Confederacy
Thomas O. Selfridge: A Naval Hero of the Civil War
By James M. PowlesMarch 8, 1862, dawned sunny and mild at Hampton Roads, Virginia. To the men of the Union blockading squadron, the day seemed like any other. Read more
Confederacy
War So Terrible: The Battle of Fredericksburg
By Arnold BlumbergWord spread like wildfire through the camps of the Army of the Potomac during the second week of November 1862: “Little Mac” was out, “Old Burn” was in. Read more
Confederacy
Medal of Honor Recipient: Henry Lawton
By Chuck LyonsOn August 3, 1864, near Atlanta, Georgia, Captain Henry Lawton of Indiana led a group of Union skirmishers in a charge against Confederate rifle pits. Read more
Confederacy
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
Confederacy
The Death of a Legend: The Battle of Yellow Tavern
By Arnold Blumberg“We have been badly used up,” a sergeant in the 5th New York Volunteer Cavalry Regiment complained in a letter to his wife on May 8, 1864, four days before J.E.B. Read more
Confederacy
“Keep to your Sabers, Men”: J.E.B. Stuart’s Charge at Gettysburg
By Cowan BrewAn angry gloom hung like dust over the 6,000 Confederate cavalrymen trooping up the York Turnpike in the early dawn of July 3, 1863. Read more
Confederacy
Sealing Vicksburg’s Fate
By Lawrence WeberDuring the Civil War, the strategic importance of Vicksburg, Mississippi, was readily apparent to both the Union and the Confederacy. Read more
Confederacy
The Battle of Kernstown: Stonewall’s Victorious Defeat
By Lawrence WeberSunday morning, March 23, 1862, was sunny and warm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Confederate general Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, a devout Christian, did not like to fight on the Lord’s Day. Read more
Confederacy
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
Confederacy
Glory Enough for One Day: Phil Sheridan’s Victory at Cedar Creek
By Roy Morris Jr.Phil Sheridan had a bad feeling. The bantam-sized Union general always trusted his instincts, and now, in mid-October 1864, those instincts were telling him that trouble was brewing back at the front, where his Army of the Shenandoah was encamped near Cedar Creek, Virginia, resting and relaxing after a busy few weeks burning civilian farms and slaughtering thousands of head of livestock from Staunton north to Woodstock. Read more
Confederacy
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
Confederacy
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
Confederacy
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
Confederacy
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
Confederacy
Alfred Duffie: A ‘Napoleon’ in the Civil War
By Arnold BlumbergNapoleon Alexandre Duffie was born on May 1, 1833, in Paris, France. His father, Jean August Duffie, was a prosperous sugar refiner and mayor of the village of La Ferte-sous-Jouarre. Read more
Confederacy
Prisons of the Civil War: An Enduring Controversy
By Michael E. HaskewThe June 19, 1861, editorial in the Charleston Mercury newspaper warned: “War is bloody reality, not butterfly sporting. Read more
Confederacy
Clash at Bald Hill: Atlanta’s Bloodiest Day
By William E. WelshThe 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
Confederacy
Belle Boyd: Confederate Spy
By William E. WelshWord spread like wildfire through Martinsburg in northeastern Virginia that the Yankees were on the move. On July 2, 1861 Maj. Read more
Confederacy
Looking Back on the Vicksburg Campaign
Brooke C. StoddardWhen the sun set on the Confederacy, the stars began to rise and shine, none more brightly for Northerners than that of Abraham Lincoln, and for Southerners than those of Robert E. Read more
Confederacy
Woefully Unequipped For the American Civil War
By Kirk FreemanWhen the American Civil War erupted in 1861 Iowa soldiers were equipped with old converted smoothbore flintlock muskets. Read more
