On May 25, 1843, Sam Houston, Jr. was the first of eight children born to General Sam Houston and Margaret Lea. Sickly when he was born at Washington-on-the Brazos, Texas, he improved so that his father described him as, “a hearty brat, robust and hearty as a Brookshire pig."
(October 15, 1836 – March 29, 1910) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, and later an officer in the Spanish American War and railroad construction engineer. A favorite of J.E.B. Stuart, he was noted for his daring cavalry raids, efficiency in handling combat troops, and tactical brilliance. Early life and career Rosser…
Berry Benson was born on February 9th, 1843 in Hamburg, South Carolina, just across the Savannah River from Augusta, Georgia. In 1860 Berry Benson enlisted with his brother in a local militia unit aged 17 and 15 respectively. The next spring they witnessed the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. After the surrender…
Overview Born near Hodgenville, Ky. on February 12, 1809, Lincoln was the central figure of the Civil War, and is regarded by many historians and laymen as not only the foremost of our presidents but also the greatest American of all time. With scant formal education, from a poor family, this frontier lawyer held the…
Overview The idol of the South to this day, Virginian Robert E. Lee had some difficulty in adjusting to the new form of warfare that unfolded with the Civil war, but this did not prevent him from keeping the Union armies in Virginia at bay for almost three years. The son of Revolutionary War hero…
Overview Kearny was born in New York, 2 June 2, 1815 and after his mother died when he was 9, he spent his childhood and youth with his maternal grandfather, a man of wealth and high social position. Kearny’s uncle, Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny, was a U.S. dragoon and Philip favored a military life, but…
Overview Petty considerations over rank and military etiquette and wounds cost the Confederacy, for lengthy periods, the services of one of its most effective, top commanders, Joseph E. Johnston. The Virginia native and West Pointer (1829), rated by many as more capable than Lee, was the highest-ranking regular army officer to resign and join the…
Overview At the beginning of the Civil War it was almost universally agreed that the finest soldier, North or South, was Albert Sidney Johnston. But his Civil War career was a definite disappointment to the Confederacy. The Kentucky-born Johnston was appointed to West Point from Louisiana and graduated eighth in the class of 1826. After…
Overview Next to Robert E. Lee himself, Thomas J. Jackson is the most revered of all Confederate commanders. A graduate of West Point (1846), he had served in the artillery in the Mexican War, earning two brevets, before resigning to accept a professorship at the Virginia Military Institute. Thought strange by the cadets, he earned…
Overview A transplanted New Yorker, Jedediah Hotchkiss became the most famous of Confederate topographers. After a tour of Virginia in the late 1840s he settled there and founded an academy. In 1861 he gave up teaching and offered his services as a map maker to General Garnett in western Virginia. After serving at Rich Mountain…
