Episodes Nearest to March 1, 1864 to May 30, 1864: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. Union Officers Diverted by Chess
    date March 1, 1864 to May 30, 1864map SPOTSYLVANIA, Virginiatags Recreaction, camp-life, Arts/Leisure

    Just before heading into the Wilderness campaign, Colonel Martin T. McMahon competed against his aide in a game of Chess. Chess is an interpretation of the ancient Indian game of Chatarung. Involving two players, the game includes pieces that simulate battle formations and units with certain strengths and traits. Representing the generals of two armies, the game's relevance to warfare is obvious.

    Camp...

  2. Union Private Describes Raiders at Andersonville Prison
    date April 8, 1864 to April 20, 1864map SUMTER, Georgiatags Crime/Violence, Civil War, Health/Death

    In 1864, Robert Knox Sneden, a Union private and mapmaker, lived as a prisoner in the notorious Andersonville Prison. During his stay, Sneden kept a diary of the conditions and daily monotony of the captives. Occasionally he gave up trying to write a daily account and would lump his entries together by the week as he did from April 8 to 20, in 1864. This particular week, Sneden talked about a group...

  3. Song for a Gettysburg Soldier
    date April, 1864 to 1864map ADAMS, Pennsylvaniatags Civil War, Popular Music, Death

    He became famous and celebrated through his death. War stories are always full of heroes that appear larger than life and worthy of reverence, and those stories revolving around the Battle of Gettysburg are no different. Sergeant Amos Humiston of Company C of the 154th New York was one such man. Though not a hero in the traditional sense, in his death he became somewhat of a legend. During...

  4. Article Announcing the Hanging of a Chaplain
    date April 26, 1864map BALDWIN, Georgiatags Crime/Violence

    This article, which was printed on April 26, 1864, describes the hanging of Rev. Jas Findlay for corresponding secretly with the Union. Although the article does not give the specific day or time that the hanging took place, it says that the location was in Tunnell Hill (Whitfield County), Georgia. The Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, stated that no such “monsters'...

  5. CSS Shenandoah Boards Dutch Vessel in the Pacific
    date March 30, 1864map Pacific, Outside UStags War, Civil War

    On March 30, 1865 a vessel, thought to be the CSS Shenandoah, overtook and boarded the Hawaiian ship Pfiel, the Dutch captain reported the incident to Union authorities upon its arrival in San Francisco.  The captain wrote “On the 30th of March, latitude 3° 53’ N. longitude 167° E. at 6 P.M., [my ship] was brought to under a gun from a vessel of war;...

  6. Sherman Looking for Self-Sufficiency
    date May 3, 1864map HAMILTON, Tennesseetags Economy, War

    General W.T. Sherman sat down on May 3, 1864 and wrote a letter to inform General M. C. Meigs and more importantly, Secretary of War Stanton, how he felt about the quartermasters' headquarters being in inconvenient locations. Sherman began his letter by saying that if the quartermasters wanted to be in charge of the money situation with dealing out equipment for the armies, then they need not...

  7. The Battle of the Wilderness
    date May 5, 1864 to May 6, 1864map SPOTSYLVANIA, Virginiatags Battle of Wilderness, Civil War

     

        The Wilderness of Spotsylvania was, for the 160,000 men who fought there on May 5 and 6, 1864, a scene straight out of Hell.  Lieutenant Colonel John Schnoonover was one of those men.  He was the commander of the 11th New Jersey regiment, one of the units that composed McAllister’s 1st Brigade.  During the morning of May 6, the Confederates were able to use the terrain of...

  8. The Battle of the Wilderness
    date May 5, 1864 to May 6, 1864map SPOTSYLVANIA, Virginiatags Battle of Wilderness, Civil War

     

    Directing large numbers of men in battle, while crawling through brush so thick that it could put out one’s eyes, is a nightmare beyond imagining.  Such was a normal occurrence during the Battle of the Wilderness, a series of actions on May 5 and 6, 1864, that took place in the Spotsylvania Wilderness southwest of Chancellorsville.

    From the turn of the century to the mid 1830s,...

