Episodes Nearest to May 3, 1864 to October 16, 1864: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. A Union Account: The Battle of The Wilderness
    date May 3, 1864 to October 16, 1864map SPOTSYLVANIA, Virginiatags "Milliken, Robert", "69th New York Infantry", "Irish Brigade", "Fightin 69th"

    Hindered by an uneven terrain covered with “tangled thickets of pine, scrub-oak, and cedar,” battle organization and tactics broke down as Captain Robert H. Milliken and other officers struggled to see the enemy and maintain unit cohesion. Consequently, the Battle of the Wilderness represented a definitive moment in the course of the Civil War - providing  an insightful perspective to a polysemic...

  2. Threat of Conscription
    date February 15, 1864 to 1864map VAN ZANDT, Texastags Government, Law, Politics, War

    When Lizzie, granddaughter of the Gordon family living in Paris, Texas, wrote to her grandmother, she talked about the war. She said, Pa speaks of going in the army if they raise it to 55 Pa will have to go will not join until he is obliged to. The Gordon family was not unique in deciding the future of their family.

    Many families were torn with the heart-breaking decision whether or not...

  3. The 16th Massachusetts Regiment Disbanded in 1864
    date July 27, 1864map SUFFOLK, Massachusettstags Infantry, Immigrants, Irish-Americans, Union Army, Civil War

    On July 27, 1864, Private Richard Monnahan was discharged from G Company of the 16th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry, on the day the entire regiment was mustered out.  According to his discharge form from the United States Pension Office, Monnahan was 22 years old, five feet five inches tall, of dark complexion with dark grey eyes.

    The 16th regiment was formed in 1861...

  4. City Set Ablaze: The Burning of Chambersburg
    date July 30, 1864map FRANKLIN, Pennsylvaniatags War, Civil War

    Confederate cavalrymen under the command of General John A. McCausland set the city of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania ablaze on the morning of July 30, 1864. According to a letter sent the following day by D. McConaughy to Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin and Major General Darius N. Couch, the commander of the Susquehanna Military District, the "lowest estimate of loss [from the fire] is 1,500,000."...

  5. Trench Warfare and Artillery at the Crater
    date July 30, 1864map DINWIDDIE, Virginiatags Battle of the Crater, Civil War, Artillery

                 One of the opening battles of the Petersburg Campaign and one that foreshadowed some of the tactics used in the trench warfare of the First World War was the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864.  At this point in the war, the armies of Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant had settled into trench warfare in the area just to the south of Richmond, with the U.S. Army attempting...

  6. Damage to the Confederate Line at the Battle of the Crater
    date July 30, 1864map DINWIDDIE, Virginiatags Battle Damage, Mine Explosion, Trench Warfare, Civil War

               The Battle of the Crater in the early stages of the Petersburg campaign resulted in a massive amount of damage to the center of the C.S.A. breastwork.  In the early stages of the Petersburg campaign, as the battle settled into trench warfare, a Union officer named Henry Pleasants hatched a plan to dig, plant explosives, and explode a mine in the middle of the Confederate breastwork. ...

  7. Effects of Military Rule in the South
    date July 19, 1864map WASHINGTON, Virginiatags War

    Writing based on a report from the Abingdon Virginian, the Charleston Daily Courier gives an account of the imprisonment of “about fifty soldiers, some of whom have been confined on charges mostly of a trifling nature, for at least three months, without being brought to trial or having their cases in any way investigated.' The article goes on to proclaim that this is not an isolated incident....

  8. Premature Death of Mary P. Bondurant
    date August 1, 1864map BEDFORD, Virginiatags Health/Death, Women

    Death by disease was a much more present fear then than now. Mrs. Mary B. Bondurant of Bedford County, Virginia, succumbed to consumption at the startlingly young age of thirty-four. She died on August 1st, 1864 in Lynchburg and was survived by her husband, John P. Bondurant. Three of her sisters had already suffered equal fates at the hands of the slow wasting disease.

    Her obituary, which...

