Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was a thriving and important city during the American Civil War , and provided a significant source of personnel, war materiel, armament, ammunition, and supplies to the Union Army. Situated at the confluence of the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio rivers, Pittsburgh was an important transportation hub for both riverine and rail transport, as well as overland via its system of roads.
The antebellum iron industry in Pittsburgh had thrived, fueled by access to coal, iron ore, and other raw materials, as well as transportation routes to get the iron to markets. In 1859, the Clinton and Soho iron furnaces introduced coke-fired smelting to the region. Within three years, the growing needs of the military effort during the Civil War had boosted the city's economy with increased production of iron and armaments, especially at the Allegheny Arsenal and the Fort Pitt Foundry. [1] Arms manufacture included ironclad warships and the world's first 21" heavy artillery gun. [2] By war's end, over one-half of the steel and more than one-third of all U.S. glass was produced in Pittsburgh. [3]
During the war, Pittsburgh's heavy industry provided significant quantities of weapons and ammunition. The Fort Pitt Foundry made mammoth iron castings for giant siege howitzers and mortars, among the largest guns in the world. One of the largest was a 20-inch bore Rodman Gun, a large black powder, smoothbore, muzzle-loading coastal defense gun. [4] [5] The foundry produced 1,193 guns (15 percent of the total U.S. wartime artillery production) and almost 200,000 artillery projectiles. Other prominent Pittsburgh area factories included Singer, Nimick and Co. (maker of 3" Ordnance rifles) and Smith, Park and Co., which produced more than 300,000 projectiles. Pittsburgh industries collectively manufactured 10 percent of the total U.S. wartime production of artillery rounds.
The Allegheny Arsenal was the primary military manufacturing facility for U.S. Army accoutrements, as well as saddles and other cavalry equipment. In addition, the sprawling factory produced as many as 40,000 bullets and cartridges every day (more than 14 million per year), supplying between 5 and 10 percent of the Army's annual small arms ammunition requirements. A significant explosion on the afternoon of September 17, 1862 (coincidentally on the same day as the Battle of Antietam in central Maryland), killed 78 factory workers, mostly young women.
Five Ellet-class rams were converted from civilian towboats at Pittsburgh. In addition, four ironclads were built from the keel up—the USS Manayunk, Marietta, Sandusky, and Umpqua. Pittsburgh's rolling mills supplied the armor for many of the ironclads that were built in New York City and Philadelphia for the Union Navy.
The city's 110-year run of hosting a major stock exchange can be traced to the oil traded at Pittsburgh during the war with the creation of Thurston's Oil Exchange on Fourth Avenue, downtown.
Both Morgan's Raid from the west and Jones-Imboden Raid from the south came within a day's march of the city before being captured or forced to retreat.
Concerned that the Confederate Army might target Pittsburgh for invasion, the U.S. War Department established the Department of the Monongahela to provide a formal Federal military presence in Western Pennsylvania during the Gettysburg Campaign, with departmental headquarters in Pittsburgh. The Army dispatched Maj. Gen. William T. H. Brooks to organize the defenses of Pittsburgh. Brooks authorized the construction of several miles of earthworks and a series of small forts to control access to the city. He suspended liquor sales, and put the citizenry to work digging trenches and erecting forts. Bars and saloons were asked to close but many refused.
Among these bastions was Fort Robert Smalls, a redoubt built by free blacks on McGuire's Hill at the mouth of Becks Run in Arlington Heights. [6] Another of these emergency fortifications was the circular earthwork known as Fort Laughlin, constructed by the employees of Jones and Laughlin Steel on Ormsby's Hill, now part of Arlington Park on Arlington Avenue. It was also known as Fort McKinley or Fort Ormsby. [7] Concurrent with Fort Laughlin, Jones and Laughlin Steel employees constructed Fort Jones, named for the mill's co-owner, Benjamin Franklin Jones . Fort Jones occupied the top of a hill in Mount Oliver. [8] It was sometimes known as Fort Jackson, in honor of Brig. Gen. Conrad Feger Jackson, killed in the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December 1862. [9] [10] There was also Fort Black, in Greenfield.
The greater Pittsburgh area was the birthplace or long-time residence of several Union army and navy officers, as well as some leading politicians of the era.
Other important personalities of the Civil War born in the immediate Pittsburgh area included Col. Daniel Leasure, Congressman Robert McKnight, industrialist William Metcalf, and Brig. Gen. Thomas A. Rowley.
