Features
Lee: Initial Stride to Greatness
In his first campaign as Confederate army commander, Robert E. Lee established his reputation as a bold leader—and changed the course of the war in the East.
By Jeffry D. Wert
A Capital in Crisis
Twelve summer days in 1862 marked the darkest time of the Civil War for Washington, D.C.
By Stephen W. Sears
Faces of 1862
The war’s second year forever changed the lives of countless Americans—soldiers and civilians—on both sides of the conflict.
By Ronald S. Coddington
Fighting for South Mountain
On the eve of Antietam, Union soldiers won a decisive victory—then fought again to have it remembered.
By Brian Matthew Jordan
Northern Divide
The elections of 1862 seemed to offer a severe rebuke to Abraham Lincoln and his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. The president and his allies, however, read the results much differently.
By Louis P. Masur
Departments
Editorial: War in Earnest
Salvo: Facts, Figures & Items of Interest
Travels: A Visit to New Orleans
Voices: General Grant’s Big Year
Primer: Battle of the Ironclads
Preservation: Victory at Shiloh
Disunion: A Counterfeiting Conspiracy?
In Focus: The Dead of Antietam
Casualties of War: William Wallace Lincoln
Battlefield Echoes: Disappointing Victory at Iuka
Books & Authors:
Essential Reading on…
The War in the West, 1862 By Brooks D. Simpson
The Peninsula Campaign By Glenn David Brasher
The Battle of Fredericksburg By Robert K. Krick
Parting Shot: The Monitor‘s “Lonely Light”