On April 9th, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. This event at Appomattox Court House, Virginia is often regarded as the end of the Civil War. Actually, Lee’s surrender that day was the first in a series of events that took place over the [...]
Continue reading about The Surrender of the Confederate Armies: April-June 1865
In the fall of 1861, Captain Jesse Taylor accepted command of the artillery at Fort Henry, a Confederate garrison on the Tennessee River near the Kentucky–Tennessee border. The Tennessee flows from eastern Tennessee southwest into northern Alabama before turning north and returning to Tennessee. It empties into the Ohio River at Paducah, Kentucky, and was an [...]
Continue reading about The Capture of Fort Henry, Tennessee February 1862
One of the more prominent socialites and colorful characters in Richmond society during the Civil War was displaced Marylander Hetty Cary. A descendant of Thomas Jefferson, Cary was born near Baltimore in 1836, and was living in that city when the Civil War began in 1861. Baltimore had a large number of Confederate sympathizers, and after [...]
Continue reading about Magnificent Hetty Cary: Betsy Ross of the South
Major General William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea was near an end in mid December 1864. After capturing Fort McAllister on the Ogeechee River below Savannah, Georgia on December 13th, there was just one objective left. That last objective was the capture of the city of Savannah itself. The commander of the Confederate forces [...]
Continue reading about William T. Sherman’s Christmas Gift of Savannah, Georgia
Civil War seacoast mortars were very large mortars used defensively in fixed fortifications and in coast and river defense. They were also used in siege operations and occasionally in other offensive endeavors. The largest mortar in the Federal arsenal was the 13 inch seacoast mortar, so named for the size of the weapon’s bore. Perhaps the most [...]
Continue reading about The Seacoast Mortar called “The Dictator” at the Siege of Petersburg 1864
In March of 1864, a land force consisting of the Union Army’s 19th Corps and portions of the 13th, 16th, and 17th Corps under the command of Major General Nathaniel Banks headed northwest up the Red River in Louisiana. Accompanying the army was Admiral David D. Porter and the Mississippi Squadron, a fleet of vessels designed [...]
Continue reading about Colonel Joseph Bailey’s Red River Dam
