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Civil War – The Battle of Chattanooga

Civil War – The Battle of Chattanooga

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The November 1863 Battle of Chattanooga was a series of battles that were fought over the course of three days. It was also a series of battles that probably should have never happened in the first place. Around the same time, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant captured the key city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the Union Army defeated Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg; Gen. William Rosecrans managed to defeat Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg at Chattanooga, forcing the south out of middle Tennessee. But Rosecrans failed to follow up on his big win in good time. When he finally did, he was soundly beaten at Chickamauga and pushed back to Chattanooga. Gen. Thomas: The Hero of The Battle of Chattanooga It was only because of Gen. George Henry Thomas’ determined stand at Chickamauga in September 1863 that the Union Army avoided destruction. Chattanooga was an important transportation hub at the time critical to both the Union and the Confederates. There was no going around it: both sides needed the city....

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Civil War – The Battle of Fort Donelson

Civil War – The Battle of Fort Donelson

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After the successful siege of Fort Henry by Federal troops on February 6th, 1862, the Confederate forces hurried back to the neighboring Fort Donelson, which was located a few miles away. The Federals sought control over the waterways of Cumberland and Tennessee, knowing full well the advantage that it would afford them in the Western Theater of the Civil War. scan from 4x5 color copy transparency The chief agitator of the move to conquer the forts was Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who had sent several telegrams to his superior officer, Maj. Gen. Henry Wager Halleck. In his messages, he urged Halleck to deliver his consent to besiege the forts along the Cumberland and Tennessee waterways, all without favorable response. Despite being a very successful commander in the Civil War, Halleck had little faith in Grant, fearing him to be very irrational in his thinking. Once Grant's requests were backed up by Flag Officer, A.H. Foote, the petitions made by Grant were accepted. ...

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Civil War – The Battle of Nashville

Civil War – The Battle of Nashville

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On Dec. 15, 1864, Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood had the unfortunate job of going up against the Union's only undefeated general officer, Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas. Thomas, nicknamed "The Rock of Chickamauga" for preventing a disaster for the Union in 1863, would keep that record throughout the Civil War. After the two-day Battle of Nashville, his nickname would become "The Sledge of Nashville," after he effectively destroyed the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Sherman's Famous March to the Sea Aft Hood failed to prevent Gen. William T. Sherman's forces from destroying Atlanta; he sought to disrupt Sherman's supply lines by moving north to Chattanooga. Sherman instead conducted his now-famous March to the Sea, instead leaving Gen. Thomas to secure Tennessee. Hood would have been better off against Sherman.  In moving north, he chased Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield's army to Nashville, where the Union forces retreated into the fortified city, which had been in Union hands since...

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Mary Walker: Civil War’s Only Woman Doctor

Mary Walker: Civil War’s Only Woman Doctor

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Mary Edwards Walker, was an American feminist, abolitionist, prohibitionist, alleged spy, prisoner of war and surgeon. She is also the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor. Mary Walker Became the Army's First Female Surgeon Prior to the American Civil War, she earned her medical degree, married, and started a medical practice. The practice didn't do well, and at the outbreak of the War Between the States, she volunteered with the Union Army as a surgeon. Despite her training, however, she initially had to work as a nurse. At the time Union Army Examining Board felt women and sectarian physicians were considered unfit as surgeons. Proving her skills as a physician, she eventually became the Army's first female surgeon while serving with the 52nd Ohio Infantry. Known to cross enemy lines in order to treat civilians, she may have been serving as a spy when Confederate troops captured her in the summer of 1864 and sent to Castle Thunder, a converted tobacco warehouse for...

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Civil War – Battle of Drewry’s Bluff (1862)

Civil War – Battle of Drewry’s Bluff (1862)

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On May 15, 1862, the Battle of Drewry's Bluff, also known as the Battle of Fort Darling, was fought between Union and Confederate forces at a sharp bend on the James River near Richmond, Virginia. Union forces were stationed aboard warships in the river, and Confederate forces were high on a fortified bluff. Richmond was the Confederate capital and vulnerable to attack by the Union Army on land, and by the Union Navy through the navigable James River. In March 1862, Confederate Captain Augustus H. Drewry ordered the construction of fortifications and the installation of large guns on his property, which was on a 90-foot bluff above the James River, and just seven miles from Richmond. Early in May, Norfolk fell to Union forces and the Confederate ship C.S.S. Virginia took refuge to avoid capture. This left the James River at Hampton Roads exposed and open to Union warships. At Drewry's Bluff, Confederate forces filled the river with underwater obstructions, including debris, sunken...

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Civil War – The First Battle Of Bull Run

Civil War – The First Battle Of Bull Run

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Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard was sitting down to breakfast in the Virginia house of Wilmer McLean in 1861 when a cannonball burst into the room via the chimney. The destruction of the fireplace ruined the morning meal. Beauregard was using McLean's house as his headquarters for the First Battle of Bull Run. Three months had passed since the Confederate shelled Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and booted the Union garrison out of the state. The Federal army was making a play for the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia. It would not go the way the Union leadership hoped, nor would it go the way anyone expected. For the north, everything was wrong from the start. Unpredictable Events During the First Battle of the Civil War In the days that followed the attack on Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln's call to arms saw the Union Army grow to a force of 200,000. Placed in command of the army in the field was a major suddenly promoted three grades to brigadier general, Irvin...

