Exploring the most important 55 months in American history
Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Richard Ewell join forces in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and move to attack Nathaniel P. Banks’s isolated Federal outpost at Front Royal.
Henry W. Halleck’s Federal “Grand Army” inches his way toward Confederates under P.G.T. Beauregard at Corinth, forcing Beauregard to decide whether to fight or flee.
Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law giving away 160-acre plots to settlers who agree to tend to the land for five years.
Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Richard Ewell struggle with conflicting orders while trying to join forces to attack Federal forces in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
Abraham Lincoln revokes David Hunter’s order freeing all slaves in his military department. But Lincoln also declared for the first time that he had the power to free slaves as a wartime necessity.
The Federal naval squadron of David G. Farragut tries following up its capture of New Orleans by pushing further up the Mississippi River. But they meet unexpected resistance.