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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
The first major land battle of the American Civil War. Known as the First Battle of Bull Run (or Manassas), the engagement began when about 35,000 Union troops marched from the federal capital in Washington, D.C. to strike a Confederate force of 20,000 along a small river known as Bull Run. After fighting on the defensive for most of the day, the rebels rallied and were able to break the Union right flank, sending the Federals into a chaotic retreat towards Washington. The Confederate victory ga -
Hampton Roads
The Confederate ironclad Virginia steamed into Hampton Roads where she sank Cumberland and ran Congress aground. On March 9, the Union ironclad Monitor having fortuitously arrived to do battle, initiated the first engagement of ironclads in history. The two ships fought each other to a standstill, but Virginia retired. -
Shiloh
40,000 Confederate soldiers under the command of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston poured out of the nearby woods and struck a line of Union soldiers occupying ground near Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. Reinforced Federal army numbered about 40,000, outnumbering Beauregard’s army of less than 30,000. The two day battle at Shiloh produced more than 23,000 casualties and was the bloodiest battle in American history at its time. -
Antietnam
23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing after twelve hours of savage combat. The Battle of Antietam ended the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia's first invasion into the North and led to Abraham Lincoln's issuance of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. -
Fredricksburg
Burnside, now in command of the Army of the Potomac, sent a corps to occupy the vicinity of Falmouth near Fredericksburg. The rest of the army soon followed. Lee reacted by entrenching his army on the heights behind the town. On December 11, Union engineers laid five pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock under fire. On the 12th, the Federal army crossed over, and on December 13, Burnside mounted a series of futile frontal assaults on Prospect Hill and Marye’s Heights that resulted in staggerin -
Chancellorsville
Lee and Jackson conceived one of the boldest plans of the war. Jackson, with 30,000 Confederates, would follow a circuitous route to the Union right and from there conduct an attack on that exposed flank. The May 2, 1863 flank attack stunned the Union XI corps and threatened Hooker’s position, but the victorious Confederate attack ended with the mortal wounding of Stonewall Jackson. On May 3, 1863, the Confederates resumed their offensive and drove Hooker’s larger army back to a new defensive l -
Battle of Gettysburg
This battle was fought July 1st through the 3rd. Fought in the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This battle had the largest number of casualties in the Civil War. Union casualties were more than 23,000 while the Confederates had more than 20,000. The Union won this battle. -
Seige of Vicksburg
The surrender of Vicksburg, with the victory at the Battle of Gettysburg the previous day (July 3), greatly heartened the North and in fact marked the turning point of the war. -
Chickamauga
The Battle of Chickamauga, the biggest battle in Georgia.With 34,000 casualties, it is generally accepted as the second bloodiest engagement of the war; only the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, with 51,000 casualties, was deadlier. -
Wilderness
The opening battle of Grant’s sustained offensive against the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, known as the Overland Campaign, was fought at the Wilderness. Fighting was fierce but inconclusive as both sides attempted to maneuver in the dense woods. Darkness halted the fighting, and both sides rushed forward reinforcements. The battle was a tactical draw. Grant, however, did not retreat as had the other Union generals before him. On May 7, the Federals advanced by the left flank toward the -
Spotslyvania
The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House was the second battle that occurred during Lieutenant General
Ulysses Grant’s Overland Campaign. During this campaign, Grant deviated from the previous Union goal of capturing Richmond and instead ordered Major General Meade to target General Robert Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Grant’s relentless pursuit of Lee caused many engagements and cost the lives of thousands of soldiers from both armies. When the campaign finally slowed down, the Union had strat -
Sherman's March to the Sea
Atlanta fell to Sherman's Army in early September 1864. He devoted the next few weeks to chasing Confederate troops through northern Georgia in a vain attempt to lure them into a decisive fight. The Confederate's evasive tactics doomed Sherman's plan to achieve victory on the battlefield so he developed an alternative strategy: destroy the South by laying waste to its economic and transportation infrastructure. -
Seige of Petersburg
The Richmond-Petersburg Campaign was, rather than a true siege, a series of nine offensives by the Union forces against the Confederates defending Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia. The campaign for Petersburg lasted from June 15, 1864 until April 2, 1865, claiming 50,000 Union soldiers and 32,000 Confederates. The Siege of Petersburg has been criminally neglected in the study of the Civil War, and this site aims to partially rectify that lack of coverage. -
Lincon's Assasination
Good Friday, April 14th 1865 at 10pm President Abraham Lincoln was attending “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s theatre, with his wife and two guests, but no bodyguard. Lincoln was shot in the back of the head at point blank range by John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln died the next day, after never waking from the coma.
