CW-April-11

Battle of Belmont: Ulysses S. Grant’s First Battle

By Donald J. Roberts II

When the Civil War started in 1861, there were only two officers in the Union Army who had commanded a force in battle larger than a brigade. Read more

CW-April-11

First Manassas: The Battle of Bull Run

By Earl Echelberry

On March 4, 1861, with war clouds threatening the land, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated the 16th president of the United States. Read more

CW-April-11

Wilson’s Creek: Bull Run of the West

By Joshua van Dereck

At 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

CW-April-11

Firing on Fort Sumter: the Start of Civil War

By Al Hemingway

Shortly after midnight on the morning of April 12, 1861, four men in a rowboat made their way across the pitch-black harbor at Charleston, South Carolina, toward Fort Sumter, an unfinished and architecturally insignificant masonry fort three miles out from the city where the harbor meets the Atlantic Ocean. Read more

CW-April-11

The Decline of Stephen Douglas and the American Whig Party

By Roy Morris Jr.

It was unseasonably warm in Charleston when the Democratic National Convention opened for business at noon on April 23, 1860. Read more

CW-April-11

Photo Essay: Camping With the Union Army of the Potomac

by Kevin Hymel

The first camps assembled by the Union Army of the Potomac were tent cities, thrown together hastily as new regiments arrived from the free states. Read more

CW-April-11

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

By Roy Morris Jr.

“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