Not snakes, but ‘Peace Democrats’: Copperheads explained
The new Civil War film "Copperhead" doesn't refer to the venomous snake. Rather, it refers to a branch of the Democratic party -- the "Peace Democrats" -- who believed the Republicans had provoked the...
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: Prelude to Gettysburg
Excitement raged on the coast of Maine as the month of June closed, as there were well-founded rumors of Confederate raiders off shore. As if on cue, the Confederate schooner Archer sailed into...
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: Twin disasters for the Confederacy
After three days of heavy fighting in the fields, hills and rocks around Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s battlefield successes on the first two days were dashed following Maj. Gen....
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: The U.S. Navy takes on Japan
As Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army finally retreated on July 11 across the Potomac River, the first names in the new Federal draft law had been drawn in New York City. The names appeared in the newspapers on...
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: Britain reinforces her neutrality
As the month of July drew to a close, John Hunt Morgan and his Confederate cavalry roamed at will through the state of Ohio, fighting skirmishes at Steubenville and Springfield . . .
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: Gen. Lee offers to resign
August, 1863 saw the beginning of a relatively quiet month in all theaters of the war. In the east, Federal forces began gathering outside of Charleston Harbor in South Carolina for another assault on...
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: Another offensive at Charleston
Federal troops under Maj. Gen. Frederick Steele marched from Helena, Ark., toward the state capital at Little Rock on Monday, Aug. 9. Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant’s huge army at Vicksburg, Miss., began to...
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: The Sacking of Lawrence, Kansas
Federal troops of the Army of the Cumberland under Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans started marching in Tennessee from Tullahoma toward the Tennessee River and Chattanooga on Sunday, Aug. 16.
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: The rockets’ red glare in Charleston
By its sixth day of sustained Federal bombardment, Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, S.C., was feeling the impact. When five U.S. Navy monitor ironclad vessels made a night attack that evening, only...
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: Confederates attack bandits in Mexico
The month of August 1863 closed with the Confederates at Fort Sumter digging their cannons out of the rubble and moving them into the city of Charleston, S.C. in an anticipated defense of the city.
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: Confederate ironclads detained in London
For some time, Federal authorities in Britain and Washington had been apprehensive over official British quiet approval of the construction of Confederate ironclad vessels in shipyards in Liverpool....
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: Showdown in north Georgia
Still another important Confederate center was taken by the Federals when Southerners evacuated Little Rock, Ark. Federal occupation now severely threatened Lt. Gen. Kirby Smith’s entire...
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: Bloodiest battle in the west
The Union Army of the Cumberland gathered its 58,000 troops along the west side of Chickamauga Creek in northwest Georgia, not far south of Chattanooga, Tenn., across the stream from Gen. Braxton Bragg...
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: Blame for defeat at Chickamauga
Several days after the Battle of Chickamauga, President Lincoln and members of his Cabinet were dismayed when they learned that the New York Post had revealed the movement of Union troops going to...
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: David takes on Goliath
Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler and his Confederate cavalry raided the countryside around Chattanooga as October of 1863 opened, worsening the siege of the city where Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans and his Union...
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: Engagement at Bristoe Station
In an effort to learn of the intentions of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, the Federals of Maj. Gen. George Meade’s Army of the Potomac began probing the Rapidan River area of Culpeper...
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: Major changes in Union command
The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley sank for a second time in Charleston Harbor, S.C. in the middle of October; her inventor and namesake, Horace Lawson Hunley, and seven crew members perished in a...
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: Rare night battle at Wauhatchie
In an effort to supply the besieged Army of the Cumberland in the environs of Chattanooga, Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant and Maj. Gen. George Thomas conducted a personal inspection for a proposed supply line...
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: Lincoln gets an invitation
Attention at the beginning of November, 1863, turned from the mid-summer fronts on the Mississippi River and in Virginia and Pennsylvania to Tennessee, and specifically Chattanooga.
View Article150 Years Ago This Week: President Lincoln watches his assassin
In a maneuver against Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Confederate forces in Virginia, Maj. Gen. George Meade sent Union forces across the Rappahannock River at Kelly’s Ford and Rappahannock Station, though...
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