Rallying around their tattered flag, the 12th Virginia Infantry crashes into the Federal vanguard of Brigadier General Edward Ferrero at the edge of the Crater. Painting by John Adams Elder.

general george mcclellan

Bloody Fiasco at the Crater

By Arnold Blumberg

In the summer of 1864, after six weeks of virtually constant combat in the Wilderness area of northern Virginia, the Union and Confederate armies of Ulysses S. Read more

general george mcclellan

Avoiding the Nameless Grave—Civil War ID Tags

By Don Troiani

The American Civil War may well have been the first major conflict in which soldiers felt the need to wear some sort of a personal identification badge in the event that they were killed or wounded in battle. Read more

A Union doctor in a straw hat, foreground, examines a soldier’s leg wound while other casualties sprawl on the ground at a field hospital following the Battle of Savage’s Station, Virginia, on June 29, 1862.

general george mcclellan

Healers or Horrors: Civil War Medicine

By Richard A. Gabriel

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

general george mcclellan

Battle of Mechanicsville: McClellan’s Unexploited Victory

By John Walker

After 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

general george mcclellan

Mowed Down by the Fifties

By William E. Welsh

As Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his I Corps commander, Maj. Gen. James Longstreet, rode together on horseback along the dust-choked Quaker Road from Glendale to Malvern Hill on the morning of July 1, 1862,  they stopped to confer with Maj. Read more

Despite numerous attempts to deescalate the situation on both sides, Fort Sumter was fired upon in April 1861, marking the start of the American Civil War.

general george mcclellan

American Civil War Timeline: the Road to War

by William Welsh

One of the catalysts for a major rebellion in the United States were irregular warfare in “Bleeding Kansas” from 1854 to 1861 between anti-slavery Free Staters and pro-slavery border ruffians. Read more

general george mcclellan

The Battle of Rich Mountain

By William F. Floyd, Jr.

The blue-coated soldiers trudged uphill through the forest trying their best not to get snagged on the laurel branches or stumble over the tree roots. Read more

general george mcclellan

The Worst American Civil War Generals and Commanders

By William Welsh The Worst Civil War Generals on the Confederacy

Confederate Maj. Gen. Gideon Pillow. After gaining ground trying to cut an escape path for the Confederates during the February 1862 siege of Fort Donelson by Union forces led Brig. Read more

general george mcclellan

Stalemate at Seven Pines

By David Norris

On the last day of May 1862, heavy gunfire rumbled and thundered in the distance beyond the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Read more