1862

MARION, Tennessee

Civil War, Battle

The battle of Shiloh was fought in southwestern Tennessee in April of 1862. Confederates started the battle in an attempt to drive General Grant's army from the Tennessee River. Among the Union troops present, Samuel Bennett of the 26th Kentucky Volunteers kept a diary and wrote down his thoughts of the battle. For him the battle began when he left Savanna for Pittsburg Landing. It was at this location...

March 25, 1862

SHENANDOAH, Virginia

Wounded Soldiers, Battle, Shenandoah Valley

Jedediah Hotchkiss wrote home to his wife, Sara Hotchkiss, on Tuesday, March 25, 1862 after a skirmish with the Union army, around Woodstock, Shenandoah County in Virginia. Hotchkiss had just received news that one of his children had passed away. He longed to be at home with his family, but said, "It is forbidden of me & it is now too late to reach you before the crisis has passed." He...

July 9, 1863

ADAMS, Pennsylvania

Civil War, Environment, Battle

"Little of the enclosure remains save the wicket gateway, from which the gates have been torn," Thomas Knox wrote in a dispatch published in the New York Herald on July 9, 1863. This was just one scene of the aftermath of Gettysburg, which was the single bloodiest and most memorable battle of the American Civil War. In many cases, the battle spilled out of the field into the town and destroyed houses...