In September 1862, the South hoped to end the war by invading Maryland just before the mid-term elections. But its hopes were dashed after the bloodiest day in American history.
In the bitter debate over the War of 1812, the decorated veteran nearly died fighting a Baltimore mob in defense of an unpopular Federalist publisher.
A largely accidental battle, pitting Robert E. Lee against George B. McClellan, became the single deadliest day in America's history and changed the course of the Civil War.
In one momentous decision, Robert E. Lee spared the United States years of divisive violence
In only minutes, Union guns at Gettysburg silenced the Confederacy's bold invasion of the North
A southern writer analyzes the handicaps unwittingly laid on the general by President Davis
A Lee descendant finds two long-lost trunks full of family memorabilia in a Virginia bank vault
New research shows that Lee's momentous decision to fight for the South was far from inevitable.
One of Lee’s greatest lieutenants is slowly winning his reputation back after losing it for daring to criticize his boss
Two hundred years after his birth, Americans still revere him as a martyr and loathe him as a fanatical murderer. What was he?
He was forever asking friends to find a spouse for his youngest boy. It was a different story with his girls.
The Union Army’s siege ended in 1865, but it still has a grip on Petersburg, Virginia
He told Lincoln he was better than any other officer on the field at Bull Run and got the Army’s top job. He built a beaten force into a proud one and stole a march on Robert E. Lee with it. He was twenty-four hours away from winning the Civil War. Then he fell apart.
How to know the unknowable man
During three days in May 1863, the Confederate leader took astonishing risks to win one of the most skillfully conducted battles in history. But the cost turned out to be too steep.
In the Republic’s direst hour, he took command. In the black days after Bull Run, he won West Virginia for the Union. He raised a magnificent army and led it forth to meet his “cautious & weak” opponent, Robert E. Lee. Why hasn’t history been kinder to George B. McClellan?
Conjectural or speculative history can be a silly game, as in “What if the Roman legions had machine guns?” But this historian argues that to enlarge our knowledge and understanding it sometimes makes very good sense to ask …
A black chaplain in the Union Army reports on the struggle to take Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in the winter of 1864–65
Verdicts Of History: III -- Even his abolitionist friends thought his attack on Harpers Ferry insane, but the old Kansas raider sensed that his death would ignite the nation’s conscience.
The Corps is supposed to be tough, and is. This often confounds its enemies and sometimes irritates the nation’s other services
Upon the clash of arms near a little Maryland creek hung the slave’s freedom and the survival of the Union