Private John C. West numbered among the stalwart Texans who fought in the Devil's Den and along Little Round Top during the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Less than a week after the fighting ended, during the retreat to Virginia, West described the action in two letters to his family.

One of the iconic photographs of the Civil War is this view of wounded Union soldiers at Savage’s Station in Virginia, taken on June 27, 1862, by James F. Gibson, one of the team of photographers on the staff of Mathew Brady. Here are a collection of anecdotes offering context to the visual.

Ron recently received an email from Rich Hackett, a self-described research nerd. They traded emails, which led to him sharing a gift in the form of an extremely well-researched account of his second great grandfather, John Garrigan, (life dates 1832-1909), Garrigan’s brother-in-law, Charles Kenn...

A portrait photograph of a Boston merchant found at the Civil War show in Franklin, Tenn., marked the beginning of a trip down the research rabbit hole that led to the capture of a Confederate flag at the Battle of Franklin. Here's the story.

Private Leander E. Davis of the 1st New York Light Artillery saw much of the war, serving alongside his comrades in Battery M in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, battles with the Army of the Potomac, and with Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's forces in the campaigns from Atlanta to the Carolinas. A reg...

Just a few weeks after the December 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg, as the Union and Confederate armies reeled from massive losses, and families dealt with grief during the normally happy Christmas season, a story from the picket lines was published in many Northern newspapers. Here it is.

In 1862, The New York Journal of Commerce declared Vermont Gov. Frederick Holbrook’s Thanksgiving message “a proclamation worth reading and preserving.” 163 years later, the governor's words continue to resonate.

The fall of Savannah in December 1864 to Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman and his Union forces is mainly remembered by engravings of Sherman on horseback entering the city, and Sherman’s telegram to President Abraham Lincoln presenting Savannah as a Christmas gift to the chief executive. Here's anoth...

John Francis Campbell journeyed far and wide during his lifetime. A scholar, an author, a traveler, and a rambling renaissance man, he traveled to different parts of the globe to see what he could see. This includes a visit to the war-torn United States in the autumn of 1864.

Buried in the recesses of the National Archives, in the millions of cards in the Compiled Military Service Records (CMSR), is an easter egg in the form of a fantastical giant of a Union soldier from Kentucky. Here's the story—and a guide to understanding CMSRs.

In 1938, the Mutual Broadcast Network’s Special Features Division aired programming from the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. One of the Confederate veterans interviewed, Robert Powell Scott of the 45th Arkansas Mounted Infantry, told his story. Here's what he had to say.

Image: Lib...

George Gordon Meade, the West Point educated commander of the Union Army of the Potomac, is largely remembered for the perception that he failed to vigorously pursue Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia after the Battle of Gettysburg, and also for flashes of hot temper. But ...

When the U.S. Army of the Potomac opened its spring 1864 campaign against the C.S. Army of Northern Virginia, Gen. Robert E. Lee faced a new adversary fresh from the war's Western Theater: Ulysses S. Grant. One of Lee's subordinates, Brig. Gen. Evander M. Law recalled how little his fellow senior...

ne of the central figures in Pickett’s Charge was the colonel responsible for the massive artillery bombardment intended to soften up the Union position prior to the assault: Edward Porter Alexander. In 1877, he shared his experience on July 3, 1863, including his communications with Gen. James L...

Major General William T. Sherman's forces entered Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, on Feb. 17, 1865. As Sherman rode through the conquered city he met numerous individuals, including escaped Union prisoners of war. One of these bedraggled men handed him a note. Sherman stuffed it into his...

During the lead up to the election of 1860, Ulysses S. Grant lived in Galena, Ill., where he worked in the family business. Though not able to vote because he had not lived in the state long enough to qualify, he had a preferred candidate—Abraham Lincoln—and he helped drill the Wide-Awakes, a you...

This image of an unidentified soldier showing us his knapsack, stenciled with the name of his organization, and his Sharps rifle kicked off a trip down the research rabbit trail to learn more about his company and regiment. Here's the story.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain possessed many natural gifts honed during his life's journey as a professor, general, and governor of Maine. His abilities as a writer shone light on his beloved 20th Maine Infantry and his own leadership at Little Round Top. Here's a lesser known writing about a night...

During the Army of the Potomac’s 1864 advance across the Rapidan River and deep into enemy territory in Virginia, Union and Confederate forces clashed in The Wilderness—by all accounts some of the fiercest fighting of the war. Here's an eyewitness account by artilleryman Charles B. Brockway.

During the winter of 1860-1861, as the secession crisis unfolded and the country teetered on the brink of war, private citizen Ulysses S. Grant traveled the upper Midwest, chatting up locals in towns about the future of America. Here's his reflections.

History remembers John Clifford Pemberton as the Northern-born Confederate general who surrendered his forces garrisoning the Mississippi River fortress city of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863. Following his death in Philadelphia in 1881, a local newspaper remembered "the doom of a beaten man was on hi...

If you search military service records for Cullen Bullard Aubrey, you will not find his name and deeds mentioned. Nonetheless, the teenaged runaway saw as much of the war as most enlisted men when he attached himself to the Iron Brigade and became known as the "Newsboy of the Army of the Potomac....

What do Southern citizen accounts say about being occupied? Here's one, an early war account from the diary of Sarah Fowler Morgan, whose family was divided by secession and the hostilities that followed.

Sarah Fowler Morgan, a resident of Baton Rouge and New Orleans during the war years, remained loyal to the Confederacy through its trials and tribulations. In April 1865, she shared her feelings about the surrender by Gen. Robert E. Lee of his army and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.