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The Department of the Ohio was an administrative military district created by the United States War Department early in the American Civil War to administer the troops in the Northern states near the Ohio River.
General Orders No. 14, issued by the Adjutant General's Office in Washington, D.C., on May 3, 1861, combined all Federal troops in the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois in a new military department called the Department of the Ohio, with headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan was designated as its first commander. McClellan led efforts in the spring and early summer of 1861 to occupy the area of western Virginia that wanted to remain in the Union. His forces defeated two small Confederate armies and paved the way for the region to later become the state of West Virginia.
After McClellan was reassigned to command the Army of the Potomac, Brig. Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel commanded the Department of the Ohio from September to November 1861. Under his directive, troops pushed southward towards Huntsville, Alabama, from Chattanooga, Tennessee, but were turned away. Then, General Orders No. 97 commanded Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell to assume command of the department. All the forces of the department were then organized into the Army of the Ohio with Buell in command. The Department of the Ohio was dissolved on March 11, 1862, when it was merged into the Department of the Mississippi and the Department of the Mountains.
The Department of the Ohio was recreated on August 19, 1862, and consisted of the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and the part of Kentucky east of the Tennessee River. Maj. Gen. Horatio G. Wright was assigned to command the reconstituted department. In September, western Virginia was added to the department, along with all Federal troops in the region. On March 25, 1863, after the Senate refused to confirm Wright's promotion to major general, Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside assumed command of the Department of the Ohio. Wright, after briefly occupying a subordinate command in Louisville, Kentucky, transferred in May 1863 to the Army of the Potomac to command the 1st Division of VI Corps. Burnside consolidated all the forces of the department and created the XXIII Corps, which was also named the Army of the Ohio, with himself in command. Elements of the new Army of the Ohio helped repel Morgan's Raid, although the entire army rarely functioned as a single unit during this campaign. On October 16, 1863, the Department of the Ohio (along with the Department of the Tennessee and the Department of the Cumberland) became part of the Military Division of the Mississippi, under the overall command of Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.
Due to illness, Burnside asked to be relieved of command after the Battle of Fort Sanders and was replaced by Maj. Gen. John G. Foster on December 9. On February 9, 1864, Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield assumed command of the Department of the Ohio. For much of the remainder of the war, the department was synonymous with the Army of the Ohio.
The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought December 11–15, 1862, in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. The combat, between the Union Army of the Potomac commanded by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under Gen. Robert E. Lee, included futile frontal attacks by the Union army on December 13 against entrenched Confederate defenders along the Sunken Wall on the heights behind the city. It is remembered as one of the most one-sided battles of the war, with Union casualties more than twice as heavy as those suffered by the Confederates. A visitor to the battlefield described the battle as a "butchery" to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
The Army of Northern Virginia, was the primary military force of the Confederate States of America in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. It was also the primary command structure of the Department of Northern Virginia. It was most often arrayed against the Union Army of the Potomac.
The Battle of Antietam, or Battle of Sharpsburg particularly in the Southern United States, was a battle of the American Civil War fought on September 17, 1862, between Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Union Gen. George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek. Part of the Maryland Campaign, it was the first field army–level engagement in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War to take place on Union soil. It remains the bloodiest day in American history, with a combined tally of 22,727 dead, wounded, or missing. Although the Union Army suffered heavier casualties than the Confederates, the battle was a major turning point in the Union's favor.
Ambrose Everett Burnside was an American army officer and politician who became a senior Union general in the Civil War and three-time Governor of Rhode Island, as well as being a successful inventor and industrialist.
Joseph Hooker was an American Civil War general for the Union, chiefly remembered for his decisive defeat by Confederate General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863.
The Army of the Potomac was the primary field army of the Union Army in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. It was created in July 1861 shortly after the First Battle of Bull Run and was disbanded in June 1865 following the surrender of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in April.
Don Carlos Buell was a United States Army officer who fought in the Seminole War, the Mexican–American War, and the American Civil War. Buell led Union armies in two great Civil War battles—Shiloh and Perryville. The nation was angry at his failure to defeat the outnumbered Confederates after Perryville, or to secure East Tennessee. Historians generally concur that he was a brave and industrious master of logistics, but was too cautious and too rigid to meet the great challenges he faced in 1862. Buell was relieved of field command in late 1862 and made no more significant military contributions.
The Army of the Tennessee was a Union army in the Western Theater of the American Civil War, named for the Tennessee River.
