Today in Virginia the Confederacy suffers misfortune when General J.E.B. Stuart, one of the South’s best cavalry leaders, is wounded in the Battle of Yellow Tavern. While Union General Ulysses S. Grant battles Confederate General Robert E. Lee in the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, Grant takes advantage of his numerically superior forces by sending…
In Virginia, the fighting resumes on the second day of the Battle of the Wilderness. Casualties again number in the thousands during a long day of bloody but inconclusive clashes. During the fighting, both sides fail to take advantage of opportunities that might have shifted the battle’s momentum. By nightfall, both Union and Confederate forces…
With the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery having passed the United States Senate and awaiting approval of the House, the attention of the North is increasingly focused on bringing the war to a conclusion so that freedom might be extended to blacks yet enslaved. The state of Massachusetts, and Boston in particular, has for decades been…