HOME
*



picture info

Selma, Alabama In The American Civil War
Selma, Alabama, during the American Civil War was one of the South's main military manufacturing centers, producing tons of supplies and munitions, and turning out Confederate warships. The Selma Ordnance and Naval Foundry complex included a naval foundry, shipyard, army arsenal, and gunpowder works. Following the Battle of Selma, Union Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson's troops destroyed Selma's army arsenal and factories, as well as much of the city. Importance of Selma to the Confederacy Because of its central location, production facilities, and rail connections, the advantages of Selma as a site for production of cartridges, saltpeter, powder, shot and shell, rifles, cannon and steam rams soon became apparent to the Confederacy. By 1863, most materiel was manufactured in Selma, employing at least ten thousand people. Selma, along with the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, was one of two sites producing the Brooke rifle, a rifled naval and coast defense cannon designed by John Mercer ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Selma, Alabama
Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, in the Black Belt region of south central Alabama and extending to the west. Located on the banks of the Alabama River, the city has a population of 17,971 as of the 2020 census. About 80% of the population is African-American. Selma was a trading center and market town during the antebellum years of King Cotton in the South. It was also an important armaments-manufacturing and iron shipbuilding center for the Confederacy during the Civil War, surrounded by miles of earthen fortifications. The Confederate forces were defeated during the Battle of Selma, in the final full month of the war. In modern times, the city is best known for the 1960s civil rights movement and the Selma to Montgomery marches, beginning with "Bloody Sunday" in 1965 and ending with 25,000 people entering Montgomery at the end of the last march to press for voting rights. This activism generated national attention for social justice and that ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ironclad
An ironclad is a steam-propelled warship protected by iron or steel armor plates, constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The first ironclad battleship, , was launched by the French Navy in November 1859 - narrowly pre-empting the British Royal Navy. They were first used in warfare in 1862 during the American Civil War, when ironclads operated against wooden ships and, in a historic confrontation, against each other at the Battle of Hampton Roads in Virginia. Their performance demonstrated that the ironclad had replaced the unarmored ship of the line as the most powerful warship afloat. Ironclad gunboats became very successful in the American Civil War. Ironclads were designed for several uses, including as high seas battleships, long-range cruisers, and coastal defense ships. Rapid development of warship design in the late 19th century transformed the iro ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

James Wilson (soldier)
James Harrison Wilson (September 2, 1837 – February 23, 1925) was a United States Army topographic engineer and a Union Army Major General in the American Civil War. He served as an aide to Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan during the Maryland Campaign before joining Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's army in the Western Theater, where he was promoted to brigadier general. In 1864, he transferred from engineering to the cavalry, where he displayed notable leadership in many engagements of the Overland Campaign, though his attempt to destroy Lee’s supply lines failed when he was routed by a much smaller force of Confederate irregulars. Returning to the Western Theater, Wilson became one of the few Union commanders to defeat Confederate cavalier Nathan Bedford Forrest in battle – at the Battle of Franklin in November 1864 and again during his raid through Alabama and Georgia in March and April 1865. Wilson ended the war with his men capturing both Confederate President Jefferso ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Nathan Bedford Forrest
Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821October 29, 1877) was a prominent Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869. Before the war, Forrest amassed substantial wealth as a cotton plantation owner, horse and cattle trader, real estate broker, and slave trader. In June 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate Army and became one of the few soldiers during the war to enlist as a private and be promoted to general without any prior military training. An expert cavalry leader, Forrest was given command of a corps and established new doctrines for mobile forces, earning the nickname "The Wizard of the Saddle". He used his cavalry troops as mounted infantry and often deployed artillery as the lead in battle, thus helping to "revolutionize cavalry tactics", although the Confederate high command is seen by some commentators to have underappreciated his talents. While scholars generally acknowledge Forrest's skill ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Lovell Rousseau
Lovell Harrison Rousseau (August 4, 1818 – January 7, 1869) was a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, as well as a lawyer and politician in Kentucky and Indiana. Early life and career Born near Stanford, Kentucky, on August 4, 1818, Rousseau attended the common schools as a child. His father, David Rousseau, brought his family across the Appalachians from Virginia, but he had a difficult time regaining economic equilibrium (despite extensive holdings in undeveloped land and slaves). Lovell's elder brother had already left home, so when their father died of cholera attempting to move the family to a new home in 1833, it fell to Lovell and his younger brothers to dig their father's roadside grave. At age fifteen, he had become his family's primary breadwinner. Soon afterwards, he was forced to sell his family's slaves in an effort to cover the family's debts. Eager to earn a wage, he began working on a road-building crew, traveling around the Midwest. Deter ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it flows generally south for to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is , of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the thirteenth-largest river by discharge in the world. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Native Americans have lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries for thousands of years. Most were hunter-gathere ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Meridian, Mississippi
Meridian is the seventh largest city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, with a population of 41,148 at the 2010 census and an estimated population in 2018 of 36,347. It is the county seat of Lauderdale County and the principal city of the Meridian, Mississippi Micropolitan Statistical Area. Along major highways, the city is east of Jackson, Mississippi; southwest of Birmingham, Alabama; northeast of New Orleans, Louisiana; and southeast of Memphis, Tennessee. Established in 1860, at the junction of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and Southern Railway of Mississippi, Meridian built an economy based on the railways and goods transported on them, and it became a strategic trading center. During the American Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman burned much of the city to the ground in the Battle of Meridian (February 1864). Rebuilt after the war, the city entered a "Golden Age". It became the largest city in Mississippi between 1890 and 1930, and a leading center for manu ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

