The American Civil War, often framed as the War Between the States or the War to End Slavery, was a cataclysm that split brother from brother. While Gettysburg and Appomattox dominate the headlines, there’s a trove of lesser known episodes that still echo in the annals of history. Below are ten surprising Civil War stories you probably haven’t run across.
Lesser Known Stories from the Civil War
10 Siamese Twin Gets Drafted
Chang and Eng Bunker, the famous 19th‑century conjoined “Siamese” twins, settled in North Carolina after their show‑business days ended in 1839. They bought a 700‑acre farm, married sisters, adopted the surname Bunker, raised children, and even owned slaves. In 1865, Union General George Stoneman came through their area to draft men for the war. Names were drawn from a lottery, and Eng’s name appeared—only to be spared when Stoneman realized he was half of a world‑famous inseparable pair. Both brothers’ sons fought for the Confederacy, and the twins survived the conflict unscathed.
9 Man Without a Country
Clement L. Vallandigham, an Ohio attorney and congressman, was a vocal opponent of the war, arguing the South could not be forced back into the Union. In June 1863, after General Ambrose Burnside issued General Order 38—making it illegal to express sympathy for the enemy—Vallandigham delivered a speech criticizing President Lincoln. He was arrested, tried by a military tribunal, and sentenced to two years in prison. Lincoln, seeking to avoid a political quagmire, commuted the sentence to banishment to the Confederate states. Vallandigham eventually returned to Ohio, still supporting the Union cause but not its policies, while the Confederates found little use for him.
8 First Emancipation Proclamation
Before Lincoln’s famous Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863, Union General John C. Frémont issued his own proclamation in August 1861 while overseeing the Department of the West. Declaring Missouri under martial law, Frémont announced that any rebel sympathizers would lose all property, including slaves, who would be freed and given deeds of manumission. Lincoln, deeming the act unconstitutional, ordered Frémont to revise it and later removed him from command. Frémont’s bold move was a precursor—yet not the last—of early emancipation attempts; General David Hunter issued a similar proclamation in May 1862, which Lincoln also rescinded.
7 Thaddeus S.C. Lowe, Chief Aeronaut
The Union initially dismissed the idea of manned balloons for reconnaissance, but aeronaut Thaddeus S.C. Lowe changed that. In June 1861 he demonstrated a tethered balloon flight for President Lincoln, sending the first telegram from the sky. The success birthed the Union Balloon Corps. Lowe’s balloons—most famously the Intrepid—scouted the Peninsula Campaign, Seven Pines, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Antietam, and more. Confederate attempts to copy the technology failed. However, a pay dispute and strained relations with commanders led Lowe to resign in 1863, effectively ending the Balloon Corps.
6 Old Abe the Eagle
Military mascots have ranged from dogs to goats, but the 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment’s mascot was a bald eagle named Old Abe, after President Abraham Lincoln. The bird was rescued from a nest, given a shield‑shaped perch, and became a beloved symbol of Union patriotism. Old Abe marched through 39 battles, stealing food and boosting morale. Confederates were even ordered to capture her if possible, yet she survived the war unscathed. After 1865 she retired to the Wisconsin State Capitol building, where she lived until a 1881 fire caused her death. Debate persists over whether Old Abe was a single eagle or multiple, but photographic evidence confirms her existence.
5 Plot to Burn New York City
In March 1864, as defeat loomed, Confederate sympathizers devised a daring terrorist plan: a “fire brigade” would ignite a series of hotels in New York City, using Greek Fire, a volatile incendiary concoction. The fires were meant to serve as a diversion and a signal for other conspirators to seize police stations, municipal buildings, and free prisoners at Fort Lafayette. On November 25, 1864, the plotters fumbled—most couldn’t handle Greek Fire, and only a few blazes started, one of which accidentally consumed Barnum’s American Museum. No one was injured, the scheme was uncovered, and its chief architect was captured, tried, and executed in 1865.
4 Unsinkable Thomas Oliver Selfridge, Jr.
Naval Academy graduate Thomas O. Selfridge Jr. fought for the Union and seemed blessed with an uncanny knack for surviving shipwrecks. At the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 8, 1862, his vessel USS Cumberland was sunk by the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia, yet Selfridge swam to shore unharmed. He later lost the USS Cairo to Confederate torpedoes, survived a collision that sank another Union ship, and emerged unscathed from the sinking of USS Heron during the 1865 bombardment of Fort Fisher. He rose to rear admiral, retired in 1898, and finally died peacefully in bed at age 88 in 1924.
3 Women of Roswell
During Sherman’s March to Atlanta, Union Brigadier General Kenner Garrard arrived in Roswell, Georgia, where cotton and woolen mills employed over 400 women producing “Roswell gray” uniforms for the Confederacy. To avoid destruction, the mill owner hoisted a French flag, but the ruse failed. Garrard burned both mills and, on Sherman’s orders, rounded up the 700 women and children—both black and white—and shipped them by rail to Indiana, giving them only their clothes and nine days of rations. A second similar deportation occurred in New Manchester. Most of these women vanished from the historical record; a few managed to return home after the war.
2 Cruel and Unusual Punishment
Medical standards in the 1860s were lax; any physician who could wield a scalpel was drafted, regardless of competence. Dr. Charles Briggs, assigned to the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry, examined Private James Reilly in November 1863 after accusations that the soldier had sexual relations with a mare. Though Reilly was cleared, Briggs took vengeance: he stripped, bound, and gagged the private, then performed a circumcision without anesthesia, cauterizing the wound with a hot iron. Briggs faced charges for using circumcision as punishment but never received a court‑martial. Remarkably, weeks later he was promoted to full surgeon and served until the war’s end.
1 Leg That Served the North and the South
Confederate Captain John Newton Ballard of Mosby’s Rangers lost his leg in 1863 and replaced it with a wooden prosthetic. In a later skirmish near Halltown, Virginia, his horse collided with a Union rider’s mount, crushing the artificial limb—making Ballard the only Civil War soldier to lose the same leg twice. In March 1864, Union Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, also a double‑leg amputee, was killed near Richmond; his wooden leg was recovered by Confederates, who kept it as a souvenir. The prosthetic eventually made its way back to Ballard, who wore it for the remainder of the war.