  9. A Union Officer at the Wilderness
    date May 4, 1864 to May 11, 1864map SPOTSYLVANIA, Virginiatags Civil War, The Wilderness

    William Davis did not talk of gallantry or heroics in his Wilderness Campaign report. The Lieutenant Colonel was simply carrying out orders, and his regiment had been involved in the Union’s struggle since 1861. His 69th Pennsylvania was accustomed to the reality of war; they had fought in the most famous battles: Yorktown, Antietam and Gettysburg. However, the Wilderness was not a normal battle....

  10. The Battle of the Wilderness
    date May 4, 1864 to May 11, 1864map SPOTSYLVANIA, Virginiatags "Officer's Report", The Wilderness

    There were no heroics, tragedy, emotion or names in Joseph Barnes’ report of the Wilderness. Rather, his report of the onerous seven day battle was like a warehouse manager’s inventory report. Perhaps, the thirty one year old man did not want to relive one of the worst times of his life. At the age of 28, Joseph Barnes joined the Union army on May 18, 1861. A few months later he was promoted...

  11. The Tone of the Richmond Papers Becomes Nervous
    date May 14, 1864map KNOX, Tennesseetags Urban-Life/Boosterism, War

    There was a brief article that appeared in Brownlow's Knoxville Whig on May 14, 1864 that discussed the tone of recent Richmond papers. It claimed that the tone had become increasingly nervous, which was perhaps indicative of the fate of Richmond and the South. Brownlow's Knoxville Whig claimed that Richmond papers were stating that 1864 would be the last year of the war. Although Richmond...

  12. "Steady Men, Forward"
    date May 4, 1864 to May 25, 1864map SPOTSYLVANIA, Virginiatags Battle of Wilderness, Sustaining Morale

                “Steady men, forward.” These words, spoken by the Union Colonel Russel A. Alger of the Fifth Michigan Cavalry, encouraged a new line of union soldiers as they reinforced the Sixth Michigan in the midst of a bitter struggle with confederate forces led by Brigadier General Thomas L. Rosser during the Battle of the Wilderness. Their reinforcement proved vital to the maintenance...

  13.   Throughout Madison M. Cannon's field account on the Battle of the Wilderness, which took place May 5-7, 1864, the Captain expressed his personal altercations along with his regiments', the Fortieth New York Infantry. 
    date May 3, 1864 to May 26, 1864map SPOTSYLVANIA, Virginiatags "battle" "account", "wilderness" "cannon"

    Captain Cannon’s report on The Battle of the Wilderness, which took place in the wilderness of Spotsylvania County and Orange County in central Virginia, was an electrifying account which contained three epochs from May 3 until the evening of the 26 from the Union Captain.  Captain Cannon explained first that their regiment had broke camp and moved to the extreme left of Brock’s Cross-Roads...

  14. Lieutenant Colonel Casper W. Tyler of the One hundred and forty-firsty Pennsylvania Infantry provided a detailed account on the Battle of the Wilderness from May 5-7, 1864.
    date May 4, 1864 to May 30, 1864map SPOTSYLVANIA, Virginiatags "Personal Account", "wilderness"

    Leituenant Colonel Casper W. Tyler begins his historical account on a report of operations on the morning of May 4, until the morning of the 30which he provided us with four epochs.  Lieut. Col. Tyler has a much more personal perspective on his record, other than relaying field and marching positions. 

    The record begins when the one hundred and forty-first regiment which was under the Second...

  15. A Soldier Gets Sick
    date May 17, 1864map ALBEMARLE, Virginiatags Letters Home, Civil War

    Lewis E. Parsons wrote many letters during the Civil War to his family in Talladega, Alabama. Parsons talks about many different things in his letters to home. He mainly asks questions about the home front, and he also talks a great deal about how war is an awful thing. He describes many different situations that he and his fellow men have to go through during the time of war. One of the situations...

  16. Emma Mordecai Nurses Soldier
    date May 26, 1864map RICHMOND, Virginiatags Health/Death, War, Women

    Emma Mordecai regularly visited wounded soldiers at a nearby hospital, and on one particular day she was tending to a handless soldier whom she called my interesting Cavalry man. She bathed his wounds and rubbed his cold feet, but then she watched helplessly as he complained of an intolerable itch where his hand used to be, scratching at the amputated spot with his remaining hand. Having cared...

