The Destruction of the Gunboat Indianola
By the winter of 1863, the Mississippi River was in Union hands except for the stretch between Vicksburg, Mississippi and Port Hudson, Louisiana. The Union Navy was busy trying to secure the Mississippi as...
Category: War
The Swamp Angel at Charleston, South Carolina 1863
In July 1863, Union forces Major General Quincy Gillmore’s Army of the South landed on Morris Island outside Charleston, South Carolina. Gillmore’s objective was to take control of Charleston Harbor and eventually, Charleston itself. ...
The Death of General John Reynolds at Gettysburg
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...
Dr. Jonathan Letterman’s Civil War Ambulance Corps
The Civil War produced casualties on a scale never seen in American history up to that time. Out of necessity, great improvements in the treatment of the wounded were made during the war, and...
Lt. William B. Cushing’s Attack on Jacksonville, N.C. November 1862
U.S. Navy officer William B. Cushing is perhaps best known for his daring October 1864 raid that destroyed the Confederate ironclad CSS Albemarle at Plymouth, North Carolina, but he had a number of additional...
The Destruction of the CSS Virginia May 1862
Following the historic clash between the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (formerly the USS Merrimack) on March 9th, 1862, Virginia returned to port in Norfolk, Virginia for repairs and refitting. Besides repairing battle damage,...
The Death of Major General John Sedgwick May 9th, 1864
John Sedgwick was born in Cornwell Hollow, Connecticut in 1813 and graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1837. He served in the Mexican War and was a major in the 1st ...
The Surrender of the Confederate Armies: April-June 1865
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...