St. Augustine, Florida has been under Union control since March 1862. Along with Beaufort, South Carolina and environs, St. Augustine serves as a Northern-controlled freemen’s colony, providing opportunities for former slaves — or contrabands (the wartime term for slaves freed by the Union Army) — to receive basic education, learn trades and acquire farming skills. Leading…
Today Confederate Calvary Commander General Joe Wheeler, in an attempt to hamper the Union offensive against Atlanta, begins raiding activities behind Federal lines in North Georgia, targeting Federal railroad supply lines. Wheeler operates in North Georgia and Tennessee for a month. Although the Confederate general does manage to temporarily destroy some stretches of rail, his…
In and around the battlefronts of Atlanta and Petersburg (and nearby Richmond), anticipation and apprehension is in the air. News of the Union victory in Mobile Bay is filtering out. With the shuttering of the port of Mobile, the Federals have further tightened their encirclement around the South. The strangling of the Confederacy involves that…