Robert E. Lee

General Lee and Malvern Hill
Historians have often taken Robert E. Lee to task for the assault on Malvern Hill. But the decision to attack came about in mysterious ways—and Lee seems to have been as mystified as anyone.
--Stephen W. Sears

“Border Ruffians” from Missuori cross into Kansas to cast illegal pro-slavery notes.

Prelude to War
In the decade prior to the war, northerners called southerners fire-eaters, barbarians, cowards, slave-power conspirators, and enemies of the republic; southerners called northerners fanatics, maniacs, wild beasts, abolitionist conspirators, and enemies of the republic. And newspapers fanned the flames.
--Lorman A. Ratner and Dwight L. Teeter Jr.

A Union forage party runs wild in Georgia.

In the Crosshairs
Was the targeting of Confederate civilians, and on occasion prisoners-of-war, a policy of the U.S. government? Did these actions have the approval of the Lincoln administration?
--Michael R. Bradley

Brigadier Robert S. Granger (1816-1894), Union commander of Nashville

A Tale of Two Cities
Prostitution in wartime Nashville and Memphis constituted a major problem, and the U.S. Army adopted a radical solution.
--James B. Jones Jr

An impressive looking locomotive.

Railroads and the Civil War
The Civil War was a railroad war—every major battle was fought within twenty miles of a railroad or river port.
--John E. Clark Jr.

Longstreet’s men arrive at Ringgold Station prior to the Battle of Chickamauga. Library of Congress.

A Very Different War
So what might the war have looked like without the railroads?
--Steven H. Newton

The attitudes of many soldiers were swiftly changed by the experience of war.

Demystifying the Union Soldier
Two equal and opposite myths seem to apply to Union soldiers: the grade school level myth that they enlisted to abolish slavery, and the high school level myth that they opposed emancipation and hated the Emancipation Proclamation.
--Chandra Manning