History

As General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia marched west from Fredericksburg toward Culpeper Courthouse on Saturday, June 6, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s Federals sought to determine where they were going.
Read More »

South of Vicksburg and across the Mississippi River in Louisiana, Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks brought his Federal troops across the river in a heavy rainstorm through Bayou Sara and approached the Confederate stronghold at Port Hudson.
Read More »

On Friday, May 15, Lt. Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s last earthly journey came to an end. After lying in state in the governor’s mansion in Richmond, his coffin covered with the newly-approved “Stainless Banner,” Gen. Jackson’s remains were conveyed by rail and riverboat to Lexington.
Read More »

With the Union army in defeat in Virginia, focus in mid-May 1863 turned to Mississippi, where Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant was making advances on the fortified Confederates at Vicksburg. Col. Benjamin Grierson’s cavalry raid from Tennessee through Mississippi had ended at Baton Rouge, La., on May 2.
Read More »

On two of the three major fronts, as May 1863, opened, Northern armies moved in new offensives. The Army of the Potomac was at poised at Chancellorsville, while other Union force marshaled at Fredericksburg. In a freak accident, the South loses one of its heroes as Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson is killed by friendly...
Read More »

The Congress of the Confederate States levied a comprehensive “tax in kind” of one-tenth of all produce of the land for the year 1863 on April 24. Skirmishing took place the next day at Hard Times Landing in Mississippi as Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant’s troops continued to push south after bypassing Vicksburg.
Read More »

April 1863 The siege of almost a month of the Federal troops garrisoned in Suffolk, Va., by Confederates commanded by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet (on detached duty from the Army of Northern Virginia) began on Sunday, April 12, the second anniversary of the start of the war. Out west in the Utah Territory, Federal...
Read More »

March/April 1863 As the month of March 1863 began closing, much of the military focus was on the Union efforts to capture the Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River at Vicksburg. Things were not going well for the Federals. The Union gunboat USS Diana was captured by Confederates at Pattersonville, La. Maj. Gen. William...
Read More »

March 1863 Maj. Gen. Edwin V. Sumner, one of the oldest Federal officers in the service, who had performed well as a combat commander in the Peninsula Campaign and in Maryland in September 1862, died in Syracuse, N.Y., on Saturday, March 21. The same day, in Mississippi, gunboats on Steele’s Bayou were harassed by...
Read More »

March 1863 During the night of Saturday, March 14, Adm. David Farragut in his flagship USS Hartford led his Union naval squadron up the Mississippi River past the Confederate artillery batteries at Port Hudson, La. The Hartford and the USS Albatross succeeded in getting through but the Monongahela and Richmond were heavily damaged and...
Read More »

March 1863 Only two months after becoming a Partisan Ranger, Confederate Capt. John S. Mosby and several of his Rangers sneaked through Federal lines into Fairfax Courthouse, Va., on the chilly, rainy night of Sunday, Mar. 8, intending to capture Sir Percy Wyndham, a British “by-the-book” Union cavalry officer observing the war for Queen...
Read More »

March 1863 The first glimmerings of spring after a winter of bitter weather greeted North and South as the month of March, 1863, began. There were increased worries in the Confederacy, and hope mixed with discontent in the Union. Northern citizens were critical of their military leaders, even of Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant; he...
Read More »

February 1863 During the last week of February 1863, several military, naval, national and political events took place, with skirmishes and engagements all around between Union and Confederate forces. On Sunday, Feb. 22, the anniversary of George Washington’s birth, ground was broken in Sacramento, Calif., for the Central Pacific Railroad that would eventually link...
Read More »

February 1863 River and ocean warfare highlighted the events of the third week in February 1863. In Washington, President Lincoln was concerned about a naval attack being planned for Charleston, S.C. There was fighting at Yazoo Pass, Miss., when Confederates there opposed Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant’s plans to move gunboats down the Yazoo River...
Read More »