January 17, 1864, Dandridge, Tennessee. Two hungry armies meet over the farms along the French Broad River in a hard freeze. Union Major General Philip Sheridan builds a bridge out of wagons, finishes it "in sheer desperation," and then has to take it apart in the dark. On the Confederate side, James Longstreet's men are so short of shoes that their feet leave "bloody marks along the roads."

Next: Fair Garden, January 27.

January 27, 1864, near Sevierville, Tennessee. Dr. Robert Hodsden lies in bed while Union and Confederate cavalry fight across his farm. Captain Eli Lilly's Indiana battery, the future founder of a drug company, is in the attack. Sturgis's own report explains why the winning side left: "the men and animals were perfectly worn out from constant marching and fighting."

Next: Meridian, February 14.

February 14, 1864, Meridian, Mississippi. Union Major General William Sherman marches into the largest railroad center the Confederacy still holds in the state, to meet a cavalry column due four days earlier. It never arrives. Sherman spends six days tearing up the railroads around the town, and he reports that Meridian "no longer exists." Confederate Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk told his president that the damage was about fifty miles of track.

Next: Dalton (First), February 22.

February 22 to 27, 1864, near Dalton, Georgia. The Union army marched out to test whether Confederate General Joseph Johnston has been weakened. He hasn't. Lieutenant Colonel William Kilgour's own report for the 80th Illinois records six days of marching, skirmishing, and his men's frustration that it never became a proper fight.

Next: Paducah, March 25.

March 25, 1864, Paducah, Kentucky. Confederate cavalry under Nathan Bedford Forrest raids the town for supplies and horses. Colonel Stephen Hicks refuses to surrender Fort Anderson, and a Confederate officer attacking without orders is killed within sight of his own home — a Paducah lawyer, fighting to take his own hometown.

Next: Elkin's Ferry, April 3.

April 3–4, 1864, southwest Arkansas. Steele's army needs to cross the Little Missouri River, and a Union colonel's own report tells the story of the fight that let them: a two-hour stand at dawn, a captured aide who confirms the enemy general is close by, and a charge of grapeshot that grazes that general's head.

Next: Poison Spring, April 18.

April 18, 1864, Ouachita County, Arkansas. A Union foraging column is ambushed and routed on its way back to Camden. Afterward, Confederate soldiers kill the wounded Black soldiers of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry left on the field. Colonel James Williams, their commander, writes home that he has "the most positive assurances from eye-witnesses that they were murdered on the spot."

Next: Jenkins' Ferry, April 30.

April 30, 1864, Grant County, Arkansas. Retreating from a failed campaign, Steele's army is caught crossing a flooded river. Soldiers of the 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry charge a Confederate battery shouting "Remember Poison Spring" — and afterward, some of them kill the wounded Confederates left behind, in the name of two killings of their own that came before.

Next: Albemarle Sound, May 5.