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14 Black Thursday at Sayler’s Creek
With Confederate forces in full retreat after the fall of
Petersburg, alert Union forces charged through a gap
in the Rebel column, capturing 8,000 soldiers at Sayler’s
Creek. “My God!” said Robert E. Lee. “Has the army
dissolved?”David A. Norris24 Thunder Tones
Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln had been personal and political opponents
for 20 years when they clashed for Douglas’s Illinois Senate seat in 1858. Their heated
debates would quickly capture the attention of the nation. Roy Morris Jr.32 Red River Ruin
Politician-general Nathaniel Banks’s grand design to capture Shreveport floundered in
the treacherous Red River in the spring of 1864. Union Admiral David Porter, too, was
left high and dry. Michael E. Haskew44 McClellan’s Unexploited Victory
On June 26, 1862, Robert E. Lee launched the first of what would become known as
the Seven Days Battles, attacking Maj. Gen. George McClellan’s exposed right flank at
Mechanicsville. Things did not go as planned. John Walker54 Wheeler’s 1863 Sequatchie Valley Raid
A Union army trapped in southeastern Tennessee faced starvation with only one
tenuous line of resupply remaining to it. And Confederate opponents were determined
to eliminate this path of deliverance. Arnold Blumberg64 Sherman’s March to the Sea
Union General William T. Sherman and his army cut loose from Atlanta in November 1864
and began cutting a wide swath of destruction across central Georgia. The “March to the
Sea” would instantly become legendary. William Stroock74 “Put the Boys In”
After Union General Franz Sigel moved into the Shenandoah Valley in the spring of 1864,
Confederate forces fell back to New Market. On May 15, Confederate General John C.
Breckinridge ordered an attack. Pedro Garcia82 Into the Cauldron
On the last day of December 1862, Confederate forces under General Braxton Bragg
launched a surprise attack on Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland at
Stones River, Tennessee. Joshua ShepherdSUMMER 2016
RETAILER DISPLAY UNTIL NOV. 22Black Day for
Robert E. Lee
VMI Cadets at
NEW MARKET
Turning Victory
into Defeat
Sherman’s March
Through Georgia
Opening Salvos at Stones RiverSAYLER’S CREEK“PUT THE BOYS IN”MECHANICSVILLECurtis^021
08RED RIVER FIASCO, WHEELER’S SEQUATCHIE RAID, THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES, CIVIL WAR PTSD,
+FIGHTING GENERAL MANSFIELD, AND MUCH MORE!
COVER: Major General George
Armstrong Custer, who led several
cavalry charges against Lee’s
Confederates at Sayler’s Creek.
See story page 14. Photo: Library
of Congress.Departments
06 Editorial
Continued French meddling in Mexico almost led to a post-Civil
War confrontation with the United States.Roy Morris Jr.08 Soldiers
When Union General Joseph Mansfield fell at Antietam, he
became the oldest general on either side to be killed in
combat.Steven L. Ossad94 Medicine
Extreme homesickness, termed “nostalgia” during the Civil
War, often killed more soldiers than enemy bullets. Some
literally died to get home.Kevin L. CookCWQ-Sum16 ToC_WW-Mar04 Ordnance 18, 20-23 4/22/16 11:28 AM Page 4