William W. Belknap
William Worth Belknap (September 22, 1829 – October 12, 1890) was a lawyer, Union Army officer, government administrator in Iowa, and the 30th United States secretary of war, serving under President Ulysses S. Grant. Belknap was impeached on March 2, 1876, for his role in the trader post scandal but was acquitted by the Senate. Belknap was the first cabinet secretary in U.S. history to be impeached. A native of New York, Belknap graduated from the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, in 1848, studied law with a Georgetown attorney, and passed the bar in 1851. He moved to Iowa, where he practiced law in partnership with Ralph P. Lowe. Belknap entered politics as a Democrat and served one term in the Iowa House of Representatives. When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Belknap joined the Union Army. A tall burly man, Belknap was a natural Union Army leader and recruiter. A veteran of the Iowa Home Guard who had attained the rank of captain, he was com ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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United States Secretary Of War
The secretary of war was a member of the President of the United States, U.S. president's United States Cabinet, Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's Presidency of George Washington, administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation between 1781 and 1789. Benjamin Lincoln and later Henry Knox held the position. When Washington was inaugurated as the first President under the United States Constitution, Constitution, he appointed Knox to continue serving as Secretary of War. The secretary of war was the head of the United States Department of War, War Department. At first, he was responsible for all military affairs, including United States Navy, naval affairs. In 1798, the United States Secretary of the Navy, secretary of the Navy was created by statute, and the scope of responsibility for this office was reduced to the affairs of the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Brevet (military)
In military terminology, a brevet ( or ) is a warrant which gives commissioned officers a higher military rank as a reward without necessarily conferring the authority and privileges granted by that rank. The promotion would be noted in the officer's title (for example, "Bvt. Maj. Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain" or "Bvt. Col. Arthur MacArthur"). It is not to be confused with a '' Brevet d'état-major'' in Francophone European military circles, where it is an award, nor should it be confused with temporary commissions. France In France, ''brevet'' is a word with a very broad meaning, which includes every document giving a capacity to a person. For instance, the various military speciality courses, such as military parachutism, are ended by the award of a brevet. The more important brevet in the French military is that of the École de guerre (''lit''. "school of war"), the French Staff College. Between 1870 and 1940, an ''officier breveté'' was a graduate of the ''École ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of Ezra Church
The Battle of Ezra Church (July 28, 1864), also known as the Battle of Ezra Chapel and the Battle of the Poor House saw Union Army forces under Major General William T. Sherman fight Confederate States Army troops led by Lieutenant General John B. Hood in Fulton County, Georgia during the Atlanta campaign in the American Civil War. Sherman sent Oliver Otis Howard's Union Army of the Tennessee circling around the west side of Atlanta with the purpose of cutting the Macon and Western Railroad. Hood countered the move by sending two corps commanded by Stephen D. Lee and Alexander P. Stewart to block the move. Before Howard's troops reached the railroad, the Confederates launched several attacks on them that were repulsed with heavy losses. Despite the tactical defeat, the Confederates prevented their foes from blocking the railroad. From May to July 1864, Sherman's numerically superior Union forces pressed back their Confederate opponents to the outskirts of Atlanta. Dissati ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of Atlanta
The Battle of Atlanta took place during the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War on July 22, 1864, just southeast of Atlanta, Georgia. Continuing their summer campaign to seize the important rail and supply hub of Atlanta, Union forces commanded by William Tecumseh Sherman overwhelmed and defeated Confederate forces defending the city under John Bell Hood. Union Major General James B. McPherson was killed during the battle, the second-highest-ranking Union officer killed in action during the war. Despite the implication of finality in its name, the battle occurred midway through the Atlanta campaign, and the city did not fall until September 2, 1864, after a Union siege and various attempts to seize railroads and supply lines leading to Atlanta. After taking the city, Sherman's troops headed south-southeastward toward Milledgeville, the state capital, and on to Savannah with the March to the Sea. The fall of Atlanta was especially noteworthy for its political ra ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Siege Of Vicksburg
The siege of Vicksburg (May 18 – July 4, 1863) was the final major military action in the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Major General Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate Army of Mississippi, led by Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, leading to the successful siege and Confederate surrender. Vicksburg was the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River; therefore, capturing it completed the second part of the Northern strategy, the Anaconda Plan. When two major assaults against the Confederate fortifications, on May 19 and 22, were repulsed with heavy casualties, Grant decided to besiege the city beginning on May 25. After holding out for more than 40 days, with their supplies nearly gone, the garrison surrendered on July 4. The Vicksburg campaign's successfu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Siege Of Corinth
The siege of Corinth, also known as the first battle of Corinth, was an American Civil War engagement lasting from April 29 to May 30, 1862, in Corinth, Mississippi. A collection of Union forces under the overall command of Major General Henry Halleck (in his only field command of the war) engaged in a month-long siege of the city, whose Confederate occupants were commanded by General P.G.T. Beauregard. The siege resulted in the capture of the town by Federal forces. The town was a strategic point at the junction of two vital railroad lines, the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Former Confederate Secretary of War LeRoy Pope Walker called this intersection "the vertebrae of the Confederacy." Halleck argued: "Richmond and Corinth are now the great strategic points of the war, and our success at these points should be insured at all hazards." Another reason for the town's importance was that, if captured by Union forces, it would threaten the sec ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of Shiloh
The Battle of Shiloh, also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, was a major battle in the American Civil War fought on April 6–7, 1862. The fighting took place in southwestern Tennessee, which was part of the war's Western Theater of the American Civil War, Western Theater. The battlefield is located between a small, undistinguished church named Shiloh, Hardin County, Tennessee, Shiloh and Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. Two Union Army, Union armies combined to defeat the Confederate States Army, Confederate Army of Mississippi. Major general (United States), Major General Ulysses S. Grant was the Union commander, while General officers in the Confederate States Army#General, General Albert Sidney Johnston was the Confederate commander until his battlefield death, when he was replaced by his second-in-command, General P. G. T. Beauregard. The Confederate army hoped to defeat Grant's Army of the Tennessee before it could be reinforce ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of Athens (1861)
The Battle of Athens was an American Civil War skirmish that took place in northeast Missouri in 1861 near present-day Revere and southeast Iowa along the Des Moines River across from Croton (3 miles southeast of Farmington). The Union victory has the distinction of being the most northerly of Civil War Battles fought west of the Mississippi, and also of being the only such battle fought along the Iowa border. Background As Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon pursued the secessionist Missouri State Guard to the southwest portion of the state, loyal Home Guard companies were forming throughout the state, while at the same time stranded secessionists were still attempting to organize. At Kahoka, Missouri, Mexican–American War veteran David Moore was elected colonel of the 1st Northeast Missouri Home Guard Regiment. Colonel Martin E. Green called up the 2nd Division of the Missouri State Guard to a training camp on the Horseshoe Bend of the Fabius River. There he forme ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of America, Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by U.S. state, states that had Secession in the United States, seceded from the Union. The Origins of the American Civil War, central conflict leading to war was a dispute over whether Slavery in the United States, slavery should be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prohibited from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War, Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven Southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |