In the Atlanta Campaign’s Battle of Utoy Creek, begun on August 4, a Union offensive attempts to seize the railroad between East Point and Atlanta. The rail lines represent the Confederate’s supply route. Infighting among Union officers, however, provides Rebel defenders time to better entrench in anticipation of the Union attack. Unable to overpower 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…
Union forces entrenched around Petersburg have for weeks been planning a surprise, and unusual, offensive against the Rebel enemy. Today they spring their surprise — or more appropriately, they blow their surprise, as in setting off a mine near the Confederate lines. In what becomes known as the Battle of the Crater, the Union-detonated mine…