John Maxwell placed a bomb aboard a cargo ship at City Point in August 1864 in a desperate bid to slow the flow of supplies to Union troops at Petersburg.   More »

Abraham Lincoln clashed publicly with Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont over his hasty emancipation proclamation in Missouri.   More »

Historians are always in argument over how General Kilpatrick’s raid on Richmond had failed, but how did it come about? Read more about it inside.   More »

Ulysses S. Grant would later admit that Cold Harbor was the one battle he “would not fight again.” Many federal soldiers who survived would agree.   More »

An plan to tunnel beneath Confederate defenses at Petersburg and blast a huge hole inadvertently became a crater of death for Union soldiers.   More »

Thaddeus Lowe and his Union Army Balloon Corps pioneered aerial reconnaissance over some of the first battlefields of the American Civil War.   More »

With Richmond in the distance, Union General George B. McClellan divided his army in two. Confederate General Joseph Johnston struck immediately.   More »

On June 19, 1864, the fabled CSS Alabama sailed out of the harbor in Cherbourg, France, to confront the USS Kearsarge, which was blockading the port.   More »

With Confederate forces in full retreat, alert Union forces charged through a gap in the Rebel column, capturing 8,000 soldiers at Sayler’s Creek.

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In April 1865, the Army of Northern Virginia tried to escape U.S. Grant’s Federal armies, but found itself trapped at Appomattox Court House.   More »