From the Editor

Interstate 10 rockets straight through the heart of Picacho Pass, connecting Phoenix and Tucson. A freight train, stretching almost as far as I can see, rattles along the railroad that runs parallel to the highway. Somewhere along the track lie the unmarked remains of Lt. James Barrett. Barrett was one of three Federal fatalities in the April 15, 1862, skirmish that became known as the battle of Picacho Peak, or, in some accounts, the battle of Picacho Pass.

Barrett and his troopers were part of a 2,300-man column that had ridden eastward from California answering a summons for help as the U.S. Army tried to fend off an invasion further east by Confederate Maj. Gen. Henry Hopkins Sibley. The column didn’t know it yet, but Sibley‘s men had been turned back following a late-March battle at Glorieta Pass in New Mexico. In conjunction with Sibley’s main effort, a 125-man detachment of Confederates had taken up position in Tucson.

Detachments from both forces clashed at Picacho Pass because the north-south Butterfield Overland Stagecoach Road—the one that eventually evolved into I-10—intersected nearby with an east-west road that roughly followed the Gila River.

In an act of bravado against orders, Barrett’s 13-man squad charged into a 10-man patrol of Confederate rangers who, in turn, ambushed the Federals. A 90-minute fight ensued. Six Federal casualties resulted, including the death of Barrett and two others. Reports varied on the number of Confederate casualties: Federals claimed five but Confederates claimed zero. It became the western-most fight of the civil war.

The overall wildness of the Picacho Pass landscape is long gone, paved over by highway and planked over with railroad ties and iron bars. Such transportation corridors connect America today in ways unimagined 1862. In fact, how could one even conceive of the size of the continent back then? How did Arizona or California feel connected at all even to the Trans-Mississippi theater of war, let alone the western or eastern theaters, so far away as they were? What prompted Barrett and his fellow soldiers to serve a country that must have felt so abstract in its hugeness and its difficulty to traverse? What made that country worth fighting for? Worth dying for?

As a nation, we spend a lot of time these days arguing about our ideas of what America means to us. While our country surely means different things to different people, I would argue that America is an idea and a geography big enough for anyone who loves it, and it’s big enough for people to love it in different ways.

These highways, these railroads, these cell towers and fiberoptic internet cables and satellite signals—they all connect us in ways inconceivable to the men who once fought in Picacho Pass. We should be closer than ever, not further apart.

— Chris Mackowski, Ph.D.

Editor-in-Chief, Emerging Civil War



On April 4, Neil P. Chatelain organized a Civil War history conference at Lone Star College-North Harris. There were speakers from six different colleges and universities, as well as a student poster session. Over 120 people attended, including students and faculty from each institution, and local community members and members of the Houston Civil War Round Table.

Doug Crenshaw is getting set to lead a series of tours on the Richmond and North Anna battlefields over the next few weeks.

Jon-Erik Gilot had a busy month! On April 4, alongside ECW members Ryan Quint and Jon Tracey, he spoke at the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation annual conference in Winchester. That same week he saw an article published in the latest edition of Surgeon's Call, the biannual membership magazine of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. 

On April 11–12 Jon-Erik Gilot (second from left) hosted the annual Civil War symposium at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall in Carnegie, PA. The symposium focused on the Antietam campaign and featuried talks by Scott Hartwig, Dennis Frye, John Hoptak, Ashley Whitehead Luskey, Kevin Pawlak (third from right), Harry Smeltzer, and a live podcast recording with John Banks and Tom McMillan of the Antietam & Beyond podcast. With more than 200 seats sold, this was ACFL&MH's largest symposium to date. Among the attendees: Evan Portman (left) and Terry Rensel (right).

After taking Forts Henry and Donelson, the Union army prepared to try and take the vital rail hub of Corinth, Mississippi. To facilitate this, Major General H. Halleck planned to combine Grant’s Army of West Tennessee with Buell’s Army of the Ohio. Meanwhile the newly formed Confederate Army of the Mississippi was placed under the command of General A. S. Johnston. Johnston planned to attack Grant’s encampment before Grant and Buell could combine their commands.

The Confederate army left Corinth and marched north into Tennessee. On the morning of April 6, 1862, Johnston attacked at Shiloh, taking Grant’s forces by surprise. Grant’s troops put up a tenacious defense with their backs against the Tennessee River. Unfortunately for the Confederates, Johnston was killed early that afternoon. Buell’s army arrived that night and next morning launched a counterattack along with Grant’s semi-organized survivors. The Union forces were too large to be stopped, and after a stout defensive effort Beauregard ordered a withdrawal. The first great bloodbath of the Civil War was over, resulting in up to 30,000 killed, wounded, and captured. Its ramifications would be felt for the rest of the war.

Illustrated with photographs, paintings and maps, The Shiloh Campaign, 1862: Battle for the Heartland by Sean Michael Chick is a full account of the first large set-piece battle of the war, the only time a large Union army was taken by surprise.

You can purchase your copy from Casemate Publishers here!

* * *

Two new books by Chris Mackowski highlight the Vicksburg Campaign as part of the Casemate Illustrated Series.

