General Ambrose Burnside’s beard is one that will go down in history as one of the most awesome. It would certainly be a hard one to top. However, he was a one-time commander of the Army of the Potomac, and he didn’t really do that great of a job leading his men into battle. President Lincoln picked General George McClellan to lead the army when defeating the South, but the two did not really get along.
Unfortunately, General McClellan had proved to President Lincoln that he was not aggressive enough in battle. Soon after, he was replaced by General Burnside. To his surprise, he didn’t necessarily want the job. However, he took on the job and led his army against Lee’s army in Fredericksburg. After the battle had ended, General Burnside had put in his resignation, which President Lincoln accepted after three months on the job.
The "Dictator"
This piece of weaponry is incredible. They called it the "Dictator", which was a 17,000-pound gun, and it was so large that to transport it you needed to use the railroad. Some of the photos that you’ve already seen are of buildings that worn torn apart in Richmond. The Dictator is the one to blame.
It was able to fire a 13-inch shell, weighing about 218 pounds at distances all the way up to 2.5 miles, wow! It’s hard to say how many times it was fired between the years of the Civil War, but it’s been said that the flat car recoiled 10 to 12 feet.
The Confederacy Needed Allies
The Civil War was mostly fought by Americans on American soil. You may be wondering what the European diplomats were doing hanging around a waterfall located in New York. The reason is that the Confederacy was making inroads with the English and the French to some degree because they wanted to intervene on their behalf.
This photo from 1863 shows the Secretary of State William Seward having some downtime with the Ambassadors of Sweden, Italy, Nicaragua, France, Great Britain, and Russia, along with others. It was crucial that these relationships were in good standing at all times to ensure that it would just be an American war, and it was President Lincoln who was able to do that.
Soldier Custer
You might look at the guy on the right, and at first glance, you might not know who he is, but his name is George Armstrong Custer. Custer was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the Civil War and was considered one of the most well-known soldiers in the entire country. However, he is known to have led his men to their death in the most controversial battle in U.S history, the Battle of Little Big Horn, in 1876.
His name was John “Gimlet” W. Lea, and he was a Confederate officer. He was also a classmate of Custer’s at West Point. During the Battle of Williamsburg, Custer noticed that Lea had been injured in battle, and although they were on opposing sides, he carried Lea to a hospital nearby. Because of his grandiose personality, he insisted that Lea have his picture taken with him.
The Battle Of Gettysburg
As we have gathered at this point, most of the battles in the Civil War took place in the Southern states. So, the war at Gettysburg was obviously strange, and is considered to be the biggest battle in North American history. General Lee decided that he wanted to take the war to the Union. It was in a small town in southern Pennsylvania that he located their army.
A strange myth about the battle at Gettysburg was that it started because the Confederates had been looking for shoes. However, the truth is that they were looking for some trouble. There were ten roads that were going in and out of the town, so it was very likely that the two would stumble upon each other. The battle at Gettysburg lasted a total of three days and is known to be the deadliest battle in American history.