Visiting Vicksburg National Military Park
From the outset of the Civil War, both sides realized that control of the Mississippi River was essential to victory. The Union army and navy had success on the river in the first half...
Author: Mark
Federals take Columbia, Charleston, and Wilmington; Hampton Roads Peace Conference; Battle of Hatcher’s Run: February 1865
February 1865 in the Civil War Fighting was intensifying, especially in the Carolinas, in the late winter of 1865. With its military situation rapidly deteriorating, the Confederacy made a last ditch effort at...
Mair Pointon of the 6th Wisconsin Infantry Recalls the Battle of Hatcher’s Run February 1865
The battle lines during the June 1864-March 1865 Siege of Petersburg were not entirely static. There were troop movements and fighting on a significant scale in some instances; generally, these were Union attempts to...
General Ulysses S. Grant Takes Paducah Kentucky
When the Civil War began in 1861, the state of Kentucky was officially neutral. Though this border state had slavery and a large number of Confederate sympathizers, Kentucky leaned slightly more toward the Union,...
Admiral David Porter’s Report on the Second Battle of Fort Fisher
By late 1864, the Confederacy’s last remaining open seaport was at Wilmington, North Carolina. Wilmington is roughly 30 miles up the Cape Fear River from the Atlantic Ocean, and the mouth of the Cape...
Federals Capture Fort Fisher; Campaign of the Carolinas Begins, House of Representatives Passes 13th Amendment: January 1865
January 1865 in the Civil War As 1865 began, the armies in Virginia remained locked in siege operations, Tennessee was generally quiet after the Confederate defeat at Nashville in December, and much of the...
Major Ira Spaulding’s Report on the 50th New York Engineers at the Battle of Fredericksburg
One of the key elements of the Union battle plan at Fredericksburg Virginia in late 1862 was the timely arrival of pontoon bridge building material that would enable Federal forces to cross the Rappahannock...
Song: Marching Through Georgia
Songwriter Henry Clay Work (1832-1884) was a Connecticut native and staunch supporter of the Union cause. Work was born into an abolitionist family whose home was a stop on the Underground Railroad and who...