Seven Days Battle
The celebrated 2nd U.S. Cavalry, like its brother regiment the 1st U.S. Cavalry, was formally created by an act of Congress in March 1855. Read more
Seven Days Battle
Horace Porter was born April 15, 1837 in Huntingdon, Pa. He traced his ancestry and family motto, “Vigilantia et virtute,” to William De La Grange, who accompanied William the Conqueror to England in 1066. Read more
Seven Days Battle
Colonel John F. Hartranft surveyed the blue-jacketed ranks to his front with a mixture of frustration and humiliation, and some of the men returned the favor. Read more
Seven Days Battle
By mid-afternoon on September 17, 1862, the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia were locked in mortal combat on the rolling hills overlooking the sluggish waters of Antietam Creek in northwestern Maryland. Read more
Seven Days Battle
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
Seven Days Battle
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
Seven Days Battle
On the last day of May 1862, heavy gunfire rumbled and thundered in the distance beyond the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Read more
Seven Days Battle
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
Seven Days Battle
The men who wore Confederate gray were notoriously high-strung and quick to anger—none more so than Stonewall Jackson and Ambrose Powell Hill. Read more
Seven Days Battle
Dawn on July 1, 1862, ushered in a hot summer day. After having assumed the offensive five days earlier, General Robert E. Read more
Seven Days Battle
The gray-clad Virginia infantry marched quickly through the woods. In the distance they could hear the familiar rattle of musketry signaling an encounter with the enemy. Read more
Seven Days Battle
General George McClellan was a key figure in the prosecution of the American Civil War, particularly during 1862, when he led the Union Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign, a failed offensive to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond in the spring, and the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day in American history, on September 17, 1862. Read more
Seven Days Battle
In 1862, Confederate forces in Virginia were enjoying a number of campaign successes, but the decisive advantage in naval power enjoyed by the Union enabled it to advance down the Mississippi, capture river forts, and conduct many coastal attacks. Read more
