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On this day in the Civil War, Federal troops under General Sigel are defeated by Confederates led by General Breckinridge at the Battle of New Market, Virginia. Some of the Confederate soldiers are cadets from the Virginia Military Institute. VMI was the school where General “Stonewall” Jackson taught prior to the outbreak of the war.
On this day in the Civil War, Federal troops under the leadership of General Benjamin Butler continue to occupy the city of Baltimore. On the prior day, General Butler moved his troops into Baltimore without official authorization.
Later in the war, General Butler was nicknamed “Spoons Butler” by Southerners due to his supposed improprieties pertaining to Southern property.
General Benjamin Butler
(Photo Credit: Library of Congress)
On this day in the Civil War, Horace Greeley writes in the New York Tribune, “Our own conviction is…that it is advisable for the Union party to nominate for president some other among its able and true men than Mr. Lincoln.”
President Abraham Lincoln
(Photo Credit: Library of Congress)
On this day in the Civil War, the Battle of Spotsylvania becomes one of the bloodiest days of the war. A Federal soldier says, “This has been the most terrible day I have ever lived.”
On the previous day, Union General U.S. Grant wrote to General Halleck, “I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.”
General Ulysses S. Grant
(Photo Credit: Library of Congress)
On this day in the Civil War, the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia (Merrimack) is destroyed by the Confederate navy.
Two months earlier, the CSS Virginia and USS Monitor clashed in the first sea battle of ironclad ships, revolutionizing naval warfare.
The Civil War Book 