Start your journey with a closer look at why battlefields matter. Turn next to how soldiers fought. How did the rifled musket limit tactical choices on the battlefield? What was the purpose of artillery? Why did Civil War officers persist in launching frontal attacks?
Examine the first Union advance from Washington under General Irvin McDowell, whose troops were stopped short by Confederate forces under P. G. T. Beauregard at a small stream in Virginia called Bull Run. Take a tour of Henry House Hill, where the Union l
On June 25, 1862, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's newly christened Army of Northern Virginia launched a series of battles that sent General George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac reeling away from Richmond. Go inside this campaign, known as the Sev
4. A Return to Manassas: The Second Battle of Bull Run
Go back to Bull Run for a second battle that saw the dazzling movements of Lee's lieutenants, James Longstreet and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. On the field, you'll stop at Brawner Farm, where fighting first erupted. Then, you'll go to Deep Cut, a critical
Go inside the bloodiest day of the Civil War at the battlefield at Antietam. Here, you'll learn how the terrain obscured troop formation and left soldiers vulnerable to assault.
Explore the physical and emotional trauma Antietam inflicted on the men who fought there, as well as how surgeons and nurses, including Clara Barton, cared for the wounded.
