Hannibal Hamlin

The Battle of Fort Myers was fought on February 25, 1865, in Lee County, Florida during the last months of the American Civil War. This small... engagement is known as the "southernmost land battle of the Civil War." Fort Myers had been abandoned after the Seminole Indian Wars and was reoccupied by Union soldiers in December 1863. It was the only federally occupied fort in South Florida. Union commanders planned to send horse soldiers into the area north of the Caloosahatchee River to confiscate livestock from area cattle ranches, thereby preventing shipment of beef to the Confederate Army of the Tennessee in Georgia. By 1865, it was estimated that more than 4,000 head of cattle had been taken from cattle farms by the Union cavalry units from similar raids. Fort Myers was used as a refugee center for escaped slaves and also for Union sympathizers who were being persecuted by the secessionists, who were burning their homes and driving them off their farms. At one period during the Federal reoccupation, more than 400 people crowded into the fort's grounds.
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The Battle of Rivers' Bridge, also known as Salkehatchie River, Hickory Hill, Owen's Crossroads, Lawtonville, and Duck Creek, was a Union victory... fought on February 3, 1865, during the Carolinas Campaign of the American Civil War. While Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's Union armies marched north across South Carolina, about 1,200 Confederates under Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws were posted at the crossing on the Salkehatchie River. Union soldiers began to build bridges to bypass McLaws on February 2. The next day two brigades under Maj. Gen. Francis P. Blair waded through the swamp and flanked the Confederates. McLaws withdrew toward Branchville after stalling Sherman's advance for only one day and Sherman's forces continued moving north into North Carolina. The site is commemorated by the Rivers Bridge State Historical Site.
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The Second Battle of Fort Fisher was a joint assault by Union Army and naval forces against Fort Fisher, outside Wilmington, North Carolina, near the... end of the American Civil War. Sometimes referred to as the "Gibraltar of the South" and the last major coastal stronghold of the Confederacy, Fort Fisher had tremendous strategic value during the war, providing a port for blockade runners supplying the Army of Northern Virginia. Wilmington was the last major port open to the Confederacy on the Atlantic seacoast. Ships leaving Wilmington via the Cape Fear River and setting sail for the Bahamas, Bermuda or Nova Scotia to trade cotton and tobacco for needed supplies from the British were protected by the fort. Based on the Malakoff Tower in Sevastopol, Ukraine, Fort Fisher was constructed mostly of earth and sand. This made absorbing the pounding of heavy fire from Union ships more effective than older fortifications constructed of mortar and bricks. Twenty-two guns faced the ocean, while twenty-five faced the land. The sea face guns were mounted on 12-foot-high batteries with larger, 45-and-60-foot batteries at the southern end of the fort.
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The Battle of Saltville , was fought near the town of Saltville, Virginia, during the American Civil War. After the defeat of General Stephen G.... Burbridge's expedition against Saltville, Union General George Stoneman reassembled a force to destroy the saltworks there. Stoneman's force included Burbridge's Division and a brigade under Brigadier General Alvan C. Gillem. After defeating a Confederate force at Marion, Virginia on the December 17–18, Stoneman's expedition advanced to Saltville. General John C. Breckinridge had 500 men at Saltville under Colonel Robert Preston. Another brigade of cavalry was en route under General Basil W. Duke. General Gillem led the Union advance and attacked first. Burbridge joined the fight shortly after and the two Federal columns overwhelmed the town's defenses. Colonel Preston ordered a retreat and Stoneman's troops entered the town and destroyed the saltworks, accomplishing the objective of the Union raid.
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