  17. Lewis Parsons Writes Home
    date May 28, 1864map ALBEMARLE, Virginiatags War, Civil War

    Lewis E. Parsons served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War as a private in the Washington Artillery of New Orleans. During his time of service in the war, Parsons wrote around twelve letters that he sent to his family in Talladega, Alabama. Parsons tried to write a letter every chance he had some free time to himself. He specifically states in a May 28 letter “I write whenever I get...

  18. The Currency Act Passed in Richmond
    date February 27, 1864map HENRICO, Virginiatags Economy

    The Currency Act was first introduced as a bill to the “Currency Committee' of the House of Representatives in a secret session. The bill relied on taxation, not on funding, for the reduction of the heavily inflated currency in the Confederate States. It proposed that a tax of 4 percent be levied on the value of property. This bill became an Act of the Confederate Congress on February...

  19. Woods, Roads, and Confusion
    date May 3, 1864 to July 1, 1864map SPOTSYLVANIA, Virginiatags Battle of Wilderness, Chaos and Confusion

    Marching upon the Catharpin Road after trudging up the Plank Road, where “nothing was seen of the enemy save a small mounted force,” the Third Indiana Cavalry under Union Colonel George H. Chapman “proceeded less than a mile when their advance was attacked by the enemy and driven rapidly back on the main body.” Experiencing an ambush such as this was common for soldiers of both Union and...

  20. General Sherman Forbids the Entry of Blacks into Army
    date June 3, 1864map FULTON, Georgiatags African-Americans, Race-Relations, War

    After the Emancipation Proclamation, many former slaves sought to join the Union army. However, during the Atlanta campaign that lasted from May-September 1864, General William T. Sherman, a Union commander, forbade the entry of African-Americans into the army. Sherman did not hide the fact that he was a white supremacist. His view represented the views of many of his men, who came from the Midwest,...

  21. Pauline Cushman Charged with being a Union Spy
    date June 8, 1864map CUYAHOGA, Ohiotags Crime/Violence, War, Women

    The stories about women and the unlikely role they played, in both the north and the south, during the Civil War are some of the most interesting stories of the Civil War. One such story, about Union spy Pauline Cushman appeared in the Valley Spirit on June 8, 1864. Ms. Cushman was arrested by the Confederates, freed by the Northern troops and rewarded with the honorary title of Major in...

  22. Seventeen Assassins on the Loose in Tennessee
    date February 20, 1864map UNION, Tennesseetags Crime/Violence

    An article in the Brownlow's Knoxville Whig stated that seventeen rebel assassins, led by Elbert Hurst, committed an act of cold-blooded murder. They approached a Mr. D.F. Huddleston, a good citizen, who was sitting close to a tan yard. The assassins demanded that he give up his arms, which he did, and then Hurst shot Huddleston in the head, forcing both eyes out. Huddleston had a wife and...

  23. The 54th Massachusetts regiment
    date February 20, 1864map COLUMBIA, Floridatags 54th Regiment, florida slave history, Civil War

    The 54th Massachusetts regiment of the Civil War was made up entirely of African Americans, except for its white officers. Because it was the first black regiment to be organized in the North, many were watching its progress. If the regiment’s performance turned out to be noteworthy, it would be the deciding factor if blacks would be used in battle.

    The regiment was formed in...

  24. Captain Sally Tompkins Defends Top Civil War Hospital
    date June 9, 1864map HENRICO, Virginiatags Medicine/Health, Health/Death, Science/Technology, Civil War, Women

    Filling a pressing need for medical services, Sally Tompkins established a hospital after the First Battle of Bull Run that became the best hospital during the Civil War.  Running the hospital was not always easy; Tompkins faced pressure from many people to close down the hospital.  In June of 1864, Dr. Carrington, an inspector of hospitals for the South, filed an order to have the Robertson Hospital...

  25. Chastisement of Slaves
    date June 11, 1864map RICHMOND, Virginiatags African-Americans, Law, Race-Relations, Slavery, Women

    Emma Mordecai was enjoying the pleasantly cool weather when a very disagreeable affair concerning the servants disturbed her afternoon. The conflict began when the henwife, Georgiana, asked her mother, Sarah, to help her manage the chickens. Sarah then complained of being overworked and provoked the ire of her mistress and the master. In addition, Emma mentioned that Cyrus, Sarah's husband,...