Among the recipients of the Medal of Honor for gallantry in action during the war were Alexander Kelly, a free black who fought in the 6th U.S.C.T.
The mayors of Pittsburgh during the Civil War were George Wilson (1860–1862), Benair C. Sawyer (1862–1864), and James Lowry, Jr. (1864–1866).
The Soldiers and Sailors National Military Museum and Memorial is a National Register of Historic Places landmark. It is the largest memorial in the United States dedicated solely to honoring all branches of military veterans and service personnel.
In 2014 a small park was proposed on Mount Washington overlooking Saw Mill Run where remains of earthwork defenses can still be seen. [11]
The National Aviary is the site of the Civil war Western State Penitentiary, built in 1826, and torn down in 1882. This was famous as a concentration camp for prisoners of war. The exterior resembled a Norman castle, with walls three feet thick, laid out as an octagon, resembling a wagon wheel. The inmates labored in solitary confinement, working at sewing clothes and uniforms (female inmates) and making shoes (male inmates), all in silence with minimal human contact. The penitentiary contained 190 solitary confinement cells, each measuring eight by twelve feet. [12]
The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, sometimes more simply referred to as the Battle of Spotsylvania, was the second major battle in Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's 1864 Overland Campaign of the American Civil War. Following the bloody but inconclusive Battle of the Wilderness, Grant's army disengaged from Confederate General Robert E. Lee's army and moved to the southeast, attempting to lure Lee into battle under more favorable conditions. Elements of Lee's army beat the Union army to the critical crossroads of the Spotsylvania Court House in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, and began entrenching. Fighting occurred on and off from May 8 through May 21, 1864, as Grant tried various schemes to break the Confederate line. In the end, the battle was tactically inconclusive, but both sides declared victory. The Confederacy declared victory because they were able to hold their defenses. The United States declared victory because the Federal offensive continued and Lee's army suffered losses that could not be replaced. With almost 32,000 casualties on both sides, Spotsylvania was the costliest battle of the campaign.
The Peninsula campaign of the American Civil War was a major Union operation launched in southeastern Virginia from March to July 1862, the first large-scale offensive in the Eastern Theater. The operation, commanded by Major General George B. McClellan, was an amphibious turning movement against the Confederate States Army in Northern Virginia, intended to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond. McClellan was initially successful against the equally cautious General Joseph E. Johnston, but the emergence of the more aggressive General Robert E. Lee turned the subsequent Seven Days Battles into a humiliating Union defeat.
The Battle of Fort Henry was fought on February 6, 1862, in Stewart County, Tennessee, during the American Civil War. It was the first important victory for the Union and Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Western Theater.
Jackson's Valley campaign, also known as the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1862, was Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's spring 1862 campaign through the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia during the American Civil War. Employing audacity and rapid, unpredictable movements on interior lines, Jackson's 17,000 men marched 646 miles (1,040 km) in 48 days and won several minor battles as they successfully engaged three Union armies, preventing them from reinforcing the Union offensive against Richmond.
The Vicksburg campaign was a series of maneuvers and battles in the Western Theater of the American Civil War directed against Vicksburg, Mississippi, a fortress city that dominated the last Confederate-controlled section of the Mississippi River. The Union Army of the Tennessee under Major General Ulysses S. Grant gained control of the river by capturing this stronghold and defeating Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton's forces stationed there.
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.
The Battle of Williamsburg, also known as the Battle of Fort Magruder, took place on May 5, 1862, in York County, James City County, and Williamsburg, Virginia, as part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War. It was the first pitched battle of the Peninsula Campaign, in which nearly 41,000 Federals and 32,000 Confederates were engaged, fighting an inconclusive battle that ended with the Confederates continuing their withdrawal.
The Battle of Seven Pines, also known as the Battle of Fair Oaks or Fair Oaks Station, took place on May 31 and June 1, 1862, in Henrico County, Virginia, nearby Sandston, as part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War. It was the culmination of an offensive up the Virginia Peninsula by Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, in which the Army of the Potomac reached the outskirts of Richmond.
