Union Army
Book Review: Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America
By Christopher MiskimonThe men of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment began a hard march at 8:30 am on February 20, 1864. Read more
Union Army
Making “The Ors”: The 138,579-Page Official History of the Civil War
By Stephen D. LutzThe title of the 128-book, 138,579-page work was a suitably large mouthful: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Read more
Union Army
Dying to Get Home: PTSD in the Civil War
By Kevin L. CookA slight knee wound brought the New Jersey boy to a Washington military hospital, but “his mind had suffered more than his body,” wrote volunteer nurse Louisa May Alcott. Read more
Union Army
Military Music of the Civil War
By James A. DavisWinter was the calmest period for Civil War soldiers. Knowing that there was no combat immediately looming on the horizon allowed the soldiers to relax and recuperate in ways they had not been able to enjoy beafore. Read more
Union Army
A Confederate Intelligence Coup Won the Siege of Charleston Harbor
By Stephen C. RuderThe Union bid to capture Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1863 was set in motion seven months earlier, in the autumn of 1862. Read more
Union Army
The Grand Review of 1865
By William StroockRobert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, presaging the subsequent surrender of other Confederate forces in the West and the capture of Southern President Jefferson Davis a few weeks later, marked the triumphant end of the nation’s great sundering. Read more
Union Army
Black Thursday at Sayler’s Creek
By David A. NorrisFour hundred Confederate sailors and marines, their small arms loaded and ready, awaited their orders. Some men had their cutlasses within easy reach. Read more
Union Army
End Game at Appomattox
By Mike PhiferLieutenant 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
Union Army
The Trent Affair: When the Union and Great Britain Nearly Went to War
By Mark SimmonsIn November 1861, word swept through London that an American warship, James Adger, in port at Southampton, was planning to put to sea and intercept a British ship bringing Confederate emissaries to Europe. Read more
Union Army
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
Union Army
Fort Fisher: Last Bastion of the Confederacy
By Pedro GarciaThe prospect of running the Federal blockade at Wilmington was easy in the beginning. North Carolina’s principal seaport was blockaded by a single warship, USS Daylight, and no one took the threat seriously. Read more
Union Army
Grierson’s Raid: Wrecking the Railroad With the Butternut Guerrillas
By Mike PhiferUnion Colonel Benjamin Grierson stuck his left foot into the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. Orders were quickly given, and soon a column of 1,700 blue-jacketed troopers of Grierson’s 1st Brigade, along with a battery of artillery, trampled southeast from La Grange, Tennessee, in the early dawn of April 17, 1863. Read more
Union Army
Grant Takes D.C.
By Arnold BlumbergOn March 8, 1864, a rainy Tuesday, President and Mrs. Lincoln held a reception at the White House in Washington. Read more
Union Army
The Battle of Stones River: Into the Cauldron
By Joshua ShepherdFor the weary troops of the Army of the Cumberland, there was precious little sleep to be had in the farm fields and cedar thickets northwest of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Read more
Union Army
Misbegotten Attack at Bristoe Station
By Arnold BlumbergIn late July 1863, after the conclusion of the Gettysburg campaign, the Union Army of the Potomac, under Maj. Read more
Union Army
Swirling Cavalry Fight at Trevilian Station
By Arnold BlumbergDespite costing the Union Army 55,000 men in five weeks of hard marching and grueling combat, Lt. Gen. Read more
Union Army
Morgan’s Ohio Raid
By Joshua Shepherd“It was a sad, sorrowful day,” recalled Confederate Major James McCreary, “and more tears of grief rolled over my weather beaten cheeks on this mournful occasion than have before for years.” Read more
Union Army
Brawl at Brawner’s Farm: Jackson’s Bloody Stalemate at Second Manassas
By John WalkerThe ground around Manassas, Virginia, was not auspicious for Union Army forces in the first two years of the Civil War. Read more
Union Army
What Happened at the Devil’s Den at the Battle of Gettysburg
By Don WilliamsThe struggle for the Devil’s Den at Gettysburg occurred on July 2, 1863, under a hot and cloudless afternoon. Read more
Union Army
The Dakota War of 1862: What Caused the Great Sioux Uprising
By Eric NiderostShortly after midnight on the morning of Monday, August 18, 1862, an uneasy group of Santee Sioux warriors arrived at the simple frame home of Taoyateduta, known to the whites as Little Crow. Read more
