Nathan Bedford Forrest grew up poor, in rural Tennessee, with very little formal education. In his early teens, he went into business with his uncle Jonathon Forrest, and when Jonathon was killed in a street fight, Forrest killed the assailants with a a pistol and Bowie knife. He amassed a
JOHN HORSE, BLACK SEMINOLE LEADER Black Seminoles, also called Seminole Maroons or Seminole Freedmen, were a group of free blacks and runaway slaves (maroons) who fled the plantations from coastal South Carolina and Georgia and escaped south into the Florida peninsula. Because slavery had been abolished in 1693
GEN. WILLIAM HAINES LYTLE THE POET-WARRIOR Gen. William Haines Lytle, (November 2, 1826 - September 20, 1863), the Poet-Warrior, was from a wealthy and politically connected family in Cincinnati, Ohio. After passing the bar exam, he established a law firm in Cincinnati, later served as a captain in
Albert Pike (December 29, 1809 - April 2, 1891) was an American attorney, soldier, writer, and Freemason. He is a key personality for conspiracy theorists of the Civil War era. At age 15, considered by many to be a genius and almost entirely self-taught, he passed entrance exams at
GEN. WILLIAM ROSECRANS William Starke Rosecrans, Commander of the Union Army of the Cumberland from October 24, 1862 to October 19, 1863, was born in 1819 on a farm near Little Taylor Run in Delaware County, Ohio. Unable to afford college, Rosecrans applied for an appointment to West
DR. MARY WALKER Dr. Mary Walker graduated Syracuse (New York) Medical College in 1855 and went into private practice for a few years, including a brief stint in Columbus, Ohio. When the Civil War started, Walker tried to join the Union Army as a surgeon. Army surgeons were
LIGHTNING BRIGADE SOLDIER The Lightning Brigade, the 92nd, 98th and 123rd Illinois, and 17th and 72nd Indiana, was one of the most potent fighting units in the Civil war, and their audacious and overwhelming early victories sparked the creation of a brand new type of military unit, the mounted infantry.
OHIO CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS In the summer of 1862, Ohio Governor David Tod authorized the creation of the 52nd Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry and recruited Daniel McCook Jr. to serve as the command's first colonel. In the American Civil War, Ohio provided the Union Army with 260 regiments,
BERDAN'S SHARPSHOOTERS The Sharps breech loading rifle was made famous when the Union’s flamboyant Berdan Sharpshooters made them their weapons of choice. For fifteen years before the Civil War, Hiram Berdan was one of this country's leading marksmen. He was personally appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to be the Colonel
SEPOYS 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a revolt against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. In 1857 the Company ruled over nearly all of India, and had their own Colonial Army of over 300,000
