Welcome back to Civil War Stories. I'm Philip Champion, and today we're going to explore one of the most overlooked yet symbolically crucial engagements of the American Civil War's opening weeks—a story of the first shots fired in Virginia's waters, of a hastily constructed battery facing down the might of the United States Navy, and of decisions made in the chaos of secession that would set the stage for four years of unprecedented naval warfare.

Picture this: It's dawn on May 18, 1861, in the choppy waters of Hampton Roads, Virginia. The morning sun glints off the dark hull of the USS Monticello, a 655-ton steam-powered gunboat cutting through the gentle swells toward a seemingly insignificant point of land jutting into the Elizabeth River. At the ship's bow, Captain Henry Eagle peers through his spyglass at the sandy bluff of Sewell's Point, where Confederate earthworks are taking shape under the direction of men who, just weeks ago, were fellow Americans.

Welcome back to Civil War Stories. I'm Philip Champion, and today we're going to explore one of the most controversial and devastating campaigns of the American Civil War—a story of total war taken to its logical extreme, of military strategy that deliberately targeted civilian populations, and of decisions made in Union headquarters that would forever change the nature of warfare in America and leave scars across the South that would endure for generations.

Picture this: It's dawn on November 16, 1864, near the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia. The morning mist rises from the Chattahoochee River as the sound of thousands of marching feet, creaking wagon wheels, and neighing horses breaks the stillness of the Georgia countryside. Stretching as far as the eye can see, a vast column of blue-uniformed soldiers winds its way through the red clay hills and pine forests of central Georgia.

Hello and welcome to Civil War Stories. I'm your host, Steve Matthews. Today we're going to explore the bloodiest, most devastating battle ever fought on American soil - the Battle of Gettysburg. Over three terrible days in July 1863, more than 51,000 American soldiers would be killed, wounded, captured, or reported missing in a small Pennsylvania farming town that most had never heard of before. This is not just the story of military strategy or political consequences, but the story of human suffering on an almost unimaginable scale - of young men cut down in the prime of life, of families destroyed, and of a nation that would forever be changed by three days of unparalleled carnage.

Hello and welcome to Civil War Stories. I'm your host, Steve Matthews. Today we're going to explore one of the most crucial yet often overlooked aspects of the American Civil War - the extraordinary contributions of African Americans to the Union victory and their own liberation. This is not just a story of military service, though that was remarkable enough. It's the story of how nearly 200,000 Black Americans transformed themselves from enslaved people and second-class citizens into soldiers, spies, nurses, and leaders who fundamentally changed the nature of the war and secured their own path to freedom.

Hello and welcome to Civil War Stories. I'm your host, Steve Matthews. Today we're going to explore one of the most poignant and heartbreaking stories from the American Civil War - the tale of a Union officer whose letter to his wife became one of the most famous pieces of writing in American history, and whose death became a symbol of both love and sacrifice. So settle in as we journey to the summer of 1861, when a Rhode Island lawyer named Sullivan Ballou penned words that would echo through the ages, words that captured the eternal tension between love of family and duty to country.

Hello and welcome to Civil War Stories. I'm your host, Steve Matthews. Today we're going to confront one of the darkest and most shameful chapters in Civil War history - the story of Andersonville Prison, where over 13,000 Union soldiers died in conditions so horrific that they shocked even a nation already hardened by years of brutal warfare. This is not a story of heroism or military glory, but rather a tale of human suffering on an almost unimaginable scale, and of how the breakdown of civilization during wartime can create horrors that haunt us to this day.

Hello and welcome to Civil War Stories. I'm your host, Steve Matthews. Today we're going to explore one of the darkest and most disturbing chapters of the American Civil War - the story of a man whose name became synonymous with brutality, vengeance, and the complete breakdown of civilized warfare. So settle in as we journey to the blood-soaked borderlands between Tennessee and Kentucky, where a guerrilla leader named Champ Ferguson turned the Civil War into a personal vendetta that would ultimately cost him his life and earn him a place in history as one of the war's most notorious war criminals.

Hello and welcome to Civil War Stories. I'm your host, Steve Matthews. Today we're going to explore one of the most extraordinary and bizarre incidents in Civil War history - a story that sounds too strange to be true but is documented by multiple eyewitnesses. So settle in as we journey to the Virginia Wilderness in May 1864, where one of the war's bloodiest battles was interrupted by something no military manual had ever prepared for: a bare-knuckle fistfight between enemy soldiers that brought two entire armies to a standstill.