When Union Sailors, Soldiers, and Marines converged on tiny Pitch Landing, North Carolina, in late 1864 they helped strike a blow against the hungry and cold Confederate Army of Northern Virginia then manning Petersburg trenches.
The New York Times for Sunday 4 December 1864 carried a number of stories concerning the Civil War, then in its fourth year. A lengthy article speculated about the location of Union Major General William T. Sherman's army, which was then marching to the sea, and the probability of a battle in far-off Nashville was discussed in depth. The U.S. Navy received its share of ink in a report on an engagement between some of its gunboats and a Confederate battery near Bell's Mills, Tennessee.
