A Routine Day Ends With A Medal of Honor Act
Captain George Newman Bliss expected a routine day on Sept. 28, 1864. A large cavalry force, including his troopers in the 1st Rhode Island, rode through Waynesboro, Va., to water
Category: The Honored Few
Jenny the Drummer Boy
Drummer boy Johann Christoph Julius Langbein’s nickname “Jenny” traces back to his 1861 enlistment in the 9th New York Infantry, popularly known as Hawkins’ Zouaves. One writer noted that the
Saving a Trooper at White Bird Canyon
The light of dawn on June 17, 1877, revealed a column of about 106 U.S. Cavalry troops, plus a couple dozen civilians and scouts, moving down a trail along a
“Damn You, Sir! I Don’t Want a Flag of Truce; I Want the American Flag!”
At Atlanta on the afternoon July 22, 1864, a massive assault by Maj. Gen. Frank Cheatham’s Confederate corps tore into the Union’s western front. The attack landed squarely on the
“Boys, I Fear You Will Never See Shaler Again”
Marye’s Heights proved one of the hardest fought patches of ground in the Civil War’s Eastern Theater. The first attempt by Union forces to take it, during the December 1862
Two Fathers, Two Sons, Two Telegrams
On May 24, 1861, Ephraim D. Ellsworth, 52, happened to be in the telegraph office in Mechanicsville, N.Y., when a shocking message came across the wires. The operator wept openly,
Leading From the Front
The Battle of Piedmont, fought in the Shenandoah Valley on June 5, 1864, is noted for the death of Confederate commander William E. “Grumble” Jones and the rout of his
Lookout Mountain Gallantry
Colonel Henry Alanson Barnum was in no condition to fight at Lookout Mountain. Suffering from an unhealed abdominal wound received more than a year earlier at Malvern Hill and scarcely
Big Bluff by a Man of Faith in Blue
Forage parties in hostile territory always ran the risk of crossing paths with the enemy. Such was the case for 1st Lt. James Hill on May 16, 1863. On that
“Hurrah for Col. Smith!”
The 1st Maine Cavalry faced annihilation near St. Mary’s Church, Va., on June 24, 1864. About 3 p.m. that afternoon, an overwhelming force of Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton’s rebel troopers