Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Union Army
He told President Lincoln that he was better than any other officer on the field at Bull Run, and he got the Army’s top job. He built a beaten force into a proud one, and stole a march on Robert E. Lee with it. He was 24 hours away from winning the Civil War. Then, he fell apart.
They were the first black men to fight in the Civil War. They were the first to serve alongside whites. And they were the first to die.
I had long been of the opinion that this race had a right to kill rebels.” Colonel James M.
Once the South was beaten, Eastern and Western troops of the Union army resented each other so violently that some feared for the survival of the victorious government. Then, the tension disappeared in one happy stroke that gave the United States its grandest pageant, and General Sherman the proudest moment of his life.
When the Civil War sputtered out early in May 1865, there were two huge Union armies within a few days’ march of Washington, D.C. One was the Army of the Potomac, winner of the war in the East, commanded by Major General George Gordon Meade.
Lee. Grant. Jackson. Sherman. Thomas. Yes, George Henry Thomas belongs in that company. The trouble is that he and Grant never really got along.
Of all the great commanders in the Civil War, the most consistently underrated and overlooked is General George H. Thomas, the big Virginia cavalryman who fought for the Union.
Original documents tell the story of a Civil War steamboat captains sorrowful cruise with the most destructive cargo of all
THE WAY I SEE IT
For an example of the way an incident of the distant past can put a revealing light on a problem of today, you might care to spend a moment considering the case of the Swamp Angel.
Would the great fighter come over for the Union? Italian freedom and lead troops Lincoln hoped so
In the summer of 1861, when the newspaper generals in New York clamored for a clash of arms to put down the Confederate rebellion, the battle and the recriminations came sooner than expected.
AN AMERICAN HERITAGE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT
Edited and with an introduction
So spoke the Union general a few minutes after he was shot in the crowded lobby of a hotel in Louisville. His killer, a fellow general and subordinate, never regretted the deed—and never paid for it
Surprised and almost overwhelmed, he stubbornly refused to admit defeat. His cool conduct saved his army and his job
The draft riots of 1863 turned a great city into a living hell.
At Fort Wagner the Negro soldier was asked to prove the worth of the “powerful black hand”
In the spring of 1863 the Union government tried hard to break into the strongly defended harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.
The Civil War soldier marched to his own individualist cadence, but he was much like today’s G. I.
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