The Atlanta Campaign

The State of Georgia was nearly untouched by the war in 1864 and served as an enormous bread basket for the Confederacy. The City of Atlanta had become a large manufacturing center, its’ rail yards linked the southern and western states in rebellion to the rest of the Confederacy.

Little Kennesaw Mountain from Big Kennesaw, Ga 

In the spring of 1864 William Tecumseh Sherman united several Union armies in the western theater for his coming operations in Georgia forming one of the largest armies in American History. Sherman and his 100,000 man army began to march toward Atlanta from their base in Chattanooga, later to be called the Atlanta Campaign.

Click the link below to see what remains of the Atlanta Campaign battlefields and images from the 150th anniversary reenactment of the Battle of Resaca, Georgia in May 2014.

The Atlanta Campaign

North Anna River to Cold Harbor

“As Grant began to disentangle his army from the lines at Spotsylvania and march by his left flank, he hoped to use some of his men to pin down Lee’s army while marching others to the North Anna River and the railroad line at Hanover Junction about 25 miles away.

Reenactors construct Civil War era earthworks in Mosley, Virginia 2014

If he could accomplish that by beating Lee’s army to those spots, he would have captured one of Lee’s most natural supply lines while depriving the Army of Northern Virginia from using the North Anna River as a defensive line.”*

North Anna to Cold Harbor

(*) The Overland Campaign – Charles River Editors

Bloody Spotsylvania

As the Union Army began to dig-in at Spotsylvania US Grant famously wired Washington saying, “I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer”.

This statement sent shock waves through the North.  In three years of war one Union general after the next had been bested by Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. It seemed that Lee had finally met his match.

Morning fog shrouds the Bloody Angle on the Battlefield at Spotsylvania 2014

The fighting near Spotsylvania Courthouse in Virginia became known as Bloody Spotsylvania because of the fighting that happened there on May 12th 1864.  On that date 20,000 Union troops attacked the Confederate earthworks at Spotsylvania – 22 hours later the fight ceased in what became the longest stretch of combat in the entire Civil War.

See the link below for images and stories from Spotsylvania:

Bloody Spotsylvania

The Overland Campaign

In May of 1864 US Grant began a concerted campaign to bring the rebellion to an end.  Setting the Army of the Potomac in motion in northern Virginia, Grant also set Sherman loose in Georgia for an all out asphyxiation of the Confederacy.

Confederates at Spotsylvania Courthouse 2014

In the spring of 1864 prospects for the Confederacy were looking dim, but southerners had one hope.  In the fall of 1864 there would be a presidential election.  If the northern people could be made to believe that the war could not be won on the battlefield then their newly elected leader would have to sue for peace.

In this final stretch of the war the rebels would fight with desperation and the Union troops would find that a lot more blood would have to be spilt before it was all over…. See the link below for an outline of the Overland Campaign:

The Overland Campaign of 1864

The Battle of the Wilderness

“On May 5th 1864 the rival armies marched into the heart of the Wilderness and began a fight that lasted until the end of the war.”

The Wilderness Battlefield 2014

The fighting in the Virginia Wilderness in the spring of 1864 was the beginning of US Grant’s Overland Campaign.

See the link below for the story and images of the Wilderness Battlefield and battle reenactments in Virginia in spring 2014.

The Battle of the Wilderness

Sun set over the Union encampment in Spotsylvania County Virginia 2014

Winter 1863-1864

By the winter of 1863-1864 the American Civil War was entering it’s third year and there seemed to be no end in sight.  As the armies went into their winter camps the soldiers and the public at large were growing tired of the war.

The conflict that many predicted would last at most a couple of months had dragged on.  But at the beginning of 1864 the country would need to steel itself –  for the harshest and bloodiest fighting of the war was still to come.

The gulf between the antagonists had become impassable….and the South saw one hope on the horizon.  In the coming year the Northern people were going to have a presidential election.  “If by November, the northern people had been made to feel that the war was too painful and discouraging to carry on any longer, they would vote Mr. Lincoln out of the White House.  Then there might be an independent Confederacy.”*

Link to: Winter 1863-1864

Charleston and the Islands – 1863

The Battle of Fort Wagner was fought on Morris Island near Charleston South Carolina in 1863 and is infamous for the assault on the Confederate held bastion by the Union’s 54th Massachusetts regiment.  The 54th were a brand new regiment recruited in Boston and composed entirely of volunteers…and all former-slaves or free-black men.

Confederate reenactors defend “Fort Wagner” at the historic Boone Hall Plantation in South Carolina

One hundred and fifty years later a reenactment of this famous Civil War battle occurred outside of Charleston at the historic Boone Hall Plantation.

Just a few miles away, the City of Charleston is considered America’s “friendliest” city and continues to be a wonderfully preserved antebellum metropolis.

The pristine salt marshes and islets of Sullivan Island, James Island and Morris Island, the harbor’s forts and South Carolina’s colonial and civil war era histories are explored here.  Click the link below to see pinhole camera images of Charleston and the Carolina low country in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Wagner.

