Jefferson Davis
Stand-up Fight at Peachtree Creek
By Arnold BlumbergDuring the early afternoon of July 9, 1864, the 103rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment of Maj. Gen. John M. Read more
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, was a hero of the U.S. Army during the Mexican War and U.S. Secretary of War. Born in Kentucky, Jefferson Davis represented the state of Mississippi in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Jefferson Davis was the only individual to serve as President of the Confederacy. In the last days of the war, Jefferson Davis fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, and was captured by Union cavalry in Georgia. Jefferson Davis was imprisoned and indicted on treason charges but received a presidential pardon in 1868. He died in 1889 at the age of 81.
Jefferson Davis
The Model 1857 12-pounder
By Gustav PersonAmong the historic inventory of the United States Army’s artillery weapons, few pieces have enjoyed a more predominant role or reputation than the Model 1857 12-pounder gun-howitzer, which became a mainstay of the Federal artillery during the Civil War. Read more
Jefferson Davis
John Stanton: From Secretary to First in Command
By Paul A. ThomsenIn the late hours of April 14, 1865, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton sat at a small table in the Petersen House across the street from Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. Read more
Jefferson Davis
Healers or Horrors: Civil War Medicine
By Richard A. GabrielSafe behind its ocean barriers, the United States paid scant attention to the wars that raged abroad during the early 19th century, taking little notice of the lessons that might have been learned from the European experience with mass killing. Read more
Jefferson Davis
Wilson’s Creek: Bull Run of the West
By Joshua van DereckAt the beginning of 1861, Missouri was in turmoil. A slave state since its inception in 1820, Missouri had grown increasingly tied to urban industry. Read more
Jefferson Davis
Battle of Mechanicsville: McClellan’s Unexploited Victory
By John WalkerAfter an almost uninterrupted, four-month-long string of Union successes beginning in early 1862, followed by the advance of a 100,000-man enemy army to the eastern outskirts of its capital at Richmond, Virginia, the Confederacy suddenly found itself in a life-or-death struggle for its very survival. Read more
Jefferson Davis
Prisons of the Civil War: An Enduring Controversy
By Michael E. HaskewThe June 19, 1861, editorial in the Charleston Mercury newspaper warned: “War is bloody reality, not butterfly sporting. Read more
Jefferson Davis
Clash at Bald Hill: Atlanta’s Bloodiest Day
By William E. WelshThe guide shook uncontrollably when the gray-clad general pointed his pistol at him in the backwoods of central Georgia on the evening of July 21, 1864. Read more
Jefferson Davis
The 5th U.S. Cavalry: “A Hard Duty” at Gaines Mill
The celebrated 2nd U.S. Cavalry, like its brother regiment the 1st U.S. Cavalry, was formally created by an act of Congress in March 1855. Read more
Jefferson Davis
Johnston Goes After Ulysses S. Grant at Shiloh
by Earl EchelberryBy the end of the winter campaign of 1861-1862, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had shattered the Confederate defenses in northwest Tennessee with a combined land and water attack on Forts Henry and Donelson, forcing General Albert Sidney Johnston to abandon his bastion at Nashville and retreat southward. Read more
Jefferson Davis
American Civil War Timeline: Piecemeal Operations
by William E. WelshU.S. President Abraham Lincoln had no military experience and discarded most of Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott’s so-called Anaconda Plan, which critics deemed too conservative. Read more
Jefferson Davis
The American Civil War: Forging a National Identity
by Mike HaskewThe American Civil War was the tragic culmination of divergent perspectives on the proper conduct of the government of the United States and socio-economic issues that had been frequently at the forefront of American political life for decades. Read more
Jefferson Davis
Firing on Fort Sumter: the Start of Civil War
By Al HemingwayShortly after midnight on the morning of April 12, 1861, four men in a rowboat made their way across the pitch-black harbor at Charleston, South Carolina, toward Fort Sumter, an unfinished and architecturally insignificant masonry fort three miles out from the city where the harbor meets the Atlantic Ocean. Read more
Jefferson Davis
Missouri Joins the Civil War: Prelude to the Battle of Wilson’s Creek
by Joshua van DereckAt the beginning of 1861, Missouri was in turmoil. A slave state since its inception in 1820, Missouri had grown increasingly tied to urban industry. Read more
Jefferson Davis
Bushrod Johnson: Yankee Quaker, Confederate General
By Roy Morris Jr.Of all the unlikely heroes of the Civil War, none was more unlikely than Bushrod Johnson, Ohio-born Quaker turned Confederate general. Read more