  9. The Florida Cuts a Path of Destruction near Cape May
    date July, 1864 to 1864map CAPE MAY, New Jerseytags Civil War, Migration/Transportation

    In July of 1864 the privateer Florida captured six Union ships along the Coast below Cape May, New Jersey. Captain Morris was in charge of this black-painted vessel and its 155 man crew. The ship itself mounted eight guns and all of the crew were armed with revolvers and cutlasses. The Florida had three flags, the United States flag, the Confederate flag, and...

  10. A Negro Killed
    date January 28, 1864 to 1864map BROOKE, Virginiatags African-Americans, Arts/Leisure, Crime/Violence, Law, Race-Relations, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    The crime was reported in the newspaper with a bit of contempt, as if it was a mildly amusing diversion in the late days of the Civil War. According to the Wellsburg Herald, the black population of Wellsburg had been meeting nightly at societies or parties at the residences of other free blacks. But on this particular night something went wrong, or as the local white-owned newspaper mused, [the...

  11. CSS Tennessee, Confederate Ironclad Proves itself at Mobile Bay
    date August 5, 1864map MOBILE, Alabamatags United States Navy, Confederate Navy, War, Civil War

    On the morning of August 5, 1864, Admiral David Farragut led a fleet of eighteen warships into Alabama’s Mobile Bay. Since the fall of New Orleans in April 1862, Mobile had become the major Confederate port in the Gulf of Mexico, responsible for bringing in blockade runners carrying supplies from Havana.  The result of Mobile’s rise in importance to Confederacy was a rise in the priority of...

  12. Mine their Line: Pennsylvania Coal Miners Created the Crater
    date June 24, 1864 to July 30, 1864map DINWIDDIE, Virginia, SCHUYLKILL, Pennsylvaniatags War, Civil War

    In his official report, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Pleasants of the 48th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers wrote that the mine dug under the Confederate trenches outside Petersburg exploded at sixteen minutes to five, on the morning of July 30, 1864. The Quartermaster sergeant of the 48th Pennsylvania, Joseph Gould, wrote his history of the regiment, "It [the explosion] was a magnificent...

  13. Anti-Confederate Southerners in Tennessee
    date August 10, 1864map KNOX, Tennesseetags War

    Despite their geographical locations in the South, many southerners found themselves strongly opposed to the Rebel cause, as indicated by this and several other editorials written in W.G. Brownlow's Knoxville Whig. This particular article is a call to arms, so to speak, against Rebel sympathizers who “have been for months, heading guerilla bands, robbing Union families, and burning down...

  14. The Union’s Last Resort: A Mining Operation
    date June 20, 1864 to July 26, 1864map DINWIDDIE, Virginiatags Civil War, Battle of Petersburg, Battle of the Crater, Mining Operation, Mining, Mine

                Both Union and Confederate leaders knew that a decisive battle at Petersburg could mean a decisive battle of the war; but, it is unlikely that Union leaders would have guessed that their best chance for victory would depend on constructing a mineshaft.  There was a lot riding on the outcome of Petersburg, Virginia.  Bryce Suderow, a Civil War historian, explains the Union’s...

  15. Leading up to the Battle of Petersburg: The Mining Operation
    date June 20, 1864 to July 26, 1864map DINWIDDIE, Virginiatags Mine, Mining, Battle of the Crater, Battle of Petersburg, Civil War

                The battle of Petersburg, Virginia was crucial in the minds of both Union and Confederate leaders. A leading Civil War historian Bryce A. Suderow explains the Union Army’s thinking: Grant believed that if Union forces could overpower the Confederate lines and crush the Southern stronghold the Southern capital would inevitably fall, ending the American Civil War in the Union’s...

  16. The Mishaps of Being in a Halfhearted Assault
    date June 15, 1864 to July 30, 1864map DINWIDDIE, Virginiatags Civil War, Petersburg

    The battle of Petersburg is remembered as one of the most destructive of the war.
    Petersburg can be considered the last stand of the Army of Northern Virginia. After months of maneuvering and fighting, Grant had finally forced Lee into defending Richmond itself. Before this the campaign had consisted of Lee moving to block Grant’s advances, trading ground for time. Now there was no more...

