Union Army
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
Union Army
March 8, 1862, dawned sunny and mild at Hampton Roads, Virginia. To the men of the Union blockading squadron, the day seemed like any other. Read more
Union Army
During the Civil War, the strategic importance of Vicksburg, Mississippi, was readily apparent to both the Union and the Confederacy. Read more
Union Army
Before the fighting even began, before the first impassioned chorus of “On to Richmond!” was raised by the men in blue, the soldiers comprising the Union Army of the Potomac during the Civil War had to create their own precarious living quarters in the forested wilderness of the Eastern Seaboard. Read more
Union Army
Following his greatest victory, at the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863, Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas J. Read more
Union Army
Seemingly from birth, William Haines Lytle was bound for glory. As the last surviving male offspring of one of Cincinnati’s leading pioneer families, Lytle was the prototypical golden boy. Read more
Union Army
Among the historic inventory of the United States Army’s artillery weapons, few pieces have enjoyed a more predominant role or reputation than the Model 1857 12-pounder gun-howitzer, which became a mainstay of the Federal artillery during the Civil War. Read more
Union Army
For more than 45 years, Joseph Mansfield prepared himself for the ultimate test of a soldier—high command in time of war. Read more
Union Army
Two days after the unparalleled bloodletting at Antietam, a bushy-bearded Scottish photographer and his pudgy, clean-shaven assistant rolled onto the battlefield with their bulky stereoscopic cameras and portable darkroom. Read more
Union Army
The ground around Manassas, Virginia, was not auspicious for Union Army forces in the first two years of the Civil War. Read more
Union Army
Despite the increasing effectiveness of the Union naval blockade, more and more steamers plied the waters between the few remaining Confederate ports and Nassau, St. Read more
Union Army
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
Union Army
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
Union Army
Shortly after midnight on the morning of April 12, 1861, four men in a rowboat made their way across the pitch-black harbor at Charleston, South Carolina, toward an unfinished and architecturally insignificant masonry fort three miles out from the city where the harbor meets the Atlantic Ocean. Read more
Union Army
“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
Union Army
During the evening of September 20,1863, the following message reached Washington and was given to the president of the United States: “We have met with a serious disaster; extent not yet ascertained. Read more
Union Army
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
Union Army
Early in the American Civil War, during the first months of 1862, Union General Henry Halleck, commanding from his headquarters in St. Read more
Union Army
It had been a little over six months since Major General William S. Rosecrans and his Army of the Cumberland had checked the Confederates at the Battle of Stones River (December 31,1862–January 2,1863). Read more
Union Army
By the early spring of 1865, the Southern Confederacy was on the cusp of extinction. In every theater of the four-year-old Civil War, the gray-clad Rebels were getting the worst of things. Read more