Battle of Fort Wagner

19th century coastal guns at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan Island in South Carolina 2013

Chickamauga

The Battle at Chickamauga in September 1863 was the seconded bloodiest encounter of the Civil War.  In the deep woods of Tennessee and north west Georgia the country’s two warring armies maneuvered in the dense mountainous terrain colliding along a meandering creek called the Chickamauga.

Click the link below for pinhole camera images of the Battlefield at Chickamauga and Chattanooga as well as the 150th anniversary reenactment of the Battle of Chickamauga in Georgia’s historic McLemore’s Cove.

Link to the Battle of Chickamauga

Guns along Snodgrass Hill on the Battlefield at Chickamauga, Ga 2013.

The Decisive Battle of Gettysburg – July 1863

“In a way the story of Gettysburg is a story of the country roads that come to the place.  They were unpaved roads in 1863, white and dusty under the July sun, binding town to countryside, knitting the Pennsylvania townships together, unremarkable and unknown to fame; bearing now a strange traffic.  Thousands of men tramped along them to meet what was waiting at the end of the last hard mile, stepping off the map altogether, stumbling painfully onward and winning a soldiers apotheosis on hills and fields that sandwiched three days of violence in between unbroken generations of peace to make the more perfect union the nation’s elders had dreamed of…..The nation gained unity and an immortal legend because the soldiers followed these roads.”  *

The fence along the Emmitsburg Road that Rebel forces found as a deadly obstacle in their quest for Cemetery Ridge. Gettysburg, Pa. 2013

 “It was a battle that had to be fought, and the forces that produced it were so stupendous that the battle became the great hinge of the war, the turning point where it began to swing in a different direction.” *

A reenactor portrays one in 53,000 casualties at the Battle of Gettysburg. 2013

“To the living of all subsequent generations, including this one, Gettysburg left an unending responsibility.  A nation built on the idea that all men – all men – are of equal worth and equal rights summons everyone of its citizens to a life-long commitment to put that idea into practical effect.” *

“Gettysburg, then, was the price we paid for our service under that great concept.  It was one step in a long progression; not an end, but a beginning – a pledge written in blood that freedom should be reborn in every generation”*

The above words, from Civil War historian, Bruce Catton, were in my head as I headed down to Gettysburg in late June 2013.  With the 150th anniversary of this famous Civil War battle in our midsts I would push the pinhole cameras to their limits attending two sesquicentennial reenactments and photographing extensively on this famous battlefield.

The Codori Farm on the Battlefield at Gettysburg. 2013

The Town of Gettysburg today is sort of a place locked-in-time.  The battle that came to this small Pennsylvania town wound up being one of the turning points in our nation’s history. The fighting in July and the dedication of the National Cemetery in November 1863, in some way or other, caused the town to remain frozen in that time; reverentially cementing Gettysburg in the time of its greatest hour.

The battle subsides on “Cemetery Ridge” at Gettysburg 2013.

A central, converging point in the 1860’s, Gettysburg today is still a good hour drive from any major modern highway.  Approaching the town, like 150 years ago, the two lane roads take you through some of Pennsylvania’s most beautiful countryside.  Fruit and vegetable farms line the route in a landscape of rolling hills dotted with neat red barns and pastures.

The same roads that brought the armies to Gettysburg in 1863, still lead to the town today.  Although now paved in asphalt, these roads lead in from this abundant, rich region of Pennsylvania and is one of the reasons Robert E. Lee and the Confederate army could sustain themselves in enemy territory in the summer of 1863.

Wagoneer brings water to the battlefield during a reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg, Pa. 2013

The battle that raged around Gettysburg, the shape of the battle, basically encompassed the town itself in 1863.  Being such a monumental battle in the Civil War the battlefield at Gettysburg was protected and preserved soon after the fighting, so the town today is surrounded, hemmed-in by the 150 year old battle landscape.

Sutler in camp during a reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg. 2013

The streets in the Town of Gettysburg are still lined with 18th & 19th century homes and businesses.  Historic hotels in Gettysburg’s center are still operational giving tourists the opportunity to sleep where so and so slept, or lived, or died.  Seems the whole town is landmarked…but mentally block out the over-head wires, the yellow lines in the pavement, and the lantern wielding 19th century civilians leading the Gettysburg Ghost Tours can make you look twice…

The battle raged through the small farms that dot the Battlefield at Gettysburg, PA 2013.

Also, the Battlefield at Gettysburg is beautifully preserved today.  The 24 mile auto-tour takes you around the battlefield in the sequence of the three day battle in 1863.  Hiking this battlefield can be amazingly revealing if you know even a little bit about this epic battle.  The Battlefield at Gettysburg is superintended by the National Park Service.

Pinhole camera images of the two 150th anniversary reenactments and the famous battlefield at Gettysburg, as well as, further reflections on the sesquicentennial events have been interspersed here in three separate “battle pages” added to the Civil War 150 Pinhole Project.

Sunrise along the Emmitsburg Road on the Battlefield of Gettysburg, Pa. 2013

See the three days of fighting in Gettysburg at the links below:

Gettysburg Day 1

Gettysburg Day 2

Gettysburg Day 3

* Bruce Catton, “Gettysburg: The Final Fury” 

The Eisenhower Farm on Seminary Ridge, the Battlefield of Gettysburg, Pa. 2013