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Civil War – The Battle of Gettysburg

Civil War – The Battle of Gettysburg

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Gen. Robert E. Lee led his Army of North Virginia only two times into the North throughout the American Civil War. The winner of the first battle was inconclusive; the second determined the winner of the war.   The first battle fought on northern soil took place in September 1862, when Gen. Robert E. Lee's army invaded Maryland. It was near Antietam Creek in Sharpsburg, Maryland where his Army of Northern Virginia was confronted by Maj. Gen. George McClellan's Army of the Potomac. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting resulted in halting Lee's invasion, but Lee was able to withdraw his army back to Virginia without obstruction from the cautious McClellan who offered no pursuit. Although the battle was tactically inconclusive, the Confederate troops had withdrawn first from the battlefield, making it, in military terms, a Union victory. Antietam was also the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with a combined total of nearly 23,000 dead, wounded, and missing. Eleven months...

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LtGen Arthur MacArthur Jr., U.S. Army (1861-1909)

LtGen Arthur MacArthur Jr., U.S. Army (1861-1909)

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With no less than 620,000 deaths recorded over four years of intense fighting between Confederate and Union forces, the American Civil War remains the bloodiest conflict in American history. Playing host to battles such as Shiloh, Antietam, Stones River, and Gettysburg, the Civil War holds tales of unprecedented violence, ferocious bravery, and unparalleled heroism. Among these many tales is that of Lieutenant General Arthur MacArthur Jr. whose bravery at the most critical moment inspired his regiment during the Battle of Missionary Ridge. Arthur MacArthur Jr.'s Biography MacArthur Jr. was born in the Chicopee Falls area of Springfield, Massachusetts on June 2, 1845. His mother Aurelia was the daughter of Benjamin B. Belcher, a wealthy industrialist. She would die at the age of 45, leaving behind Arthur and his brother, Frank. MacArthur's father, Arthur MacArthur Sr., was a prominent judge and the fourth governor of Wisconsin. With his father's influence, MacArthur enrolled in the...

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Civil War – The Battle of Stones River

Civil War – The Battle of Stones River

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It was cold at the turning of the year in Murfreesboro, right in the middle of the state of Tennessee. The little town nestled under a crook in the arm of the Stones River, near where the water rushed and chattered over a long shallow ford. The Civil War had raged across the country for nearly two years. At the end of December in 1862, the Union force called the Army of the Cumberland was maneuvering into position to challenge the Confederacy's Army of Tennessee. Opposing Forces of the Battle of Stones River The Confederate troops were commanded by Gen. Braxton Bragg, a tall, thickly bearded, sad-eyed veteran of the South's campaigns. His army numbered around thirty-five thousand men, cavalry, cannon, infantry, and skirmishers. They had been encamped north of Murfreesboro for a month when the Union forces finally arrived. Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans was in command of the Union Army of the Cumberland, which out-numbered Bragg's force by nearly ten thousand men. They had marched the...

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MajGen Frank Baldwin, U.S. Army (1861-1906)

MajGen Frank Baldwin, U.S. Army (1861-1906)

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Receiving the Medal of Honor for valor in combat puts one in the hallowed company of but a few thousand individuals to ever grace the earth. But by the time you earn two Medals of Honor, you are one of 19 persons to have ever done so. Perhaps it is because the Medal of Honor is quite often awarded posthumously but receiving two and living to talk about it is a rare feat in the world. Frank Baldwin would do just that in the 1800s and live to become a General by World War 1. His first would come during the American Civil War in an era where men lined up in neat rows and took turns shooting at each other. The next would be on the American frontier as the rapidly expanding America put itself in increasing conflict with the Native Americans pushed west. And while each conflict is the subject of intense historical debate, the gallantry of a man on either side when the bullets start to fly is often the least controversial part of it all. Frank Baldwin's Early Life A native of Michigan,...

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Col. Robert Gould Shaw, U.S. Army (1861-1863)

Col. Robert Gould Shaw, U.S. Army (1861-1863)

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The smoke from the Confederate shelling of Fort Sumter had barely cleared when Robert Gould Shaw, the son of wealthy abolitionists, volunteered for the Union cause in 1861. Federal troops withdrew from the fort in Charleston Harbor on April 13, 1861. Robert Gould Shaw joined the 7th New York Militia six days later.  He didn't see combat with the New Yorkers. Instead, he waited out that enlistment and joined the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry from his home state as it was forming. Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, he marched south and fought two losing battles at Winchester and Cedar Mountain before finally tasting victory at the bloody Battle of Antietam, where he was wounded.  Leadership in the Formation of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment As he recuperated back home, the Union ordered new regiments of Black troops raised. Massachusetts would lead the way, forming the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Even after the unit began to form, the state's...

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Civil War – The Battle of Memphis

Civil War – The Battle of Memphis

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By June of 1862, the Civil War was not going well for the Union cause. A string of Union defeats in 1861 dampened the enthusiasm for the Union cause, but a victory at the Battle of Shiloh and the Federal capture of New Orleans was enough to restore hope for the preservation of the Union. The First Battle of Memphis: The Battle of the Rams On June 6, 1862, the Union and Confederate Navies would fight a pitched battle on the Mississippi River that would have a resounding significance, not just for the war, but for the future of the U.S. Navy itself. The First Battle of Memphis, also known as "The Battle of the Rams," would mark the end of privateering in the United States and lead to a purely professional U.S. Navy.  The Mississippi River was a key component of the Union's plan to cripple the Confederacy and end the rebellion. Called the "Anaconda Plan," the Union strategy required a blockade of the southern coast and control of the Mississippi River to strangle the South's ability to...

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