Drum Taps in Dixie: Memories of a Drummer Boy, 1861-1865

James Tabor and Dennis Garrity were about the last two soldiers that would have been taken for chums. Garrity was a great thick-chested Irishman with brawny arms and a roisterin...

Grant’s and Lee’s forces occupied intrenchments more than 30 miles in length reaching from Richmond around to the left of Petersburg. The effective soldiers of Grant’s army were...

When the news was flashed across the country that Fort Sumter had been fired upon the writer was a 12-year-old boy residing in West Carthage. The events of those days stand fort...

The next morning we were awakened by the booming of cannon and clash of musketry. As we got up off the ground we could see smoke curling up from the tops of the trees on a hills...

City Point, a little insignificant wharf town on a point of land at the intersection of the Appomattox with the James River, about 25 miles from Richmond and seven or eight mile...

Hawley was not cut out for a soldier--in fact he was several sizes too large. His corpulency made him appear rather ludicrous when he tried to line up with the slender youths of...

On the night of June 12, ’64, the withdrawal of the army from the trenches at Cold Harbor began. The picket lines were not disturbed until the army were several hours under way.

Probably the most popular commander of the Union forces in the civil war was General George B. McClellan. Whatever his faults, he was idolized by his men. Historians may write h...

Washington in the sixties was not the beautiful city that it is today. The nation’s capital was one vast camp of armed men and the city was circled with a cordon of forts and ea...

Gen. Grant, having decided to change his base of operations, directed Gen. Hancock on the 20th to move his corps to the left as soon after dark as practicable. Gen. Horace Porte...

The next move in the great game of war between Grant and Lee was Cold Harbor--a name indelibly impressed upon every survivor of the campaign. It recalls two weeks of hunger, thi...

Our colonel (with a foreign military experience?) was relieved of his command immediately after Bull Run and there came to us a commander who proceeded to jerk things straight i...

The soldiers who enlisted early had some fun that the boys missed who went out after things were in good shape and the officers had learned the tactics so they did not have to s...

General Hancock possessed to a remarkable degree the power of exciting to enthusiasm the men he so often led to victory. And even a drummer boy may be pardoned the pride he feel...

Sergt. Robert Cline of our company, who carried the New York State colors after saving the flag, found that a comrade had been left wounded near the enemy’s intrenchments and he...

It was not until October, 1865, that we marched down Pennsylvania avenue for the last time to take the cars for home. Our regiment had gone to the front 18 months before, 1500 s...

We left our camps in Virginia at an early hour and crossed over the long bridge into that part of the city east of the capitol where the troops were massed ready to move when th...

How many of our readers who are old enough to remember back so far can tell what kind of a winter we had 40 years ago? Probably not more than one in a hundred, unless it be some...

The armies of Grant and Sherman turned their backs on the South and took up their line of march for Washington, where they had been ordered to report for a general review and mu...

The next day we assembled at Fort Corcoran. The regiment had been filled up with recruits until there were about 1,800 men on the rolls. Probably 1,500 were present for duty whe...