This week the 118th United States Colored Troops regiment is forming in Kentucky. Many former slaves enroll today in Owensboro, eager to take up arms to help put down the Rebellion and free the remaining slaves in the Confederacy. Former slaves are now daily enrolling in the Union Army, and in so doing are ensuring…
Today at 4 a.m. Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his cavalry raiders make a daring raid on Memphis, Tennessee, a town controlled by some 6,000 Federal forces. Galloping down the streets of Memphis, the Rebel forces set about looking for Union generals stationed in Memphis, in order to capture them, while freeing Confederate…
Today Union General Ulysses S. Grant refuses yet another request from the Confederacy to exchange prisoners. While the practice of prisoner exchange was common earlier in the war, Grant, albeit reluctantly, is now determined to play hardball. Refusing to exchange prisoners with the enemy, in effect, further pressures the Confederate’s decimated army ranks. Meanwhile, far…