Exploring the most important 55 months in American history
Abraham Lincoln orders the drafting of militia into the Federal armies and allows for the recruitment of blacks as military combatants for the first time.
Ulysses S. Grant’s Federal army spends August scattered and unable to mount any offensive operations in western Tennessee and northern Mississippi.
George B. McClellan is finally ordered to take his Federal Army of the Potomac off the Virginia Peninsula and use it to reinforce the new Federal army to the north.
U.S. officials protest the construction of a ship at Liverpool that escapes British jurisdiction and later becomes the feared commerce raider C.S.S. Alabama.
Henry W. Halleck writes a delicate and personal letter to George B. McClellan hinting that he soon may be forced to pull the Federal Army of the Potomac off the Virginia Peninsula.
Braxton Bragg’s Confederate army arrives at Chattanooga, while the Federal high command scrambles to learn Bragg’s intentions.