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Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter was located in South Carolina and was controlled by the Union army. When Lincoln sent supplies to the fort the south saw this as an act of violence and opened fire on the fort at 4:30 a.m. on April 12. As a result Lincoln called for 75,000 troops and this marked the begging of the Civil War! -
Period: to
Civil War Era
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Battle of Bull Run
General McDowel led 35,000 Union to march to the Virginian capital, but while crossing the Bull Run River Confederates attacked. The Union pushed them back, but reinforcements soon arrived from Johnston and Beuregard and their combined forces held off the vigorous union army. And the Condeferates successfully defended their nation's capital! -
Shiloh
Also known as The Battle of Pittsburgh Landing, and was the second great engagement in the Civil War. Confederate generals launched a suprise attack on Grants forces in Tennesse. But the Union army was to strong and were able to hold their ground, which led to a Union victory. But both sides had suffered heavy losses, and a total of over 23,000 casulties. -
Antietam
This was the first battle fought on Northern soil, the assault was led by Robert E. Lee and he faced George Mclellan. However the Union army was almost twice the size as the Confederates but Robert E. Lee was able to impact many casualties. But the Union army forced Lee's forces back across the Potomac River, and this battle was a Union victory, but the battle brought the most casulties in a single battle, 22,000. -
Fredericksburgh
The Union's new general, General Burnside, was ordered to attack Lee's weakened forces in Virginia. General burnside had to command 120,000 Union forces across a river by using pontoons. But the pontoons were delayed and this gave Lee more time to position more men in better defensive positions. When the pontoons finally arrived and the Union army charged across them, the Confederates just mowed them down. By nightfall the Union didn't move. This was a crushing defeat to the Union army. -
Hampton Roads
This was an attempt by the Confederates to break through the Union blockade. Both armies had enonormous iron ships, the Monitor and Merrimack(CSS Virginia.) But the firing was innefective in this battle because both ships had untrained crew-man and they each took about 7-8 minutes to fire. At about 12:30 P.M. the Virginia ran out of ammo and was forced to turn around, the battle was over. There were no marked casulties for this battle. Confederates gained hope of breaking the Union blockade. -
Chancellorsville
This battle was fought in the wilderness of Chancellorsville, Virginia and was considered Robert E. Lee's greatest victories in the Civil War, for he beat an enemy force that was nearly twice the size of his own. He won by spliting his army into two and launched a surprise attack on General Hooker. Then General Jackson led 30,000 Confederate troops to Hookers weak right flank and crushed his front line and only nightfall saved him. This battle boosted Confederates morale, and gave hope to Lee. -
Gettysburgh
On July 1, 1863, the Confederates attacked the Union from the west and north forcing them to go back to Cemetery Hill. During the night, both sides got reinforcements. On July 2, 1863, the Confederates attacked the Union in many different places. By evening, the Union repulsed the Confederacy and regained the land that the Confederacy had taken over. On July 3, 1863, the Confederates attacked again but were driven out many times. On July 4, 1863, Lee started to head back to the Potomac River. -
Siege of Vicksburg
In May and June of 1863, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s armies converged on Vicksburg, investing the city and entrapping a Confederate army under Lt. Gen. John Pemberton. On July 4, Vicksburg surrendered after prolonged siege operations. This was the culmination of one of the most brilliant military campaigns of the war. With the loss of Pemberton’s army and this vital stronghold on the Mississippi, the Confederacy was effectively split in half. -
Chickamauga
This battle was the culmination of Major General William Rosecrans' Army of the Cumberland, campaigned to maneuver General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee, out of Tennessee. Fought in dense forests and small open fields in northwestern Georgia, Chickamauga was one of a very few clear cut victories for the Army of Tennessee. However, Bragg was slow to take advantage of the defeat of the army. The Union retired to Chattanooga while the rebels occupied the surrounding heights. -
Battle of Wilderness
Crossing the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg, Virginia, early in May, General Ulysses S. Grant advanced with a Union army of 115,000 men. On May 5 he met a Confederate army of 62,000 troops under General Robert E. Lee. The confrontation occurred in dense thickets, called the Wilderness, where orderly movement was impossible and cavalry and artillery were almost useless. Burning brush killed many of the wounded. After intense fighting for two days, Grant moved on to battle at Spotsylvania. -
Spotsylvania
This two-week battle was a series of combats along the Spotsylvania front. The Union attack against the Bloody Angle at dawn, May 12-13, captured nearly a division of Lee’s army and came near to cutting the Confederate army in half. Confederate counterattacks plugged the gap, and fighting continued unabated for nearly 20 hours in what may well have been the most ferociously sustained combat of the Civil War. On May 21, Grant disengaged and continued his advance on Richmond. -
Shermans March
William Tecumseh Sherman in 1864 commanded the Union armies of the West in the decisive drive from Chattanooga to Atlanta and the famous "march to the sea" across Georgia. In these campaigns and his later push northward from Savannah through the Carolinas, Sherman's troops carried the war to the Southern home front and blazed a wide path of destruction that delivered the death blow to the Confederacy's will and ability to fight. -
Lincolns Assasination
On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House,Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. -
Siege of Petersburg
Union forces beseiged Petersburg for 9 months. Union forces were well supplied. Confederate forces could barely find food to eat. Finally, with their numbers dwindling due to dessertions, and with Sherman's forces approaching from the south, Lee attempted a break out. It failed miserably, and on April 2nd, Union forces soon assaulted the Confederate lines. The Army of Virginia was forced to withdraw from both Petersburg and Richmond.
