general george mcclellan

“Keep to your Sabers, Men”: J.E.B. Stuart’s Charge at Gettysburg

By Cowan Brew

An 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

general george mcclellan

War So Terrible: The Battle of Fredericksburg

By Arnold Blumberg

Word 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

general george mcclellan

Rose O’Neal Greenhow: The Spy Who Won Bull Run

By David Alan Johnson

“But for you, there would have been no Battle of Bull Run.” When Confederate President Jefferson Davis made that blanket statement in the summer of 1862, he was not addressing Pierre G.T. Read more

general george mcclellan

Civil War Artillery

By John D. Gresham

For much of its history, artillery has been a weapon of mass destruction and attrition, a force designed to cause casualties, destroy fortifications, and wear an enemy down with its noise, explosions, and shrapnel. Read more

general george mcclellan

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

By John Deppen

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

general george mcclellan

Petersburg’s Broadway Landing: Union Supply Depot

By Nicholas Bolash

In 1864, the Civil War was raging across the United States. At the epicenter of the seemingly stalemated conflict was the vital Confederate stronghold at Petersburg, Va. Read more

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

How Did Stonewall Jackson Actually Die?

By J.D. Haines

Following his greatest victory, at the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863, Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas J. 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

general george mcclellan

Costly Confederate Victory at Gaines’ Mill

By John Walker

With just an hour of daylight remaining on the smoke-shrouded battlefield near Gaines’ Mill six miles northeast of Richmond, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Read more

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

City Under Siege: The New York Draft Riots

By Rick Beard

For four breathlessly hot days in mid-July 1863, New York City became the northernmost battleground of the Civil War. 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

general george mcclellan

Longstreet’s Hammer Blow at Manassas

By Joshua Shepherd

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

general george mcclellan

American Civil War Timeline: Piecemeal Operations

by William E. Welsh

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln had no military experience and discarded most of Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott’s so-called Anaconda Plan, which critics deemed too conservative. Read more

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

Antietam National Battlefield to Receive Trump Donation

President Donald Trump has kept true to his pledge to donate his presidential income while in office, with the President’s first paycheck going, in full, to fund projects to maintain and restore the Antietam National Battlefield. 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