Robert E. Lee

Forty-rod, Blue Ruin & Oh Be Joyful: Civil War Alcohol Abuse

by David A. Norris

Union General Benjamin Butler was baffled. Every night a picket guard went to an outpost 1½ miles from Fort Monroe, Virginia. Read more

Robert E. Lee

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

Robert E. Lee

Battle of Richmond, Kentucky: Cannae in the Bluegrass State

By Pedro Garcia

On September 7, 1862, Colonel Walter Taylor of General Robert E. Lee’s staff wrote to his sister: “The Yankee papers of the 6th exhibit a gloomy picture for our enemy. Read more

Robert E. Lee

End Game at Appomattox

By Mike Phifer

Lieutenant Colonel Horace Porter, personal aide to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, maneuvered his mount past ammunition wagons, ambulances, stragglers, and prisoners jamming the muddy roads leading back to headquarters from Five Forks, Virginia, on the evening of April 1, 1865. Read more

Robert E. Lee

Battle of Antietam: Clash in the Cornfield

By Michael E. Haskew

The White House was a somber place in the summer of 1862. The Civil War was in the midst of its second costly year, and the Union armies had yet to win a significant victory in the eastern theater. Read more

Robert E. Lee

Sharp Clash at North Anna

By David A. Norris

Dripping wet Union soldiers stepped out of the North Anna River’s Jericho Ford on May 22, 1864, setting foot in Hanover County, Virginia. Read more

Robert E. Lee

The Knoxville Campaign: Battle of Fort Sanders

By Arnold Blumberg

After the crushing Union defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln relieved Maj. Read more

Robert E. Lee

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

Robert E. Lee

Chasing Jefferson Davis

By Don Hollway

When the end came, on April 2, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was sitting in his customary pew at St. Read more

Robert E. Lee

Battle of Gettysburg: No Picnic at Culp’s Hill

By Roy Morris Jr.

As they formed ranks on the Hanover Road one mile east of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of July 2, 1863, the men in the II Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia stared anxiously at the giant boulders and towering oak trees dotting the humpbacked prominence known as Culp’s Hill, three quarters of a mile southeast of town. Read more

Robert E. Lee

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

Robert E. Lee

J.E.B. Stuart and Kilpatrick Butt Heads at Buckland Mills

By Arnold Blumberg

For the Federal government at Washington, D.C., the news from Tennessee was grim in late September 1863. The Union Army of the Cumberland, under Maj. Read more

Robert E. Lee

Battle of New Market Heights

By David Norris

Reports of a massive enemy force crossing the James River to assail the paper-thin Confederate lines defending Richmond reached Lt. Read more

Robert E. Lee

Stand-up Fight at Peachtree Creek

By Arnold Blumberg

During the early afternoon of July 9, 1864, the 103rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment of Maj. Gen. John M. Read more

Robert E. Lee

“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

Robert E. Lee

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

Robert E. Lee

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

Robert E. Lee

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

Robert E. Lee

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

Robert E. Lee

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