McClellan’s advance upon Richmond proved an uneven, start-stop affair instead of a Napoleonic stride. Nonetheless, he managed to finally get himself to the gates of Richmond. Once there, however, he proved curiously unwilling to fight a battle, always waiting for reinforcements that never quite arrived.

Starting May 19th, General Thomas J. Jackson launched a campaign turned the entire union strategy in the Shenandoah Valley on its head. Within seven days he fought three battles and cleared the Union from nearly the entire Valley, undoing six months of northern effort.

Today we approach a question regarding the slave economy. Was it profitable? Was it economically efficient? How did slavery affect the US economy? And if slavery wasn’t good for the country, why did slaveholders keep it?

The tiny Battle of McDowell represented only a skirmish in the larger Civil War, but it represented a key step in allowing General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson to unite all the Confederate forces in the region. To do this, he rapidly marched all over the place. For once, however, he met his match in aggression in the person of Brigadier Robert H. Millroy.

Side note: I didn’t describe Brigadier Robert C. Shenck very closely. He was however a interesting man who previous served as Ambassador to Brazil, would later serve as such in Britain, and literally wrote the book on poker (well, one form of it anyhow).

The Civil War would be fertile ground for weapons development, including the widely-successful use of naval explosives. Confederate “torpedoes” proved more than capable of sending Union ships to the bottom of rivers, harbours and seas alike. But The Union learned to strike back with a few of its own. So what is a torpedo, where did they come from, and why did anyone use them?

On March 4th, 1862, the Confederates abandoned the Yorktown line and began retreat up the Virginia Peninsula towards the Richmond defences. On March 5th, McClellan’s forces caught up to the rear guard outside Williamsburg. But the Union command was confused, uncertain and hesitant to commit to attack.

Plus: Joe Hooker becomes Fighting Joe, and Lincoln undertakes an extraordinary role in the field.

General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s Valley Campaign of 1862 began with failure after failure. Through fortune or skill, he would endure and learn, while the dance of armies left opportunities.

Thomas J. Jackson’s journey both began and ended in Virginia. An unusual man at the best and worst of times, he harbored both great ambition and ruthless self-will. Yet his path did not begin with glory, and much like several other Civil War legends, success began with great failure.

Throughout April of 1862, Gen. Henry Halleck pulled together nearly all the major field forces in the western armies, while Beauregard awaited him at Corinth. Halleck’s delayed attack ranks among the slowest and least aggressive military campaigns in history. Halleck intended to avoid bloody battles and in this, he succeeded. But the Union would learn the hard way that you can capture a town without fighting, but you can’t win a war that way.

In May of 1862, the Union and Confederacy vied for control over the Upper Mississippi. Strangely, the stage was set for a mountain-dwelling bridgebuilder to attain immortal martial glory.