Army of the Potomac

single day battle to every occur on American soil. Approximately 22,700 men were killed, wounded, captured, or missing. (Brochure) The fighting began on September 17, 1862 in Sharpsburg, Maryland. The opposing armies, The Army of the Potomac, consisting of about 90,000 troops, and The Army of Northern Virginia, consisting of about 45,000 troops. The Battle of Antietam, or The Battle of Sharpsburg, was actually the ending battle of General Robert E. Lee’s Campaign. (MacDonald, 56) Lee had…

The Battle of Antietam On September 16, 1862, the Union army of the Potomac, under the control of Major General George B. McClellan, went to war against Robert E. Lee’s Confederate soldiers who were a part of the Army of Northern Virginia. The war began in Sharpsburg, Maryland at dawn on September 17, when the Union corps under the control of Major General Joseph Hooker led a strong assault against Robert E. Lee’s left flank. This is ultimately what began the Battle of Antietam, which turned…

Confederate General Robert E. Lee split his army in half. One half under the command of Stonewall Jackson, went to Harpers Ferry. In Harper’s ferry, the Confederate soldiers managed to capture the town while defeating the Union Force. Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s half of the army went to Frederick, Maryland where they issued a proclamation trying to convince people of Maryland to become part of the Confederates…

Three days, two armies, 200,000 soldiers were the beginning of a battle that took place in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle of Middleburgh, the battle of Brandi station and the battle of Aldie were some of the battles that would become part of the Gettysburg campaign. General Robert E. Lee resigned to his commission in the United States Army and joined the Confederates, he rose through the ranks quickly and became one of the…

American Civil War, also called, war between the states, war for four years (1861-1865) between the United States and 11 Southern states that secession from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. The Civil War was a war to preserve the Union, which was the United States. Since the beginning of the Constitution, there were two different views on the role of the federal government. Federalists believed that the federal government and the executive needed to maintain their power…

John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry was a struggle by John Brown, a white abolitionist, to initiate an armed slave revolt in 1859. Brown planned on taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, build up an army of both white and black volunteers, and then follow the Appalachian Mountains south to free the slaves along the way. Unfortunately for him, Brown and his men were defeated by a platoon of U.S. Marines led by Colonel Robert E. Lee. In this essay I will be talking about…

federal law dating back to 1792 prevented Negroes from bearing arms for the United States army. President Lincoln’s administration contemplated the idea of authorizing the recruitment of black troops, but were worried such a move would push the border states to secede and join the Confederates. By the middle of 1862, the escalating number of former slaves, declining number of white volunteers and needs of the Union Army drove the government to reconsider the ban. On July 17th, 1862, Congress…

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States (March 4th , 1861-April 14th , 1865). He was president during the Civil War. Lincoln was watching the play Our American Cousin in Ford’s Theater when he got assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. John Wilkes Booth was an Actor. He was also part of the Know Nothing Party who wanted to limit immigration to the United States. During the Civil war he joined the Virginia militia, and was a Confederate spy. According to biography.com Booth was…

War. He is known for being a great general who guided the Union troops to their triumph over the Confederate armies. He was victorious when he captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in Tennessee and when he crushed a large Confederate army in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Grant’s contribution to ending the Civil War, however, was when he led his forces to lay siege to Lee’s Northern Virginia army in Petersburg, Virginia, which forced the Confederate surrender there. Later, Grant became the eighteenth…

When the word reached west about the civil war, he immediately packed up and moved back east to try to a position in the union army. While the record does not indicate how he got an interview with the commanding General Winfield Scott he did it. As for Scott, he liked young men who had some fighting spirit behind them and Baker was the man for that job. As his first job, he was…