  17. General Hood Attempts to Restore Order in the Army of Tennessee
    date August 12, 1864map FRANKLIN, Tennesseetags Crime/Violence, Law, Health/Death

    After Atlanta had been taken, General John Bell Hood commanded his Army...

  18. Confederate Victory in Stony Creek Depot
    date July 5, 1864 to July 6, 1864map SURRY, Virginiatags African-Americans, Race-Relations, War

    Under the leadership of Confederate General Wade Hampton, who weeks earlier had driven General George Sheridan's Union forces from the James River, Confederate troops encountered a considerably-sized, well-reinforced Yankee brigade near Sappony Church. Fighting continued throughout the evening and night of July 5th, and having received reinforcements, General Hampton's army repulsed and...

  19. Henry Nields’ Heroism at the Battle of Mobile Bay
    date August, 1864 to 1864map MOBILE, Alabamatags Navy, Union, Victory

    In early August, 1864, a Union Naval fleet, under the control of Rear Admiral David Farragut commanding the flagship U.S.S. Hartford, neared Mobile Bay, Alabama.  The goal was to take over the strategic location which consisted of three confederate forts and a plethora of underwater mines.  The two main forts were Forts Morgan and Gaines aided by a few Confederate ships mainly the C.S.S....

  20. Joshua Frier's Salt Solution
    date 1864map DUVAL, Floridatags Agriculture, Economy, Politics, War

    On his seventeenth birthday, Joshua Frier enrolled in a branch of the Florida Confederate militia which was eventually called the First Florida Reserves, Company B. The unit remained in northern Florida throughout its service, where the Union naval blockade intentionally caused serious import shortages on goods like coffee, tea, and salt. Salt was a commodity that was vitally necessary to preserve...

  21. Overseer's Place on a Southern Plantation
    date 1864map HENRY, Virginiatags Agriculture, Economy, Slavery

    In 1864 Thomas D. Bouldin was hired on a plantation in Henry County, Virginia. He signed a contract with Beverly Jones, a plantation owner and in this contract Thomas bound himself to the duties of a slave overseer. Thomas was given a list of assignments that he was to regularly do and another list of things he could do if he was finished with his own. The contract set that Thomas was set to receive...

  22. Charles William Truehearts Account of the Battle of the Crater: Reconsidering Black and White
    date August 28, 1864map DINWIDDIE, Virginiatags African-Americans, Politics, Race-Relations, Slavery, War

    When the Civil War broke out, Texan Charles William Trueheart was at the University of Virginia studying medicine. Despite initial reservations about secession, he joined the multitudes of southerners who rushed to enlist. At first an artilleryman, by 1864 Trueheart had finished studying medicine and was an assistant surgeon in the 8th Alabama Infantry of the Army of Northern Virginia....

  23. A Union Perspective: The Battle of The Wilderness
    date May 3, 1864 to August 8, 1864map SPOTSYLVANIA, Virginiatags "Wilderness, Battle of", "Union Army", "Penfield, Nelson", "125th New York Infantry"

    With a stylistic flavor characteristic of elevated Romantic ideals combined with ornate “battle-piece” rhetoric, Captain Nelson Penfield of the 125th New York Infantry provides historians with a field account of Federal engagements at the Battle of the Wilderness.  His report begins on May 3, 1864, crossing the Rapidan River at Ely’s Ford along with the other units under the command of Brigadier-General...

  24. Rebecca Wright Spies for Union
    date August, 1864 to September, 1864map FREDERICK, Virginiatags War

    During Union General Philip Sheridan's destruction of the Shenandoah Valley in the hot month of August 1864, Confederate Jubal Early's army occupied Winchester, Virginia, standing in Sheridan's way.

    Sheridan tried to follow Early, and he approached this very carefully. His army sparred with Early's army throughout the month of August and into September, but was not able to...

  25. Small Unit Combat in the Civil War.
    date June 16, 1864 to June 18, 1864map DINWIDDIE, Virginiatags Civil War, Petersburg

    Great battles, and even wars ultimately rest on the actions of just a few men. More often, than not, these men are not the ones who make the history books. Small unit combat is not something that we often associate with the Civil War. Often our images are of masses of men moving at each other with flags waving and horns blowing. But this was not always the case. Often it was a few men scattered...