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Period: to
Civil War
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Fort Sumter
April 12, 1861 to April 14, 1861
President Lincoln sends a ship to resupply the federal fort. Believing the ship had troops and weapons, the Confederacy fired on the fort.
Due to the attack on the fort, Lincoln calls up 75,000 troops and some of the border states, such as Virginia, secede. -
First Bull Run
First Bull Run
July 21, 1861 to July 22, 1861
McDowell’s Union struck on July 21, shooting the enemy across Bull Run while troops crossed the river at Studley Ford trying to hit the Confederates. By four o’clock in the afternoon, both sides had an equal number of men on the field. Screaming as they advanced the Confederates to break the Union line. Despite their victory, Confederate troops were far too disorganized to press their advantage and pursue the Yankees, who reached Washington by July 2 -
Hampton Roads
The March 9, 1862, battle between the Monitor and Merrimack (CSS Virginia) during the American Civil War (1861-65) was history's first duel between ironclad warships. the Virginia virtually decimated a Union fleet of wooden warships off Newport News, Virginia, on March 8th—destroying the sloop Cumberland and the 50-gun frigate Congress, while the frigate Minnesota ran aground.Dramatic naval battle of March 9, with crowds of Union and Confederate supporters watching from the decks of nearby vesse -
Shiloh
Shiloh
April 6, 1862 to April 7, 1862
Confederate Generals surprised attacked Ulysses S. Grant’s forces in Tennessee. In February the Union General Ulysses S. Grant took Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. The battle was fought in the woods by inexperienced troops on both sides of the field. Despite a uniting of Northern troops and reinforcements for the South, the battle ended the next day, April 7. -
Antietam
Antietam
September 17, 1862 to
Generals Robert E. Lee and George McClellan fought near Antietam creek in Sharpsburg, Maryland. This battle brought America’s bloodiest day. The battleground Lee picked was good for defense but dangerous, having the Potomac River behind him. The first hours of fight were indecisive. Lee withdrew across the river on September 18 to McClellan’s. -
Fredricksburg
In September 1862, Burnside led the left wing of the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Antietam, during which his forces struggled to capture what became known as "Burnside's Bridge." Burnside may have doubted his own qualifications to command the Army of the Potomac, but he nonetheless acted quickly to move the large force into Virginia in an advance toward the Confederate capital of Richmond.James Longstreet's Confederate corps had ample time to occupy a strong position on Marye's Heights i -
Chancellorsville
The Battle of Chancellorsville, fought from April 30 to May 6, 1863, is widely considered to be Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's greatest victory during the American Civil War. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, one of his most trusted generals, was mortally wounded by friendly fire during the battle.Chancellorsville was General Robert E. Lee's greatest defensive victory, an outstanding example of command partnership and the misuse of strategic initiative. On April 30, Lee (whose 60,000 men occupied th -
Gettysburg
Gettysburg
July 1, 1863 to July 3, 1863
Robert E. Lee decided to go on the offensive and invade the North for the second time. On July 1st,Lee planned to assemble his army in the town of Gettysburg, 35 miles southwest of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Lee gave orders to attack Cemetery Hill to Ewell, who had taken command of the Army of Northern Virginia's Second Corps after Thomas J. Jackson, was badly wounded at Chancellorsville. On July 2nd the Union Army had established strong positions from Culp -
Vicksburg
From the spring of 1862 until July 1863, Union forces waged a campaign to take the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi, which lay on the east bank of the Mississippi River, halfway between Memphis to the north and New Orleans to the south. After the spring of 1862, when the Confederates lost Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, and Memphis in Tennessee and New Orleans in Louisiana, Vicksburg became the key remaining point of their defense of the Mississippi River. The surrender of Vicksburg, -
Chickamauga
Chickamauga
September 19, 1863 to September 20, 1863
On the early morning of September 19, the two armies met in the woods off the banks of Chickamauga Creek. On the first day of battle, Bragg's men attacked the Union repeatedly, by a large Union corps led by George Thomas. With a lot of reinforcements, Thomas was able to hold his position, with heavy losses on both sides. The Union lost some 16,000 soldiers, making the Battle of Chickamauga the highest one in the war's western theater. -
Spotslyvania
Appointed general in chief of all Union armies in February 1864, Ulysses S. Grant wasted no time in planning a major offensive on the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Grant's primary goal in threatening the capital was to keep Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia occupied while Union General William T. After two days of bloody but indecisive fighting, Grant ordered the Army of the Potomac (led by General George Meade) to march south via a flanking motion in an attempt to get betwe -
Wilderness
Wilderness
May 5, 1864 to May 7, 1864
The Battle of the Wilderness began in the morning of May 5, when Confederate corps led by Richard Ewell clashed with the Union's 5th Corps near the Orange Turnpike, the region's principal east-west road. Shortly after 5 a.m. on May 6, the Union 2nd Corps, led by Winfield Scott Hancock, attacked the Plank Road. By May 7, the two armies were in the same spot where they started the battle two days earlier. The Battle of the Wilderness ended, though the Union -
Shernan's March
General Sherman’s troops captured Atlanta on September 2, 1864. This was an important triumph, because Atlanta was a railroad hub and the industrial center of the Confederacy: It had munitions factories, foundries and warehouses that kept the Confederate army supplied with food, weapons and other goods.
Major General George Thomas took some 60,000 men to meet the Confederates in Nashville, while Sherman took the remaining 62,000 on an offensive march through Georgia to Savannah, “smashing thing -
Lincolns Assassination
Lincolns Assassination
April 15, 1865
John Wilkes Booth was the man that killed Abraham Lincoln. While watching the performance of "Our American Cousin" at Ford’s theatre in Washington D.C., Lincoln was given a private box above the stage with his wife Mary, a young army officer named Henry Rathbone and Rathbone’s fiancée, Clara Harris, the daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris. At 10:15 Booth slipped into the box and fired his 44 caliber single shot right in the back of Lincolns head. Booth m -
Siege of Pettersburg
Petersburg Campaign (1864–65), was a series of military operations in southern Virginia during the final months of the American Civil War that culminated in the defeat of the South.Petersburg, an important rail center 23 miles (37 km) south of Richmond, was a strategic point for the defense of the Confederate capital. On June 9, 1864 the Union army began a siege of the two cities, with both sides rapidly constructing fortifications 35 miles (56 km) long.General Ulysses S. Grant had crossed the
