Today in military history: Union Army cuts off Port Hudson
On May 21, 1863, a 48-day siege began as the Union Army cut off Port Hudson, Louisiana during the Civil War. The Union’s “Anaconda Plan” was a strict blockade of…
On May 21, 1863, a 48-day siege began as the Union Army cut off Port Hudson, Louisiana during the Civil War. The Union’s “Anaconda Plan” was a strict blockade of…
The New Orleans Mint is a historic structure not only because it is the oldest structure that was once a U.S. Mint that is in shape after all these years, but also because…
Henry Wirz and Samuel “Champ” Ferguson could not have less in common. They both served the Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War, but they have different origin stories, different lives,…
The United States Constitution defines treason as “levying war against them [the U.S. government], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” Under this definition, every Confederate…
It’s well known that after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, 11 states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. The subsequent Civil War would…
It may seem weird that another country would just show up to war to have a look, but it used to be a fairly common activity, one the United Nations still practices. A military observer is a diplomatic representative of sorts, used by one government …
On Nov. 17, 1863, Confederate General James Longstreet laid siege to the city of Knoxville, Tennessee. In the fall of 1863, Union Major General Ambrose Burnside occupied Knoxville where a…
We hear a lot about how Gettysburg was as far north as the Confederate Army could get, while that may be true for the Army of Northern Virginia, it wasn’t true for the entire Confederate armed forces. The actual northernmost fighting took place in …
On an early June morning in 1862, two brothers from Scotland were fighting for their lives and their adopted homeland on a South Carolina battlefield. They had come to America less than two decades prior, and each had come to love his new homeland. …
War is never clean, but measures can be taken to minimize the suffering of those who fight the wars and those most affected by them. Casualty counts in wars of…