The Backchat Blog

After the Battle of Five Forks on April 1, 1865, some of the seriously wounded soldiers were taken to the nearby Gravelly Run Church which was serving as a field hospital.  One of those wounded was Captain George P. McClelland of the 155th Pennsylvania Infantry.  Pews...

In the closing months of 1864, General Ulysses S. Grant was eager to put pressure on the Confederate supply and communication lines that he thought were vulnerable.  He wanted to choke off Robert E. Lee’s source of men, equipment, and food once and for all. Key...

The Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia in December, 1862, was to have been the first step in the Federal plan to seize the Confederate capital in Richmond. Senior level officers in the Union Army were convinced that their troops would be spending a victorious...

Backed by a force numerically superior to his enemy, General George Meade, Commander of the Union Army of the Potomac, felt confident that he would overwhelm Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the closing days of November 1863.  But the weather in the area...

Joseph Hooker, born November 13, 1814 in Hadley, Massachusetts, was from a family with long time Yankee roots and whose grandfather fought as a captain in the American Revolution.  Young Joseph was accepted into the class of 1837 at West Point where he was an...

After the death of George Washington in 1799 and his wife Martha in 1802, their home, Mount Vernon, was passed down through the family.  By the late 1840’s the home was owned by John Augustine Washington and had fallen into great disrepair.  One observer...

Why did a bright, young man who was consistently at the top of his class at West Point and who was credited with rescuing the Union Army “from imminent peril” at Gettysburg in 1863, plummet to being called “a very loathsome, profane, ungentlemanly and disgusting...

Six-year-old Glenn Worthington and his family took refuge in the cellar of their home while the Battle of Monocacy raged on the fields surrounding them.  The battle, fought near Frederick, Maryland, is credited with delaying Confederate troops – led by General...

There are many recorded instances of civilian and soldier interactions during the American Civil War, but surely one of the most touching sessions was recorded by a Pennsylvania infantryman in March 1864 at Warrenton Junction, Virginia. Sergeant George P. McClelland...

Most women who actively supported the Union cause during the Civil War used the pen as their “weapon” of choice.  One notable exception to this was Harriet Tubman.  She took on the role as an armed participant in a Union raid on a site deep in Confederate territory in...