Stonewall Jackson
Union General Joseph Mansfield
By Steven L. OssadFor more than 45 years, Joseph Mansfield prepared himself for the ultimate test of a soldier—high command in time of war. Read more
Stonewall Jackson
Assault on Burnside’s Bridge at the Battle of Antietam
By Rob WillisColonel 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
Stonewall Jackson
Brandy Station: The Largest American Civil War Cavalry Battle
Major Henry B. McClellan should have had a quiet afternoon. At dawn on June 9, 1863, Union cavalry had launched a surprise attack on Maj. Read more
Stonewall Jackson
Lincoln vs. Frémont and His “Hasty Emancipation”
As the early days of the American Civil War were unfolding and the destiny of the republic was being contested on the battlefield, President Abraham Lincoln was engaged in a no less perilous type of battle. Read more
Stonewall Jackson
Battle of Antietam: Clash in the Cornfield
By Michael E. HaskewThe 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
Stonewall Jackson
A Murderous Order at Culp’s Hill
By Joshua SheperdAlthough Union Colonel Silas Colgrove had previously led his men through some of the most horrific fighting in the eastern theater of the Civil War, the order he received on the morning of July 3, 1863, in the woods near Culp’s Hill at Gettysburg, was the most unnerving he had ever received. Read more
Stonewall Jackson
The Disastrous Red River Campaign
By Michael E. HaskewNathaniel Banks was a political creature, and with his country in the throes of civil war, he now held the politically obtained rank of major general in the Union Army. Read more
Stonewall Jackson
Battle of Richmond, Kentucky: Cannae in the Bluegrass State
By Pedro GarciaOn 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
Stonewall Jackson
Stonewall Jackson & Nathaniel Banks at Cedar Mountain
By William E. WelshFollowing the completion of Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s unsuccessful Peninsula campaign earlier in the month, General Robert E. Read more
Stonewall Jackson
Battle of Mechanicsville: McClellan’s Unexploited Victory
By John WalkerAfter 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
Stonewall Jackson
Return to Manassas
By John WalkerSent into north-central Virginia to threaten Richmond on a second front, McDowell had managed to get lost in the woods near Gainesville and lost touch with his command for 12 full hours. Read more
Stonewall Jackson
First Manassas: The Battle of Bull Run
By Earl EchelberryOn March 4, 1861, with war clouds threatening the land, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated the 16th president of the United States. Read more
Stonewall Jackson
“Chancellorsville: Lee’s Greatest Battle,” a History by General Edward J. Stackwell
By Jon DiamondHistorians began writing about the Civil War even before it had become history. Battlefield accounts by traveling correspondents were a staple of Northern and Southern newspapers during the war, and a flood of memoirs, letters, official records, and unit histories followed in the decades after the war. Read more
Stonewall Jackson
“Put the Boys In”: Confederate Cadets at the Battle of New Market
By Pedro GarciaAs the Civil War continued in the spring of 1864, a Shenandoah Valley resident lamented, “Our prospects look gloomy, very gloomy.” Read more
Stonewall Jackson
Stonewall Jackson and John Gibbon at Brawner’s Farm
The ground around Manassas, Virginia was anything but auspicious for Union Army forces in the first two years of the American Civil War. Read more
