Union Navy

Civil War Spies: James D. Bulloch

By Jim Haviland

Although Confederate commander James D. Bulloch had a well-rounded naval background, he also proved skillful as a secret agent. Read more

Union Navy

Rose O’Neal Greenhow: The Spy Who Won Bull Run

By David Alan Johnson

“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 Navy

Union General John Pope: Cracking Island No. 10

By Robert Collins-Suhr

With its whistle blaring, the Confederate gunboat Grampus steamed into Madrid Bend, where Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas come together on the Mississippi River. Read more

Union Navy

James Douglas’ Audacious Plans after the Trent Affair

By William Silvester

On November 8, 1861, two distinguished diplomats from the newly established Confederate States of America were arrested and removed from the British mail steamer Trent by the American ship San Jacinto in the Bahama Channel near Havana, Cuba. Read more

Union Navy

Clash of the Civil War Ironclads

By David A. Norris

Smoke swirled amid the thunderous noise that roared from powerful Dahlgren guns and Brooke rifles. Thousands of spectators along the shore watched the two most dangerous warships in the world at each other at point-blank range. Read more

Union Navy

Thomas O. Selfridge: A Naval Hero of the Civil War

By James M. Powles

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 Navy

One Gallant Rush: Black Soldiers at Fort Wagner

By Eric Niderost

The sun had already set, but the western sky was still bright from its fiery departure not long before. Read more

Union Navy

Siege of Port Hudson: Last Bastion on the Mississippi

By Pedro Garcia

Not long after Union Flag Officer David Farragut of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron received the surrender of New Orleans on April 29, 1862, he began pondering his next move. Read more

Union Navy

The Confederate Run for New Orleans

By Robert Suhr

From the deck of the Hartford, Flag-Officer David Farragut watched his signal officer in the rigging above him. Read more

Union Navy

The American Civil War: Forging a National Identity

by Mike Haskew

The American Civil War was the tragic culmination of divergent perspectives on the proper conduct of the government of the United States and socio-economic issues that had been frequently at the forefront of American political life for decades. Read more

Union Navy

Attack of the Ironclad Manassas

by Robert Suhr

In late September 1861, the Union navy moved to the Head of the Passes. From there, below New Orleans, the Mississippi River divided into three major passes leading to the Gulf of Mexico. Read more

Union Navy

The Monitor and Merrimack: After the Fight

by Keith Milton

The subsequent careers of the Monitor and Merrimack were not as dramatic as their first clashes. The two ironclads never met in combat again after their infamous battle on March 9, 1862. Read more

Union Navy

CSS Alabama vs USS Kearsarge: The Greatest High Seas Duel of the Civil War

By Don Hollway

On August 24, 1862, newly promoted Captain Raphael Semmes of the Confederate States Navy called his largely English crew to the quarterdeck of his new command, the 220-foot battle cruiser Alabama, lying off the coast of Terceira in the Azores. Read more

Union Navy

A Confederate Intelligence Coup Won the Siege of Charleston Harbor

By Stephen C. Ruder

The 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 Navy

The Trent Affair: When the Union and Great Britain Nearly Went to War

By Mark Simmons

In 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 Navy

The Disastrous Red River Campaign

By Michael E. Haskew

Nathaniel 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 Navy

Fort Fisher: Last Bastion of the Confederacy

By Pedro Garcia

The 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 Navy

Taking Forts Henry and Donelson: Turning Point in the Rebel West

By Pedro Garcia

One evening around Christmas of 1861 Union Maj. Gen. Henry “Old Brains” Halleck, commanding the Department of Missouri, dined with his chief of staff, Brig. Read more

Union Navy

John Freeman Mackie: First Marine Medal of Honor Recipient

By Melanie Savage

On May 15, 1862, a five-ship Union Navy squadron that included the ironclad USS Galena, gunboats Aroostook, Port Royal, Naugatuck, and the famous Monitor neared a bend in the James River known as Drewry’s Bluff, where Confederate Fort Darling commanded the passage. Read more

Union Navy

USS Murphy: Long Service in Wartime

By William B. Allmon

Eighty miles off the coast of New Jersey and 280 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean lies the forward section of a World War II destroyer, where it came to rest more than 60 years ago. Read more