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Only twenty-five hours after the Confederate Army’s arrival on the battlefield of Spring Hill, TN the decision to assault the heavily defended fortifications at Franklin was made. It was a decision that would not have to be made had the Confederates followed through with their plans at Spring Hill. Follow the armies in their race to Spring Hill, the combat there and the critical decisions that led to the Federal escape and a total Confederate command breakdown in the most devastating blunder of the American "Civil War." -
In February 1864, over seven thousand Union cavalry troops led by Gen. William Sooy Smith started a raid into the Mississippi Prairie to bring destruction to one of the few breadbaskets remaining in the South. Both Smith and Gen. Sherman intended to burn everything in their path. But neither reckoned with Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest's small Confederate cavalry forced defeated Smith in a running battle that stretched from West Point to Okolona and beyond. Forrest's victory prevented Smith from joining Sherman and saved the Prairie from total destruction. -
Midway between Memphis and New Orleans along the Mississippi River, Vicksburg was essential to both Confederate and Union campaigns. General Ulysses S. Grant began his campaign on the city in November 1862, but he was forced to abandon the operation in December when the fiery General Earl Van Dorn made a daring raid on Grant’s main supply depot at Holly Springs, Mississippi. With the help of the CSS Arkansas, Van Dorn’s single day raid on Grant’s supply base saved Vicksburg from Grant’s forces for an entire year. -
The commander of the three-hundred-wagon Union supply train never expected a large ragtag group of Texans and Native Americans to attack during the dark of night. But Brigadier Generals Richard Gano and Stand Watie defeated the unsuspecting Federals in the early morning hours of September 19, 1864, at Cabin Creek in the Cherokee nation. The legendary Watie, the only Native American general on either side, planned details of the raid for months. His preparation paid off--the Confederate troops captured wagons with supplies that would be worth more than $75 million today. -
A comprehensive study of Missouri's Civil War-era flags. -
This latest entry in a new series about Confederate flags documents the still extant WBTS flags of Alabama. -
Leonidas Polk is one of the most fascinating figures of the Civil War. Consecrated as a bishop of the Episcopal Church and commissioned as a general into the Confederate army, Polk’s life in both spheres blended into a unique historical composite. Polk was a man with deep religious convictions but equally committed to the Confederate cause. He baptized soldiers on the eve of bloody battles, administered last rites and even presided over officers’ weddings, all while leading his soldiers into battle. -
The Civil War was trying, bloody, and hard-fought combat for both sides. What was it, then, that sustained soldiers low on supplies and morale? For the Army of Tennessee, it was religion. “Onward Southern Soldiers" explores the significant impact of religion on every rank, from generals to chaplains to common soldiers. Religion unified troops, informing both why and how they fought, and providing the rationale for enduring great hardship for the Confederate cause. -
This work offers a contemporaneous portrait of Old Virginia, her unwavering stance on State sovereignty, and her fight to the death to defend the fundamental principle upon which the Republic was founded. -
BACK ORDERED! The War was scarcely over when a group of ladies met in Raleigh and began to plan commemoration for the honored Confederate dead of North Carolina. In 1867, they held their first memorial service. Two years later the first monument to the state's fallen Confederate soldiers was erected. Over the next 14 decades, countless monuments were commissioned across the state. -
An estimated 6,862 Arkansas Confederate soldiers died from battle and disease, while some 1,700 Arkansas men died wearing Union blue. Total casualties represented 12 percent of the white men in the state between the ages of 15 and 62. Bloody, hard-fought battles included Pea Ridge, Helena, Little Rock, and the rare Confederate victory in southwest Arkansas at Jenkins’ Ferry. Following the war, the 1911 United Confederate Veterans Reunion, is presented in picture and word. -
This is a collection of war letters written by teenagers George and Walter Battle during their service in Company F, 4th North Carolina Regiment, CSA. Underage, yet full of vitality and idealism, these boys were not just fighting for their country; they were fighting to protect their family's name. Two young brothers had gone off to war as mere boys. Their experiences quickly hardened and molded them into veterans of the greatest army ever to march on American soil.