The opening phase of what came to be called the Burnside Expedition, the Battle of Roanoke Island was an amphibious operation of the American Civil War, fought on February 7–8, 1862, in the North Carolina Sounds a short distance south of the Virginia border. The attacking force consisted of a flotilla of gunboats of the Union Navy drawn from the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, commanded by Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough, a separate group of gunboats under Union Army control, and an army division led by Brig. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. The defenders were a group of gunboats from the Confederate States Navy, termed the Mosquito Fleet, under Capt. William F. Lynch, and about 2,000 Confederate soldiers commanded locally by Brig. Gen. Henry A. Wise. The defense was augmented by four forts facing on the water approaches to Roanoke Island, and two outlying batteries. At the time of the battle, Wise was hospitalized, so leadership fell to his second in command, Col. Henry M. Shaw.
The First Battle of Fort Wagner was fought on July 10 and 11, 1863, on Morris Island in Charleston harbor during the American Civil War. An attempt by the Union Army to capture Fort Wagner was repulsed. The more famous Second Battle of Fort Wagner, which involved an assault by the 54th Massachusetts, would be fought on July 18.
The siege of Corinth was an American Civil War engagement lasting from April 29 to May 30, 1862, in Corinth, Mississippi. A collection of Union forces under the overall command of Major General Henry Halleck engaged in a month-long siege of the city, whose Confederate occupants were commanded by General P.G.T. Beauregard. The siege resulted in the capture of the town by Federal forces.
The Battle of West Point, Georgia, formed part of the Union campaign through Alabama and Georgia, known as Wilson's Raid, in the final full month of the American Civil War.
The siege of Fort Pulaski concluded with the Battle of Fort Pulaski fought April 10–11, 1862, during the American Civil War. Union forces on Tybee Island and naval operations conducted a 112-day siege, then captured the Confederate-held Fort Pulaski after a 30-hour bombardment. The siege and battle are important for innovative use of rifled guns which made existing coastal defenses obsolete. The Union initiated large-scale amphibious operations under fire.
Wilson's Raid was a cavalry operation through Alabama and Georgia in March–April 1865, late in the American Civil War. U.S. Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson led his U.S. Cavalry Corps to destroy Confederate manufacturing facilities and was opposed unsuccessfully by a much smaller force under Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest.
The United States Army Field Artillery School (USAFAS) trains Field Artillery Soldiers and Marines in tactics, techniques, and procedures for the employment of fire support systems in support of the maneuver commander. The school further develops leaders who are tactically and technically proficient, develops and refines warfighting doctrine, and designs units capable of winning on future battlefields. The school is currently located at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
Norman Jonathan Hall was an officer in the United States Army during the American Civil War. He commanded the successful defense of his sector of the Union line against Pickett's Charge during the Battle of Gettysburg.
During the American Civil War, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania played a critical role in the Union, providing a substantial supply of military personnel, equipment, and leadership to the Federal government. The state raised over 360,000 soldiers for the Federal armies. It served as a significant source of artillery guns, small arms, ammunition, armor for the new revolutionary style of ironclad types of gunboats for the rapidly expanding United States Navy, and food supplies. The Phoenixville Iron Company by itself produced well over 1,000 cannons, and the Frankford Arsenal was a major supply depot.
The Battle of Baton Rouge was a ground and naval battle in the American Civil War fought in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, on August 5, 1862. The Union victory halted Confederate attempts to recapture the capital city of Louisiana.
Indiana, a state in the Midwest, played an important role in supporting the Union during the American Civil War. Despite anti-war activity within the state, and southern Indiana's ancestral ties to the South, Indiana was a strong supporter of the Union. Indiana contributed approximately 210,000 Union soldiers, sailors, and marines. Indiana's soldiers served in 308 military engagements during the war; the majority of them in the western theater, between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains. Indiana's war-related deaths reached 25,028. Its state government provided funds to purchase equipment, food, and supplies for troops in the field. Indiana, an agriculturally rich state containing the fifth-highest population in the Union, was critical to the North's success due to its geographical location, large population, and agricultural production. Indiana residents, also known as Hoosiers, supplied the Union with manpower for the war effort, a railroad network and access to the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, and agricultural products such as grain and livestock. The state experienced two minor raids by Confederate forces, and one major raid in 1863, which caused a brief panic in southern portions of the state and its capital city, Indianapolis.
Fort Laughlin was a Civil War redoubt, built in 1863 for the defense of Pittsburgh by the employees of Jones and Laughlin Iron Works, and named for James H. Laughlin. It was also known as Fort McKinley or Fort Ormsby. It was a circular earthwork on Ormsby's Hill, now part of Arlington Park on Arlington Avenue.
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