Lancaster, Pennsylvania native John F. Reynolds was a West Point graduate and instructor at that institution when the Civil War began. Initially, he was the Lieutenant Colonel of the 14th U.S. Infantry, but was soon promoted to brigadier general of volunteers. Reynolds saw action as a brigade commander in the Fifth Corps during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign in [...]
Continue reading about The Death of General John Reynolds at Gettysburg
During the Civil War Sesquicentennial, the U.S. Postal Service is issuing two Civil War commemorative stamps each year from 2011-2015. Each stamp in the series commemorates a significant event that occurred 150 years ago from the year of the stamp’s issue. In 2011, stamps commemorating Fort Sumter and the First Battle of Bull Run were issued.
By the fall of 1861, the song John Brown’s Body (also known as The John Brown Song) had become a popular marching song with Union Army soldiers. When Julia Ward Howe–poet, abolitionist, and social activist–paid a visit to a Union Army troop review and camps near Washington D.C. in November 1861, she was inspired to [...]
Continue reading about The 6th Wisconsin Infantry and the Writing of The Battle Hymn of the Republic
At the outset of the Civil War, both sides faced the challenge of equipping a large number of soldiers in a short amount of time. Often, this meant furnishing the men with local militia uniforms, regardless of the color. When the first large scale battle occurred at First Bull Run in Virginia in July of [...]
John A. Kellogg was born in Pennsylvania in 1828 and was the grandson of a soldier who fought in the Revolutionary War. Kellogg’s family moved to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin Territory, in 1840. Kellogg became a lawyer in Mauston, Wisconsin and was elected district attorney of Juneau County in November 1860. But when the Civil [...]
The state of Indiana furnished over 210,000 men for the Union Army and Navy in the Civil War, and over 24,400 of these men died in the war. One of the more famous Indiana regiments was the 19th Indiana Infantry, one of the regiments of the Iron Brigade. The 19th Indiana Infantry fought at Second [...]
Continue reading about Indiana’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Commemoration
