-
1st Battle of Bull Run/Manassas junction
About 30,000 inexperienced Union troops commanded by General Irvin McDowell attacked a smaller,equally inexperienced Confederate force led by General P.G.T. Beauregard. The fighting took place in northern Virginia, about 5 miles from the town of Manassas Junction near a small river called Bull Run. -
George B. McClellan named general of Army of Potomac
Lincoln appointed a new General, George B. McClellan, to head and organize the Union army of the East and to train troops.
He was appointed to the Army of Potomac. -
Battle of Shiloh/Pittsburg Landing
General Grant and about 40,000 troops headed south along the Tennessee River toward Corinth, Mississippi, an important railroad junction.
The battled lasted for two days, with some of the most bitter, bloody fighting of the war. -
Battle of 2nd Bull Run/Manassas
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia against Union Maj. Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia, this battle was much bigger then the first battle of bull run and it lasted for 3 days. -
Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg
Robert E. Lee only had 18,000 men at the time and McClellan had nearly 60,000.
It was the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Union soil. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with about 23,000 casualties on both sides. -
Battle of Fredericksburg
General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside.
This battle was remember as the most one sided battles in the Civil War. -
Emancipation Proclamation issued
It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states then in rebellion, thus applying to 3.1 million of the 4 million slaves in the U.S. at that time.
The Proclamation immediately freed 50,000 slaves, with nearly all the rest (of the 3.1 million) freed as Union armies advanced. -
Battle of Chancellor/death of Stonewall Jackson
Confederate pickets accidentally shot him at the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863; the general survived with the loss of an arm to amputation. However, he died of complications of pneumonia eight days later.
The battle lasted for seven days. -
surrender of Vicksburg
In a series of maneuvers, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate army of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
They finally surrendered on July 4. This action yielded command of the Mississippi River to the Union forces, who would hold it for the rest of the conflict. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War, it is often described as the war's turning point.
President Lincoln used the dedication ceremony for the Gettysburg National Cemetery to honor the fallen Union soldiers and redefine the purpose of the war in his historic Gettysburg Address.
