In the papers of Benjamin Franklin Whitehouse of the 1st Ohio Heavy Artillery can be found two poems, both copied in long hand, that reveal in poignant verse the dwindling numbers of Grand Army of the Republic veterans as the years passed.

During the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg, Helen Gilson lent her considerable skills as a compassionate caregiver to Union and Confederate wounded. At one point, a patient asked her to sing. The song she chose moved Northern and Southern hearts,

John Buford, one of the most respected Union generals, displayed grit and determination on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. After the war, one of Buford's staffers, 1st Lt. and Signal Corps officer Aaron B. Jerome, worried that history would forget Buford. So he wrote a letter to promot...

One of the top correspondents in the American press during the Civil War, the Boston Journal's Charles Carleton Coffin, arrived at Gettysburg after the first day's fighting. His description of Pickett's Charge, from the Union side, is vivid, poetic prose.

Captain Edward Carlisle Boynton, a West Point educated veteran of the Mexican War who returned to teach at his alma mater during the Civil War, wrote a paper published in 1864 that called for the establishment of a military Bureau of Photography. He was a man ahead of his time—by more than a half...

The after-action report of Lt. Col. Walton Dwight of the 149th Pennsylvania Infantry, popularly known as the Second Bucktail Regiment, tells the tale of a tough choice no senior officer would wish to make—to save your regiment or abandon your colors. Here's the story.

The capture of Jefferson Davis in Georgia about five weeks after he fled the Confederate capital was heralded throughout the country. His confinement raised a novel question: Now that the government had taken the ex-President into custody, what exactly were they to do with him?

Basil W. Duke numbered among five Confederate brigadier generals who escorted President Jefferson Davis as he fled from the Confederate capital after Union forces captured the city on April 3, 1865. Duke recalled Davis state of mind when he called a council of war.

In late 1863, formerly enslaved men arrived in St. Louis from points South to join the United States Colored Troops. Many brought their families. All suffered from neglect until early 1864, when Brig. Gen. William A. Pile and other officers stepped in to help.

According to news reports, the two years Jefferson Davis in Fortress Monroe following his capture in May 1865 took a significant toll on his physical and his mental health. Two eyewitness accounts reveal his state of mind and his appearance.

Union soldiers held as prisoners of war in the South during the presidential campaign of 1864 could not cast a vote for Abraham Lincoln or George B. McClellan. But their captivity did not prevent them from staging mock elections. Here's one of those elections, held at Camp Sorghum outside Columbi...

The Battle of the Crater is remembered as a debacle for the Union Army—the large loss of life and leadership failures are engraved in the American memory. For the Confederates who suffered the blast of the underground mine, it proved the courage and quick action of Maj. Gen. William Mahone.

After Maj. Gen. Francis C. Barlow moved his division from its position to Blocher's Knoll north of Gettysburg on July 1, Confederate attackers took advantage of the gaps he created. One of the regiments that bore the brunt of the attack was the 17th Connecticut Infantry. This is the story of one ...

Captain John Gregory Bishop Adams proved his fighting mettle in many battles with his comrades in the 19th Massachusetts Infantry and the rest of the Army of the Potomac. His gallantry at Fredericksburg, where he saved the regimental colors, earned him the Medal of Honor. Here's his story.

Subscriber John VanSant shared a letter written in 1864 by Capt. Richard Waterman of the 31st Indiana Infantry. In it, he describes an experience on the picket line during the Atlanta Campaign. I've told Waterman's story before, and this letter is new to me.

The 38th Virginia Infantry suffered a significant number of casualties at Gettysburg, including William B. Chatten, who suffered a gunshot wound in his left arm on July 3 and fell into enemy hands the next day. Thus began a trip to Fort Delaware, where he met his fate.

In late July 1863, the cessation of prisoners exchanges became clear to the Confederate government in Richmond—prompting a crisis that threatened the fate of the Southern armies. A fiery editorial in the Richmond Dispatch tells the tale of woe.

First Lt. Edward Burgin Knox of the 11th New York Infantry, a friend of the late Elmer Ellsworth who established the U.S. Zouave Cadets before the Civil War, fought at the First Battle of Bull Run. His vivid letter describing the battle includes a rallying cry in his lamented friend's honor.

On April 9, 1885, the twentieth anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox, the Boston Globe published an interview with former Confederate Maj. Gen. William Mahone about his part in the final days of the Army of Northern Virginia. Here's what he remembered.

Major Gen. William T. Sherman’s “Bummers” could be hated, feared, condemned—or welcomed as indispensable providers. These hard-riding, hard-fighting foragers kept 60,000 Union troops fed during the March to the Sea, living off Southern resources while spreading chaos from Georgia to Savannah and ...

Every monument at Gettysburg tells a story. And so it is with the monument to the 13th Vermont Infantry, located near the Copse of Trees, the focal point of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. The statue of the officer on the memorial, Stephen F. Brown, carried an axe into the fight.

Narratives by Civil War generals sharing their opinions about the momentous battles and campaigns abound. Far less numerous are such writings by private soldiers. Here's one, by John Joseph Bowen of the Richmond Howitzers, that takes a different view of the Battle of Gettysburg.

I’m always on the lookout for obscure references to the character and habits of momentous figures who shaped and influenced the political, military, an cultural forces of the Civil War period. I found a number of such references in a book by John W. Forney, a political insider with allegiances to...

On April 26, 1865, on a wharf at Helena, Ark., photographer Thomas W. Bankes captured the steamboat Sultana packed with about 2,130 souls—almost 2,000 of them Union ex-prisoners-of-war. Soon, about 1,200 of them would be dead. One of the survivors, Corp. Erastus Winters of the 50th Ohio Infantry,...