The fortunes of the Confederacy have grown so desperate–some two-thirds of Confederate soldiers have deserted, and there are no more able-bodied white men available for military service–that a growing number of voices are calling for allowing slaves to serve in the army. President Jefferson Davis, unable to think of any other effective way to supplement…
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…
While the Overland and Atlanta campaigns dominate the battlefield news this month, Union forces periodically collide with Confederates in skirmishes in Louisiana and Arkansas as the Federal troops slowly but systematically extend their presence in the western theater of the war. One such small clash occurs today in the Battle of Old River Lake (also…