Author: Daniel J. Ursu – The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable

Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign, Part 5

The Fall of Atlanta

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025-2026, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the April 2026 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

Part 4 of this series (the March 2026 history brief) covered the previous phase of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign in the wake of General Ulysses S. Grant’s letter of April 4, 1864, which directed Sherman regarding the rebel Army of Tennessee: “to break it up, and to get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources.” Part 4 specifically covered Sherman’s advance against the retreating Confederate army from the Chattahoochee River to the Battle of Peachtree Creek. With the aggressive Confederate General John Bell Hood now in command of the rebel Army of Tennessee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis thought that the momentum of the campaign could possibly turn in the South’s favor. But the rebel defeat at Peachtree Creek was a step in the wrong direction.

Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign, Part 4

Chattahoochee River to the Battle of Peachtree Creek

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025-2026, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the March 2026 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

Part 3 of this series (the February 2026 history brief) covered the previous phase of Union General William Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign in the wake of General Ulysses Grant’s letter of April 4, 1864, which directed Sherman regarding the rebel Army of Tennessee: “to break it up, and to get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources.” Part 3 specifically covered Sherman’s advance against General Joseph Johnston’s retreating Army of Tennessee from Kennesaw Mountain to the Chattahoochee River. A formidable defensive general, Johnston throughout the campaign selected excellent defensive positions. But now, the Chattahoochee River was the last natural defensive position only a few miles north of Atlanta itself. As they say, Johnston “had his back up against the wall.”

Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign, Part 3

Allatoona Pass to Kennesaw Mountain and the Chattahoochee River

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025-2026, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the February 2026 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

Part 2 of this series (the December 2025 history brief) further examined Union General William Sherman’s continued Atlanta Campaign in the wake of General Ulysses Grant’s letter of April 4, 1864, which directed Sherman regarding the rebel Army of Tennessee: “to break it up, and to get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources.” That history brief covered Sherman’s advance against General Joseph Johnston’s retreating Confederate army from Resaca to Allatoona, arriving there on May 20, 1864. A formidable defensive general, Johnston throughout the campaign selected ideal defensive positions, and Allatoona was among the best.

Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign, Part 2

Resaca to Allatoona Pass

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025-2026, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the December 2025 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

Part 1 of this series examined the start of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign in the wake of General Ulysses S. Grant’s letter of April 4, 1864, which directed Sherman regarding the rebel Army of Tennessee: “to break it up, and to get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources.” In early May, Sherman instructed his three armies of maneuver to begin operations with John Schofield’s Army of the Ohio on the Union left, George Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland in the center, and James McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee on the right. Sherman endeavored to use his numerical advantage to outflank Confederate defenses on Rocky Face Ridge, and he succeeded in doing so.

Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign, Part 1

War of Maneuver – Rocky Face Ridge to the Outskirts of Resaca

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025-2026, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the November 2025 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

The Roundtable’s 2025 field trip covered the Vicksburg Campaign, and the field trip in 2021 covered the Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga. The Union’s ultimate success in these military actions in Confederate territory depended on many Northern generals, but most prominently and importantly on the leadership of General Ulyssess S. Grant. As a result of his successes, Grant was summoned by President Abraham Lincoln to come east, and Grant was put in command over all the Union armies.

Union Riverine Logistics at the Battle of Shiloh

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025-2026, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the October 2025 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

We just returned from a wonderful field trip to Vicksburg, where we studied General Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign to capture the South’s “Gibraltar of the West.” It was a combined arms operation that included both the Union army and its brown water navy. Grant had employed such tactics previously and arguably under more difficult circumstances at the Battle of Shiloh, where General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio arrived after being shuttled across the Tennessee River – during the battle, at night in a rainstorm. In Wiley Sword’s book Shiloh: Bloody April, Buell is quoted as saying that it was “A brilliant page in History.” The daunting challenges of using transport ships to move troops and supplies during the Civil War are mentioned in most accounts only in passing. As such, this history brief focuses on part of the multitude of components that made up the logistics of crossing the Army of the Ohio over the Tennessee River, which must have appeared to onlookers to be an assemblage of organized chaos.

Ram Warfare on the Mississippi River in 1862

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025-2026, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the September 2025 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

For its 2025 field trip, the Roundtable traveled to Vicksburg to study General Ulysses Grant’s campaign that accomplished one of the major goals of Union General Winfield Scott’s vaunted Anaconda Plan. But before the land campaign could be won, there was a war on the waters to win on the Mississippi River. Civil War naval battles quickly conjure the ironclad duel between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia, Admiral Farragut at New Orleans, and Confederate blockade runners. However, for a couple of months in 1862, an improbable form of ancient naval battle reemerged on the Mississippi River, harkening back to the ancient Greeks, Persians, and Romans: that ancient form of naval battle being ram warfare.

John Rawlins, U.S. Grant’s Chief of Staff

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2024-2025, All Rights Reserved

Ulysses S. Grant was the best-known Civil War-era resident of Galena, Illinois. In a recent history brief I highlighted another prominent Galena, Illinois, resident: Congressman Elihu Washburne. However, there was at least one other important Galena resident who played a major role in the Civil War, that being the mostly unsung hero, John Rawlins. Rawlins was a longtime confidant of Grant, became a Grant staff officer for most of the war, and rose to be the trusted and dependable Chief of Staff to Grant. Rawlins was the defender of Grant’s realm, his alter ego and insistent supporter of Grant’s sobriety and apologist for his insobriety, the latter portion being a somewhat complex and disputed role.

Lincoln’s Boyhood Education

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2024-2025, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the February 2025 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

Happy Abraham Lincoln’s birthday! Because the February 2025 Roundtable meeting happened to fall on Abe’s birthday, it is altogether fitting and proper that that month’s history brief focused on Lincoln’s boyhood. But due to the history brief format, the focus was more narrowly on President Lincoln’s education and learning, or perhaps better stated, Lincoln’s self-education.

General Meade at Fredericksburg

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2024-2025, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the December 2024 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

In late 1862, President Abraham Lincoln appointed General Ambrose Burnside as commander of the Union Army of the Potomac in the wake of Burnside’s conquest of the famous bridge on the Union left flank at the Battle of Antietam. General Burnside formulated a plan for a rare winter offensive to build on the momentum of the Union strategic victory at Antietam. Relatively simple, Burnside would march his 140,000 troops, organized into three “Grand Divisions” of two corps each, south across the Rappahannock River and overwhelm what he had hoped to be a modest defense near Fredericksburg, Virgina. The march southward went surprisingly well, but the all-important pontoon bridges needed to cross the Rappahannock were tragically delayed. Consequently, the skeletal defenses on the Confederate side, which was south of the river and near the town, were adroitly reinforced by General Robert E. Lee in command of the 80,000-man Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. That said, Burnside’s army was nearly twice the size of Lee’s. On the very day of the December 2024 Roundtable meeting, that is, December 11, Union batteries on the commanding high ground on the north side of the river began a bombardment of the town.