Union Army Archives

Union Army

Flanks vs. Frontal Attacks: Meade and Lee’s Tactics

by Robert Suhr

All day on July 4, 1863 the Union and Confederate armies stared at each other during the Battle of Gettysburg. Read more

Louisiana held an interesting political climate during the American Civil War, and suffered many political hardships in the years that followed.

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Louisiana’s Role in the American Civil War

Louisiana held an interesting political climate during the American Civil War. It was a prominent slave state; by 1860, nearly half of Louisiana’s population came from slaves. Read more

John Pelham was a pivotal figure at the Battle of Williamsburg and would redefine the concept of the flying battery for the Confederate artillery.

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“The Gallant Pelham” at the Battle of Williamsburg

by Nat R. Louis

During the Battle of Williamsburg, Virginia, in May 1862, General Joseph Hooker’s Union forces were in pursuit of the withdrawing Confederates. Read more

In 1862, the Civil War became deadly serious, and the people of the North and South realized the war would be long and bloody.

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At Shiloh, the Civil War Took a Turn

By Roy Morris, Jr.

No one expected this—not the fiercest “fire-eater” in South Carolina or the flintiest abolitionist in New England. Read more

Though not considered a major battle in the American Civil War, the Battle of Philippi was nevertheless the first land action in the Eastern Theater.

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On This Day in History: The Battle of Philippi

On this day in 1861, Union and Confederate forces met at the Battle of Philippi in modern day West Virginia. (The area still belonged to Virginia during the early years of the Civil War.) Read more

Robert E. Lee turned to his capable commander, John B. Goron, to conduct the last great Confederate attack to break the Siege of Petersburg.

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John B. Gordon: Robert E. Lee’s Man for Fort Stedman

by Joseph Lowry

In selecting a leader for the attack on Fort Stedman, Robert E. Lee could scarcely have chosen a better commander than Maj. Read more

Few photographers were able to capture as big a cross-section of people, places and events during the Civil War as Mathew Brady.

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Understanding the Civil War Though Photography

Much of the American Civil War can be understood through military correspondence, army documents and letters. But to understand the social impact of the bloodiest battles in the nation’s history, researchers and citizens alike often turn to what was then a budding technology: photography. Read more

Both the North and the South used the Western Theater as dumping grounds, especially for leaders seen as incompetent.

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The Civil War’s Western Territories As Leadership Dumping Grounds

By Mark N. Lardas

Strategically isolated from the South, geographically isolated from the Far West, and separated from the Union plains states by the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), Texas was a backwater whose ultimate fate depended on the success of the Confederacy. Read more

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Stonewall Jackson and John Gibbon at Brawner’s Farm

By John Walker

The ground around Manassas, Virginia, was not auspicious for Union Army forces in the first two years of the Civil War. Read more

These pictures depict items in a new special exhibit at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History, "1864."

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Museum Exhibit Celebrates Civil War Sesquicentennial

In celebration of the sesquicentennials of General William T. Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign and March to the Sea, the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History is opening a special exhibit titled “1864.” Read more

New archaeological digs conducted across the country might be able to offer new insight into prison life during the American Civil War.

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Prisons in the American Civil War — New Details Emerge

According to a CNN article, 2014 was the 150 anniversary of “the peak year of suffering” in American Civil War prisons. Read more

The British Library's exhibition, "Britain and the American Civil War" commemorates Great Britain's involvement in the War Between the States.

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Great Britain and the American Civil War

1861 to 1865 marked a bitter time in U.S. history. Arguments over states’ rights, slavery and the role the federal goverment should play in national affairs brought both the North an South into a terrible conflict that became the American Civil War. Read more

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Civil War Quarterly Preview: General Phillip Sheridan and the Battle of Winchester

For General Philiip Sheridan, war was a tonic.

“He was a wonderful man on the battle field,” one of his fellow Union officers recalled, “and never in as good humor as when under fire.” Read more

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Firing on Fort Sumter: the Start of Civil War

By Al Hemingway

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 Fort Sumter, an unfinished and architecturally insignificant masonry fort three miles out from the city where the harbor meets the Atlantic Ocean. Read more

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Was Sherman’s March a “Counterinsurgency Campaign”?

It isn’t how most would characterize William T. Sherman’s famous march across Georgia in 1864, but Thomas Ricks of Stars and Stripes begs to differ. Read more

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Avenues of Invasion: Captain Andrew Foote and Ulysses S. Grant

by Pedro Garcia

Seen from the Atlantic coast, the task of Northern armies appeared (at least to a skeptic) almost impossible, for the South looked truly boundless, an ocean of fields, valleys, mountains, forests, and rivers. Read more

As Robert E. Lee’s “right hand”, the death of Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was a crushing blow to the Confederate army. But was it pneumonia?

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The Battle of Chancellorsville and the Death of Stonewall Jackson

Following his greatest victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863, Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was scouting ahead of the lines with members of his staff when tragedy struck. Read more

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Photo Essay: Camping With the Union Army of the Potomac

by Kevin Hymel

The first camps assembled by the Union Army of the Potomac were tent cities, thrown together hastily as new regiments arrived from the free states. Read more

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Union Army Defeat at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff

By Conan Brew

In the wake of the humiliating and unexpected defeat, and fourth in a line that stretched back to Fort Sumter, the Battle of Bull Run, and the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, the Union Congress created a seven-man Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War to oversee and review all battles and the events surrounding them. Read more