Showing results for "North Anna"
My Call to Arms: A Look Back at My Overland Campaign
What no one ever tells you about being an author is that it mostly involves schlepping a lot of books from place to place. Sure, there’s some writing involved (and, oh, if only I had time to do more!), but in the end, writing is not just an art and not just a passion—it’s a […]
Read more...Lee’s Overland Engineer: Maj. Gen. Martin Luther Smith
History buffs can only name a handful of personalities from the Civil War that seem present at many important events. One man that finds himself involved in widespread actions is Confederate engineer Martin Luther Smith. Smith played a crucial role in both the western and eastern theaters. A native New Yorker, Smith graduated West Point […]
Read more...Exploring Totopotomoy
The first time I visit the Totopotomoy Creek Battlefield at Rural Plains, it’s an unseasonably mild day in late winter. I’m taking pictures for the upcoming Emerging Civil War Series book No Turning Back, so I can’t stay long because I have the entire Overland Campaign to photograph. But I plan to come back for […]
Read more...Totopotomoy Creek
Excerpted from Hurricane from the Heavens by Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt: Grant later wrote, “The streams were numerous…with impenetrable growth of trees and underbrush” as his army crossed the Pamunkey onto the Tidewater Peninsula of Virginia. The Union commander in chief had described this area of Virginia perfectly. That next stream was […]
Read more...Haw’s Shop in Pictures
On May 28, 1864, as the Army of the Potomac crossed the Pamunkey River, Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan commanding the Cavalry Corps was given the assignment to protect the Yankee bridgehead and to report back on any Confederate movements. With only the division of Brig. Gen. David Gregg available for his mission, Sheridan struck out […]
Read more...Toward the Pamunkey
By the latter part of May, 1864, Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. Robert E. Lee had fought each other to a standstill. After engagements in the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania Court House, the two men now faced each other at the North Anna River. There, Grant had marched his men into a well designed trap […]
Read more...Lee’s Inverted-V Salient
The Confederate position at the North Anna River has usually been characterized as an inverted V, but another way to look at it is as a giant salient—a portion of the line that juts out from the main line. Viewed in that light, echoes of the salient at Spotsylvania begin to reverberate. Salients are inherently weak positions, […]
Read more...Yankees Go Home
150 years ago today, 127 veterans of the 14th Brooklyn (84th New York or 14th New York State Militia) left Fredericksburg on the first leg of a journey home at the end of thier enlistments. The day before, the regiment had split on the road to North Anna – those who signed up in 1861 […]
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