American Civil War: Causes, Dates & Battles

Minié Ball

A New Bullet Before the development of the Minié ball, muzzle‑loading rifles were not used in combat situations because of how difficult they were to load. Because the ammunition used had to engage the spiral grooves, or rifling, inside the rifle barrel, it had to be equal in diameter to the barrel, and shooters would […]

Civil War Technology

New Kinds of Weapons Before the Civil War, infantry soldiers typically carried muskets that held just one bullet at a time. The range of these muskets was about 250 yards. However, a soldier trying to aim and shoot with any accuracy would have to stand much closer to his target, since the weapon’s “effective range” […]

The 54th Massachusetts Infantry

The 54th Massachusetts Infantry Origins Early in February 1863, the abolitionist Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts issued the Civil War’s first call for Black soldiers. Massachusetts did not have many African American residents, but by the time 54th Infantry regiment headed off to training camp two weeks later more than 1,000 men had volunteered. […]

The Irish Brigade

The Irish Brigade At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, thousands of Irish and Irish‑American New Yorkers enlisted in the Union Army. Some joined ordinary—that is, non‑Irish—regiments, but others formed three all‑Irish voluntary infantries: the 63rd New York Infantry Regiment, organized on Staten Island, and the 69th and 88th New York Infantry Regiments, […]

Black Civil War Soldiers

A ‘White Man’s War’? Black soldiers had fought in the Revolutionary War and—unofficially—in the War of 1812, but state militias had excluded African Americans since 1792. The U.S. Army had never accepted Black soldiers. The U.S. Navy, on the other hand, was more progressive: There, African Americans had been serving as shipboard firemen, stewards, coal […]

Philip Sheridan

Phil Sheridan: Youth and Early Military Career Philip Henry Sheridan was born to Irish parents on March 6, 1831, possibly while the family was en route from Ireland to Somerset, Ohio. (Some historians speculate that he was born in Albany, New York, where his family lived briefly before settling in Ohio.) Sheridan worked as a […]

Gatling Gun

In 1862, Richard Jordan Gatling invented a multi‑barreled, rotating gun operated by a hand crank that could fire up to 200 rounds a minute. Used only a few times during the Civil War, the Gatling gun would later become the first widely successful machine gun. Did you know? Richard Gatling had actually hoped that the […]

Sherman’s March to the Sea

The Fall of Atlanta General Sherman’s troops captured Atlanta on September 2, 1864. This was an important triumph, because Atlanta was a railroad hub and the industrial center of the Confederacy: It had munitions factories, foundries and warehouses that kept the Confederate army supplied with food, weapons and other goods. It stood between the Union […]

Women in the Civil War

Background In the years before the Civil War, the lives of American women were shaped by a set of ideals that historians call “the Cult of True Womanhood.” As men’s work moved away from the home and into shops, offices and factories, the household became a new kind of place: a private, feminized domestic sphere, […]

P.G.T. Beauregard

P.G.T. Beauregard: Early Life and Military Service Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard—more commonly known as P.G.T or G.T. Beauregard—was born on May 28, 1818, into a prominent Creole family in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. He was raised on a sugarcane plantation outside of New Orleans and in his youth attended school in New York City. In […]

Mathew Brady

Mathew B. Brady is the most famous photographer of the American Civil War. Although best known for his photographs of the war, Brady had established himself as one of the country’s preeminent photographers long before the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter in 1861. Mathew Brady’s Early Life Born in 1823 or 1824 in […]

Battle of Fort Donelson

Battle of Fort Donelson: February 1862 After the fall of Confederate‑held Fort Henry on the Tennessee River to the Union on February 6, 1862 (largely thanks to Union gunboats), thousands of rebel troops were sent to reinforce the larger Fort Donelson, which was located 10 miles away on the Cumberland River—another key gateway to the […]