grant: Union War Hero

Born in Ohio in 1822, Ulysses S. Grant graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1843. Read more

Army of the Potomac

Comparing the Battle of Gettysburg to the Entire Civil War

The occasion was, for the North, inauspicious. In the Battle of First Manassas, the Federals were routed, humiliated, and almost utterly crushed. Read more

Army of the Potomac

Woefully Unequipped For the American Civil War

When the American Civil War erupted in 1861 Iowa soldiers were equipped with old converted smoothbore flintlock muskets. Read more

Army of the Potomac

On This Day in History: The Battle of Cold Harbor

On June 12, 1864, the American Civil War Battle of Cold Harbor came to a close, which became one of the final battles in Ulysses S. Read more

Army of the Potomac

The Gallant 4th Army Regulars at the Battle of Gettysburg

When the American Civil War erupted in April 1861, the 10 companies of the 4th U.S. Infantry were spread along the West Coast from Puget Sound to the Gulf of California in various small, far-flung garrisons. Read more

Army of the Potomac

Civil War Quarterly Preview: General Phillip Sheridan and the Battle of Winchester

For General Philiip Sheridan, war was a tonic.

“He was a wonderful man on the battle field,” one of his fellow Union officers recalled, “and never in as good humor as when under fire.” Read more