William Tecumseh Sherman
William Tecumseh Sherman ( ; February 8, 1820February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865), achieving recognition for his command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the scorched-earth policies that he implemented against the Confederate States. British military theorist and historian B. H. Liddell Hart declared that Sherman was "the first modern general". Born in Ohio into a politically prominent family, Sherman graduated in 1840 from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He interrupted his military career in 1853 to pursue private business ventures, without much success. In 1859, he became superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy (now Louisiana State University), a position from which he resigned when Louisiana seceded from the Union. Sherman commanded a brigade of volunteers a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-most populous city in Tennessee, after Nashville. Memphis is the fifth-most populous city in the Southeast, the nation's 28th-largest overall, as well as the largest city bordering the Mississippi River. The Memphis metropolitan area includes West Tennessee and the greater Mid-South region, which includes portions of neighboring Arkansas, Mississippi and the Missouri Bootheel. One of the more historic and culturally significant cities of the Southern United States, Memphis has a wide variety of landscapes and distinct neighborhoods. The first European explorer to visit the area of present-day Memphis was Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1541. The high Chickasaw Bluffs protecting the location from the waters of the Mississipp ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Benjamin Grierson
Benjamin Henry Grierson (July 8, 1826 – August 31, 1911) was a music teacher, then a career officer in the United States Army. He was a Cavalry in the American Civil War, cavalry general in the volunteer Union Army during the American Civil War, Civil War and later led troops in the American Old West. He is most noted for Grierson's Raid, an 1863 expedition through Confederate-held territory that severed enemy communication lines between Vicksburg, Mississippi, Vicksburg, Mississippi and Confederate commanders in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War, Eastern Theater. After the war he organized and led the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry Regiment (United States), 10th Cavalry Regiment from 1866 to 1890. Early life and career Grierson was born in the borough of Allegheny, Pennsylvania, today a section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh. He was the youngest of five siblings. Grierson became afraid of horses when, at age eight, he was kicked and nearly ki ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


CSS Nashville (1864)
CSS ''Nashville'' was a large side-wheel steam casemate ironclad built by the Confederates late in the American Civil War. Description The ship was long overall, had a beam of and a draft of . The side wheels were powered by two steam engines with a bore and a stroke. She was armed with three Brooke rifles and a 24-pounder howitzer.Silverstone, pp. 154–55 Construction and career ''Nashville'' was laid down at Montgomery, Alabama, because of the availability of riverboat engines there. Launched in mid-1863, ''Nashville'' was taken to Mobile, Alabama, for completion in 1864. Part of her armor came from the . Her first commander was Lieutenant Charles Carroll Simms, CSN. Still fitting out, she took no part in the Battle of Mobile Bay on 5 August 1864. She helped fend off attacks on Spanish Fort, Alabama, on 27 March 1865, supported Confederate commander Randall L. Gibson until driven away by Federal batteries, and shelled Federal troops near Fort Blakely on 2 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


CSS Tuscaloosa (ironclad)
CSS ''Tuscaloosa'' was an ironclad warship that served in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. Construction began in May 1862, under a contract with Henry D. Bassett. Her engines were taken from the steamboat ''Chewala'', and she was armored with of iron and armed with four cannons. In January 1863, she was launched, and traveled down to Mobile, Alabama for service on Mobile Bay. Both ''Tuscaloosa'' and her sister ship CSS ''Huntsville'' were found to be too slow for practical use, and were relegated to service as floating batteries. Union forces captured Mobile in April 1865, and ''Tuscaloosa'' was scuttled on April 12, as she was unable to escape due to an inability to steam against the current on the Spanish River. Her wreck was discovered in the 1980s. Background and description During the American Civil War, the Confederate States Navy determined that it was unable to keep up with the Union Navy's ability to produce traditional warships, and ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]