Today Union General William T. Sherman’s army moves out of Fayetteville, intent on causing further damage in North Carolina. These are days of intense soul searching, South and North. Although Confederate leaders and large slaveholders (often one and the same) remain largely defiant, many White citizens of the Confederacy have given up all hope and…
Today a great fire engulfs the southwest Georgia town of Americus, a Confederate hospital town housing thousands of soldiers and located near Andersonville Prison. Two city squares in the downtown district are destroyed by the fire, which causes damages of over $3,000,000. The lost buildings include many businesses, hospital buildings, warehouses and storerooms. Among the…
By now the South is a vast battlefield with only a few pockets of safety. Virginia is increasingly overrun by the enemy. From the Shenandoah Valley to Petersburg and further eastward, Northern armies are embedded in the Old Dominion, easily outnumbering Confederate defenders. Much of coastal North Carolina is under Union control, while periodical forays…