George Stoneman Jr. was a United States Army cavalry officer and politician who served as the fifteenth Governor of California from 1883 to 1887.
The Army of the Cumberland was one of the principal Union armies in the Western Theater during the American Civil War. It was originally known as the Army of the Ohio.
Horatio Gouverneur Wright was an engineer and general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He took command of the VI Corps in May 1864 following the death of General John Sedgwick. In this capacity, he was responsible for building the fortifications around Washington DC, and in the Overland Campaign he commanded the first troops to break through the Confederate defenses at Petersburg. After the war, he was involved in a number of engineering projects, including the Brooklyn Bridge and the completion of the Washington Monument, and served as Chief of Engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Edwin Vose Sumner was a career United States Army officer who became a Union Army general and the oldest field commander of any Army Corps on either side during the American Civil War. His nicknames "Bull" or "Bull Head" came both from his great booming voice and a legend that a musket ball once bounced off his head.
The Army of the Ohio was the name of two Union armies in the American Civil War. The first army became the Army of the Cumberland and the second army was created in 1863.
The Northern Virginia Campaign, also known as the Second Bull Run Campaign or Second Manassas Campaign, was a series of battles fought in Virginia during August and September 1862 in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. Confederate General Robert E. Lee followed up his successes of the Seven Days Battles in the Peninsula campaign by moving north toward Washington, D.C., and defeating Maj. Gen. John Pope and his Army of Virginia.
The Maryland campaign occurred September 4–20, 1862, during the American Civil War. The campaign was Confederate General Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the North. It was repulsed by the Army of the Potomac under Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, who moved to intercept Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia and eventually attacked it near Sharpsburg, Maryland. The resulting Battle of Antietam was the bloodiest day of battle in American history.
The western theater of the American Civil War encompassed major military operations in the states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee, as well as Louisiana east of the Mississippi River. Operations on the coasts of these states, except for Mobile Bay, are considered part of the Lower Seaboard Theater. Most other operations east of the Appalachian Mountains are part of the eastern theater. Operations west of the Mississippi River took place in the trans-Mississippi theater.
The eastern theater of the American Civil War consisted of the major military and naval operations in the states of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and the coastal fortifications and seaports of North Carolina.
The Knoxville campaign was a series of American Civil War battles and maneuvers in East Tennessee during the fall of 1863 designed to secure control of the city of Knoxville and with it the railroad that linked the Confederacy east and west, and position the First Corps under Longstreet for return to the Army of Northern Virginia. Union Army forces under Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside occupied Knoxville, Tennessee, and Confederate States Army forces under Lt. Gen. James Longstreet were detached from Gen. Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee at Chattanooga to prevent Burnside's reinforcement of the besieged Federal forces there. Ultimately, Longstreet's Siege of Knoxville ended when Union Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman led elements of the Army of the Tennessee and other troops to Burnside's relief after Union troops had broken the Confederate siege of Chattanooga. Although Longstreet was one of Gen. Robert E. Lee's best corps commanders in the East in the Army of Northern Virginia, he was unsuccessful in his attempt to penetrate the Knoxville defenses and take the city.
The 29th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment in the Union army of the United States during the American Civil War. The regiment was organized in December 1861 when three new companies were attached to a battalion of seven Massachusetts companies that had been in active service since May 1861. These seven companies had been recruited to fill out the 3rd Massachusetts and 4th Massachusetts regiments and had signed on for three years of service. When the 3rd and 4th Massachusetts were mustered out in July 1861, the seven companies that had signed on for three years were grouped together to form a battalion known as the Massachusetts Battalion. Finally, in December 1861, three more companies were added to their roster to form a full regiment and the unit was designated the 29th Massachusetts.
Ulysses S. Grant was the most acclaimed Union general during the American Civil War and was twice elected president. Grant began his military career as a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1839. After graduation he went on to serve with distinction as a lieutenant in the Mexican–American War. Grant was a keen observer of the war and learned battle strategies serving under Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott. After the war Grant served at various posts especially in the Pacific Northwest; he was forced to retire from the service in 1854 due to accusations of drunkenness. He was unable to make a success of farming and on the onset of the Civil War in April 1861, Grant was working as a clerk in his father's leather goods store in Galena, Illinois. When the war began his military experience was needed, and Congressman Elihu B. Washburne became his patron in political affairs and promotions in Illinois and nationwide.
