The Union and Confederate armies are by now in full preparation for the looming spring campaigns. While the federal Red River Campaign in Louisiana has become bogged down and Confederates have manged to regain control of Plymouth, North Carolina, Union forces, largely victorious on the battlefield since July of the year prior, clearly remain on…
Today Thomas C. Cheney, soldier in the First New Hampshire Voluntary Light Battery and a member of the First Free Baptist Church Manchester, New Hampshire, writes a letter to his sister, Melissa. As is often the case with soldier letters to home, the subject matter ranges all over. Interspersed with personal queries and notes regarding…
Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, yet headquartered in Chattanooga, is making final preparations for the beginning of his spring campaign against Atlanta. Today he sends a coded telegram ordering the requisition and deployment of a manned gun-boat to “patrol the river below Bridgeport to Decatur to cover McPherson’s movements.” General James B. McPherson commands the…