By early June 1861, Union forces under Major General Benjamin G. Butler had occupied the colonial town…
The Battle of Five Forks marked the largest single engagement in the last offensive (March 29 to April…
Confederate veteran groups began forming as early as 1865. The premier Confederate veterans’ organization,…
Although time and the shifting currents of the Mississippi River have long ago demolished Island No.…
...commander of the Army of the Cumberland when it was formed on October 24, 1862. The army defeated…
The fighting stopped at the Battle of Palmito Ranch, near Brownsville, Texas, on May 13, 1865, but before…
The Union forces posed a threat across Virginia in three fronts in the summer of 1862. The Army of the…
Throughout much of the summer of 1864 Lieutenant General Jubal Anderson Early’s Confederate army had…
In late August 1862, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia faced Pope’s thirty-two thousand-man Army of Virginia…
Major General Henry Halleck took command of the western armies following the Union victory at Shiloh…
...Maryland or against Washington D.C. In the spring of 1862 General Stonewall Jackson’s small Confederate…
After their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19-20, 1863, the surviving troops…
The Atlanta Campaign is generally divided into two parts—Sherman vs Johnston and Sherman vs Hood. Grant…
...geographic distribution, including one unit overseas. Some units, in fact, never surrendered at all.…
The contest for the Mississippi River and its tributaries involved specialized classes of war vessels…
For nearly six years the site described by Thomas Jefferson as “one of the most stupendous in nature”…
...the last major actions out west playing a critical role in the destruction of John Bell Hood’s Confederate…
McClellan’s slowness in launching the Peninsula Campaign, which began with the departure of the Federal…
The Hampton Roads Peace Conference culminated in a meeting between President Lincoln and Secretary of…
...had an international impact in that it demonstrated to European nations and England that the Confederate…
In May 1861 Federal forces under Major General George B. McClellan invaded western Virginia to protect…
Following his May 1863 victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee invaded…
Stuart’s Chambersburg Raid, October 9 – 12, 1862 was one of the final nails in the coffin for the military…
Lee had battled Grant throughout the spring of 1864 in the Overland Campaign. Able to thwart Grant’s…
When General John Bell Hood took command of the Confederate Army of Tennessee on July 18, 1864, relieving…
In early May, 1864, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant launched a campaign to crush General Robert E.…
...outcome ensured federal control of the Mississippi River. General Theophilus Hunter Holmes led the…
While Grant led the war effort from the eastern theater, he put his trust in his close friend Major General…
The Confederate and Union War Department Ordnance Bureaus were responsible for supplying their respective…
The story of the Federal cavalry during the Civil War is not only the story of the development of raw…
Confederate General Joseph Eggleston Johnston (1807-1891) was the highest ranking United States officer…
...depended on the time period. With the help of its raiding activities, early in the conflict, the Confederate…
Until Edwin C. Fishel’s The Secret War for the Union was published in1996 the history of Civil War military…
At the time of the Civil War, cotton had become the most valuable crop of the South and comprised 59%…
While Grant pressed Lee in the Overland Campaign, he sent Major General David Hunter to threaten the…
The security of an army depended on its pickets – the sentinels who provided early warning of infiltration…
As the Army of Northern Virginia began to dig in around Petersburg in June 1864, Lee sent his Second…
After the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky in October 1862, Confederate General Braxton Bragg retreated…
As part of his grand strategy for defeating the Confederacy, Major General George Brinton McClellan,…
The Civil War was a conflict that pitted an industrializing, free labor North against a rural, slaveholding…
On February 5, 1863, ten days after assuming command of the Army of the Potomac, Major General Joseph…
Washington, DC, was the most strategic and vulnerable city in the Union during the Civil War. Sandwiched…
The Port Royal Experiment began when Union naval forces captured Port Royal and the surrounding South…
...journal captured views typical of her time and class. With her brothers and uncle serving in the Confederate…
The Civil War affected American musical life at every level. Music affected the war as well. Virtuosos…
Confederate troops were rushed by rail to confront the Union army led by Brigadier General Irwin McDowell…
The Army of Northern Virginia, the best known and most successful of the Confederate armies, is forever…
The 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry was a three-year regiment that fought with the Army of the Potomac.…
In a war in which more than 250,000 participants were underage children and youth, the history of the…
At Shiloh the 13th Louisiana Infantry Battalion stopped their advance to loot the Sutlers’ stores in…
Born into slavery in 1839 in Beaufort, South Carolina, Robert Smalls seized his and his family’s freedom…
It has been said that Bedford Forrest was the most effective cavalry commander produced by the Civil…
While many women offered volunteer aid to the poorly-supplied Union and Confederate armies, Clara Barton…
At 2:00 p.m. on July 3, 1863 following a heavy artillery barrage, approximately 11,500 Confederates under…
On November 29, 1864, approximately 700 federal troops, commanded by Colonel John Milton Chivington,…
Porter Alexander played an active role at First Bull Run and took part in the surrender at Appomattox.…
After the Battle of Perryville in October 1862 the Confederate Army the Mississippi retreated from Kentucky.
Mechanicsville was the first major engagement of the Seven Day's Battles and the first initiated by Robert…
The wrenching and unexpected events of the mid-nineteenth century led Jacob Dolson Cox from a tranquil…
In October 1863 Lee launched a new offensive against Meade and the Army of the Potomac culminating in…