Quotes from Eric J. Wittenberg

This regiment included some of the most famous army officers of the era, including Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, then–Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee, Major George H. Thomas, Captains Edmund Kirby Smith and Earl Van Dorn, then-Lieutenant Fitzhugh Lee, and Lieutenant John Bell Hood—all of whom became general officers during the Civil War and five of whom commanded armies.

Do not place confidence in that," he warned Meade. "I have men in my Construction Corps who could construct bridges in forty-eight hours sufficient to pass that army, if they have no other material than such as they could gather from old buildings or from the woods, and it is not safe to assume that the enemy cannot do what we can.

By this point in the war Lee had become a master at outlining a course of action that was specific enough to obtain the necessary bureaucratic backing but vague enough to allow him maximum flexibility of action once underway.

A Federal officer called Wyndham "a big bag of wind.

Couch later wrote, "The retrograde movement had prepared me for something of the kind, but to hear from his own lips that the advantages gained by the successful marches of his lieutenants were to culminate in fighting a defensive battle in that nest of thickets was too much, and I retired from his presence with the belief that my commanding general was a whipped man.

I wonder if Napoleon or even Robt. Lee were our commander this evening would they pursue a defeated army in this cautious, courteous way?

The National Road, sometimes called the Cumberland Road because it originally terminated in Cumberland, Maryland, was the first Federal highway. It was built between 1811 and 1820 for some $7,000,000 to connect Baltimore with Ohio. It followed a route laid out by Gen. James Braddock's pioneers during the French and Indian War and became an important line of commerce.

Few people consider that something as simple as an ill-fitted horseshoe could break a horse as quickly as overburdening it or failing to provide it with adequate rest or fodder.

firing weapon had a devastating effect on the Southerners.18 The 5th Michigan's Pvt. William H. Rockwell wrote to his wife a few weeks after the battle about the weapon's effect. "We are put in all of the worst places on account of [the] seven shooters," he boasted. "The rebs call us the seven devils for they say we can load in the morning and fight all day. If they find the 5th [Michigan] is after them they skedaddle.

The misinterpretation of intelligence was nothing new for Alfred Pleasonton. Known universally as a toady whose sights seemed eternally fixed on self-promotion, one of Pleasonton's many weaknesses was gathering and qualifying intelligence on the enemy's movements and intentions.

In short, a government created by the Unionist portion of Virginia—a minority of the total population—purported to speak for the entire state, including the majority of the state that supported secession.

Congress quickly increased the number of Supreme Court Justices from seven to nine, enabling Grant to nominate two new members of the Court. The plan to pack the Court with Republican justices had worked.

Buford didn't dress for respect, he earned it. He didn't try to get his name in the newspapers, instead he led with deeds that caused his men to follow his guidon with confidence and the full expectation of success.

She [Virginia] can have no right, years after all this has been settled, to come into a court of chancery to charge that her own conduct has been a wrong and a fraud.

His decision to break off, however, left the critical ground between South Mountain and Hagerstown firmly in Confederate hands, meaning that Lee's army would be able to concentrate there. In this, Kilpatrick inexplicably cost the Army of the Potomac the initiative that it never could regain.

Further Resolved, That the 158 years which have elapsed since this invitation was first extended have not diminished the feelings of deep affection in which Frederick County and her citizens are held by the citizens of West Virginia; and, be it

He concluded, "I'm sure there will be lawyers all over this thing if the citizens of Frederick County decided they wanted to join (West Virginia).

Fourteen years later, while visiting John Rummel, Miller found his saber hilt and a portion of the blade among the relics collected by Rummel after the battle.

What we do know for certain is that he made up his mind to take the 125 wagons with him into Pennsylvania. The decision triggered a controversy that has raged for more than 140 years.

Had Kilpatrick shown some initiative and sent a larger force in pursuit, he might have bagged the entire command while the exhausted column was strung out across the Pennsylvania country side. Stuart was fortunate his adversary was not determined to fight a decisive battle with him.

Like the fabled Charge of the Light Brigade, Farnsworth's Charge was brave, memorable, and fruitless.

After the war, Fitz Lee served as governor of Virginia and became one of several former Confederate commanders to return to duty in the U.S. Army for the Spanish-American War.

Garrison believed that the Constitution "was 'a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.

Lincoln was not keen on admitting West Virginia as it had "seceded" from Virginia—which was a state and Lincoln would never concede that it, and other "so called" Confederate states, had left the Union.11 So, supporters of West Virginia created a legal fiction that what became West Virginia, was really the authentic Commonwealth of Virginia.