The officer was a bit of an anomaly; a Union colonel with a Deep South accent, wearing a Mexican serape against the pre-dawn chill. Shortly after stepping into the saddle he spurred his horse into the Rappahannock River. The placid waters were soon churning, as hundreds of troopers in Union blue followed in his wake. …
As I prepared my last post describing Union attempts to burn the Waterloo Bridge, I was also reading Seizing Destiny, The Army of the Potomac’s “Valley Forge” and the Civil War Winter that Saved the Union, by Albert Conner Jr., and Chris Mackowski. One of the first offensive operations described by the authors is the…
My wife and I spent a very pleasant afternoon recently at our favorite vineyard, Winding Road Cellars, on Leeds Manor Road in Markham. On the way home, as we passed through the historic hamlets of Hume and Orleans, we noticed multiple signs announcing the local effort to Save the Historic Waterloo Bridge. There was a time,…
Last week I joined Bruce and Lynne Venter, of America’s History, LLC, on their Kill Jeff Davis: The Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid on Richmond in 1864 tour. Bruce is the author of the recently released, and highly-regarded, book of the same title. The tour was well-timed, as most of the participants had recently read Bruce’s book. I had…
The editors of the Official Records assumed a staggering task when they began gathering and organizing the thousands of battle reports, telegrams, letters and other documents held by the War Department following the Civil War. The work was actually authorized before the final guns went silent in the spring of 1865. The task took decades,…
Jeb Stuart wrote his wife, Flora, on September 4, 1862, following the victory at Second Manassas. Several weeks earlier, Col. Thornton Brodhead and his 1st Michigan Cavalry had unceremoniously driven Stuart and his staff from their slumbers, forcing them to beat a hasty and humiliating retreat. Forgotten and left behind in the rush to safety was…
Maj. Gen. John Pope, commanding the Army of Virginia, certainly thought the gods of war were smiling on him as the sun broke over the horizon on the morning of August 30, 1862. Most of the intelligence Pope was receiving indicated the Army of Northern Virginia was retreating. Overly confident, Pope not only made little effort…
Following a last briefing with Gen. Joseph Hooker on April 11, George Stoneman “issued orders for the whole Corps to be in readiness to move at daylight on…April 13, leaving by direction one brigade behind for duty with the Army.” Col. Benjamin ‘Grimes’ Davis, a meticulous planner, left little to chance. Knowing the pack trains…
Primary sources, to include letters, diaries and official correspondence, as well as postwar memoirs and regimental histories, should form the foundation upon which any historian constructs their narrative. Still, officers often crafted their official reports so as to leave the most favorable impression of their own actions, as well as the actions of their men.…
The Battle of Upperville, which had seen artillery duels, infantry attacks and sweeping cavalry charges across broad vistas of rolling country, ended in a deadly, man on man, street brawl in a narrow road intersection. In that brief but deadly maelstrom Wilson Vanatta was struck by a carbine bullet just below his right knee. The operations…
