The American Civil War was a transformative conflict marked by industrial-scale warfare, deep political divides, and evolving military doctrine. These battlefield studies utilise regimental histories, original battle maps, period photographs, and GIS overlays, combined with dozens of in-depth first-person battlefield explorations, to examine how terrain, fortifications, leadership, and logistics shaped outcomes from Bull Run to Appomattox.
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This is original research that exists nowhere else.
Members get access to the Deep Research Collection — raw observations from the battlefield, terrain and tactical analysis, and primary source material translated and examined firsthand.
On the evening of 30 November 1864, Gen. John Bell Hood hurled his Army of Tennessee against entrenched Union forces at Franklin, Tennessee. Five hours of brutal fighting cost the Confederacy thousands of casualties and some of its finest generals. This battlefield study examines the strategy, terrain, and leadership decisions that made Franklin a decisive prelude to the Battle of Nashville.
The Battle of Pea Ridge, fought from 7-8 March 1862 in northwestern Arkansas, was a pivotal engagement in the American Civil War. This battle was crucial for control of Missouri and the Trans-Mississippi theater. Brigadier-General Samuel R. Curtis led the Union Army of the Southwest into Arkansas after pushing Confederate forces out of Missouri. In response, Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn devised an ambitious plan to strike Curtis’ army from the rear, severing its supply lines and potentially reclaiming Missouri for the Confederacy. This maneuver led to the Battle of Pea Ridge, one of the most significant battles west of the Mississippi River.
The Battle of Wilson’s Creek, Missouri, on 10 August 1861, was the second major battle of the American Civil War (after 1st Bull Run) and the first major battle west of the Mississippi. After a decade of conflict between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions along the Kansas-Missouri border, there was already a long history of enmity, conflict and atrocity in this theater.
In August 1861, a small Union army of about 5,400 troops under Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon was actively campaigning to keep Missouri from going over to the Confederacy. A mixed Confederate force of about 12,500 troops under Major General Sterling Price was looking for him. They met at Wilson’s Creek, near Springfield Missouri, on 10 August 1861.
After the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862, President Lincoln replaced General Ambrose Burnside with General ‘Fighting’ Joe Hooker. Hooker’s army of about 134,000 Federal troops on the north side of the Rappahannock River faced about 60,000 Confederate troops under General Robert E. Lee on the south side. Hooker’s plan was bold. In response, Robert E. Lee, made some of the boldest decisions in military history, and achieved his greatest victory.