The Vicksburg Campaign,1863: Grant's Failed Offensives by Chris Mackowski:

The 14-month campaign to regain the control of Mississippi River by capturing Vicksburg, Mississippi, stands as the prime example of how the Civil War would be fought and won. The Federal government’s policy of blockading the southern ports and controlling the inland waterways would only be successful with total control of the country’s largest river. Technological advances created by the war itself and used by progressive-thinking Federal and Confederate commanders ensured that this vital Southern supply and logistics base would be the focal point of the war on the western waters.

Ulysses S. Grant, who had risen to fame as one of the North’s prominent heroes early in the war, boldly concluded that Vicksburg would be the next nut to crack in the Federal policy for control of the Mississippi River. Understanding that only a strong relationship with US Navy could ensure the success of Vicksburg’s surrender, Grant found a man as bold and daring as himself in David Dixon Porter and his Mississippi Squadron of ironclad gunboats and fleet of vessels. These two commanders and their trusted subordinates would frustrate John C. Pemberton’s attempts to defend Mississippi and eastern Louisiana for the Confederacy. A lack of experience in commanding such an important assignment, limited resources, poor staffing, and a Confederate government consumed with the war in the east ensured Pemberton’s position would be insurmountable as the Confederacy’s tenuous hold on the Mississippi River began to fall apart.

You can purchase you copy from Casemate Publishers here.

The Vicksburg Campaign,1863: The Inland Battles, Siege and Surrender by Chris Mackowski:

By the end of March 1863, Major General Ulysses S. Grant was at a crossroads in his military career. His bold attempts in the late fall 1862 and winter of 1862/63 had all come up fall short of his objective: get his army on high ground north and east of Vicksburg and capture the last major obstacle on the Mississippi River.

Grant had been stymied by the difficult region’s swampy bayous as well as Confederate resistance at key locations that thwarted his advances and prolonged his army’s miserable dispositions in the sickly camps of Louisiana bottomland. Confederate Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton had performed well using his interior rail lines and intelligence networks to place blocking forces or obstructions that delayed or derailed Grant’s movements.

Realizing his career was on the line, Grant chose the riskiest operation he could have concocted. In a joint military operation, Grant marched two of his army corps down the roads and along the bayous of Louisiana, repairing them as they progressed, while Acting Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter led his ironclad gunboats with transports past the Confederate heavy artillery defending Vicksburg’s riverfront. Grant hoped to get enough boats below the city to enable a crossing of the Mississippi River. Then, he would force a march into the state and arrive at Vicksburg’s back door from the east. In doing this, Grant would sever his main line of logistics and supply, something his subordinate officers thought was a disastrous mistake. Grant would take the risk in a zero-sum game: he would capture Vicksburg or destroy himself and his army doing so.

This Casemate Illustrated examines the movements of the Union and Confederate armies from March 1863 through July 1863, the joint-operational cooperation between the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy, the delayed and indecisive Confederate operations to stop the Federal initiative, and how the individual soldiers conducted the one of the greatest campaigns in American military history: to control the “The Father of Waters”—the Mississippi River.

You can purchase your copy from Casemate Publishers here.

ECW Multimedia

On the Emerging Civil War Podcast in April, Chris Mackowski was joined by

• Living historians Curt Fields & Thomas Jessee, who portray U.S. Grant and R. E. Lee, for a two-part conversation. They discussed their insights about Grant and Lee and their own work at portraying the two generals.

View both episodes now at Emerging Civil War.

• Paul Brueske, author of Digging all Night and Fighting All Day: The Civil War Siege of Spanish Fort and the Mobile Campaign, 1865, talks about the Siege of Spanish Fort, Alabama.

View this episode now at Emerging Civil War.

• Historian Michael C. Hardy, who explained the ins and outs of feeding the Confederacy’s most prominent army, how that differed from other armies, and how those challenges changed over time.

View this episode now at Emerging Civil War.

You can find video versions of these podcasts and other exclusive interviews and content on our YouTube page, including a series of interviews with speakers from this year's ECW Symposium.

You can listen for free on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or at https://emergingcivilwar.com/the-emerging-civil-war-podcast/.

Emerging Revolutionary War News

By Phill Greenwalt

April 2025 is the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolution, with the first shots at Lexington and Concord. If you could not make it to Massachusetts, don't fret. A few of the Emerging Revolutionary War crew did and completed a 30-hour-plus marathon of historic events, covering Paul Revere's Ride, Old North Church, and the British route to and from Lexington and Concord. Check it out on our Facebook page and in the ensuing weeks on YouTube.

Also in April, the popular "Rev War Revelry" celebrated its five-year anniversary. Check out this episode (and all the rest) on our YouTube and podcast channels. As always, be sure to tune in every other Sunday at 7 p.m. EDT for our popular "Rev War Revelry." Great programming is scheduled!

Stay tuned for more content related to the America 250th and this summer a peek into the French and Indian War as well. Click over to www.emergingrevolutionarywar.org to stay up to date.

Publisher Ted Savas of Savas Beatie, LLC, who publishes the popular Emerging Revolutionary War Series, has an update on their American Revolution publishing expansion: @SavasBeatie is seeking new American Revolution manuscripts. Writers and researchers, submit your work at savasbeatie.com!

Remember to follow ERW on YouTube, Facebook, and the blog to keep current on the history of the Revolutionary War era!