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The Civil War at a Glance |
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Eastern
Theater
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
Where
the Armies Fought
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Western
Theater
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
Civil
War Battlefields
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When John
Brown raided Harpers
Ferry in 1859, he set in motion events that led directly to
the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. This summary, organized yearly
through maps and chronologies, shows the course of the war from
Fort Sumter
in 1861 to Appomattox
Court House and beyond in 1865. It is divided according to the
two principal theaters in which the major military operations took
place: (1) The Eastern Theater, roughly comprising the area east
of the Appalachians in the vicinity of the rival capitals of Washington
and Richmond,
and (2) the Western Theater, primarily between the western slope
of the Appalachians and the Mississippi River. Lesser operation
that took place along the coasts and inland waterways and the isolated
trans-Mississippi area are included in the Western Theater. Naval
encounters on the high seas between cruisers, privateers, and blockade
runners have been omitted.
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Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, officer
of the Federal Army.
Source: Library of Congress,
Prints & Photographs Division. |
Gen. Robert E. Lee, officer of the Confederate Army.
Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs
Division. |
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Eastern Theater |
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Like a bolt of lightning out of a darkening sky, war burst upon
the American landscape in the spring of 1861, climaxing decades
of bitter wrangling and pitting two vast sections of a young and
vigorous nation against each other. Northerners called it the War
of the Rebellion, Southerners the War Between the States. We know
it simply as the Civil War.
In the East, beginning in the spring of 1861, the cry from Union
headquarters was "On to Richmond!" For the next four years
a succession of Northern commanders struggled desperately to do
just that -- get to Richmond. One well-designed effort in 1862 used
the mammoth naval might of the Union to reach the vicinity of the
Confederate capital by water routes. The other attempts stubbornly
slogged across a narrow central Virginia corridor and sought to
disperse tenacious Southern defenders who seemed always to be athwart
the path. Confederate successes offered occasional opportunities
to take the war north into Maryland and Pennsylvania and to threaten
Washington. Both sides came to see the enemy army as the proper
goal, and both recognized the obligation of the enemy army to defend
its respective capital city against military threats. The consequence
was four years of war fought to the death mostly in a relatively
small strip of Virginia countryside between Washington and Richmond.
When the guns were finally silenced in the spring and early summer
of 1865 and the authority of the Federal Government was once again
restored, the Union had been permanently scarred. As Mark Twain
put it, the war had "uprooted institutions that were centuries
old ... transformed the social life of half the country, and wrought
so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence
cannot be measured short of two or three generations."
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Eastern Theater - 1861 |
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Source: The Civil War at a Glance
brochure, National Park Service.
The high spirits with which North and South naively go to war after
the attack on Fort Sumter first meet the test of battle on a large
scale in mid-July as Union troops under Brig. General Irvin McDowell
clash with Confederate soldiers under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and
Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard on the plains of Manassas, Virginia.
A sweeping Confederate victory in what Southerners call the First
Battle of Manassas (the North calls it Bull Run) inspires the Federal
Government to renewed effort and makes the South over-confident.
For the rest of the year the contending armies remain static between
Manassas and Washington, giving Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan
plenty of time to organize and train his new Army of the Potomac.
A small Federal force overwhelmed and crushed at Ball's Bluff, Virginia,
in October includes a friend and ally of President Abraham Lincoln,
so the political repercussions of that battle outstrip its military
significance. In December, Confederate cavalry leader J.E.B. Stuart
fights a small affair at Dranesville, Virginia. All of the 1861
actions combined do not equal in scope a single day of the famous
battles fought later in the war.
Bull Run, Virginia. Ruins of stone bridge.
Source: Library of Congress, Prints &
Photographs Division.
- March 4 Abraham
Lincoln is inaugurated
16th President of the United States.
- April 12-13 Bombardment
and surrender of Fort
Sumter, South Carolina. [More]
- April 15 President Lincoln calls for 75,000
volunteers.
- April 17 Virginia secedes from the Union.
- April 19 Confederates occupy Harpers
Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).
- June 10 Engagement
at Big
Bethel, Virginia. First land "battle" in Virginia.
- July 11 Engagement
at Rich
Mountain, Virginia (now West Virginia).
- July 21 First
battle of Manassas
(Bull Run), Virginia. [Handbook
and more.]
- July 27 George
B. McClellan takes command of Union Army
of the Potomac.
- October 21 Battle
of Ball's
Bluff, Virginia.
- December 20 Battle
of Dranesville,
Virginia.
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Eastern Theater - 1862 |
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Source: The Civil War at a Glance brochure, National Park
Service.
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Joe Johnston's Confederates abandon their long-held lines around
Manassas in early March and withdraw toward Richmond. McClellan's
Army of the Potomac moves by water to Fort Monroe and Newport News
at the tip of the Virginia peninsula and prepares to march on Richmond
some 70 miles to the northwest. Confederate delaying tactics and
heavy rains slow McClellan's advance and it is nearly two months
before he comes within sight of the city's steeples. When a Southern
offensive at Seven Pines on May 31-June 1 fails to dislodge the
Federals and Johnston is wounded, Robert E. Lee assumes command
of the Army of Northern Virginia and drives McClellan's troops
away from the Southern capital in the Seven Days' Battles.
Victories during August by Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson
at Cedar Mountain and by Lee's army at the Second Battle of Manassas
push the Federals back to the outskirts of Washington. Within nine
weeks, Lee has transferred the war from his own capital to the
edge of his enemy's. A Confederate offensive across the Potomac
is halted and turned back after battles at South Mountain and Antietam
(Sharpsburg), Maryland, in mid-September. The final action of the
year ends in Federal disaster when McClellan's successor, Maj.
Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, throws his army against Lee's near Fredericksburg,
Virginia, in a series of frontal assaults that are easily and bloodily
repulsed.
Deck and turret of U.S.S. Monitor,
James River, Virginia. July 9, 1862. Note the dents from
cannonballs in the lower left of turret.
Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs
Division.
- March 9 Battle of Hampton
Roads, Virginia. The USS Monitor vs. CSS Virginia
[nee USS MERRIMACK] was the first naval
battle between ironclad vessels.
- March 23-June 9 Stonewall
Jackson's Shenandoah
Valley Campaign, Virginia.
- April 5-May 4 McClellan's Army
of the Potomac begins advance up the Virginia peninsula
toward Richmond.
- May 15 Battle of Drewry's
Bluff, Virginia.
- May 31-June 1 Battle of Seven
Pines (Fair Oaks), Virginia.
- June 1 Robert
E. Lee assumes command of the Army
of Northern Virginia.
- June 25-July 1 Seven
Days' Battles Around Richmond,
Virginia. [Cemetery and handbook.]
- August 9 Battle of Cedar
Mountain, Virginia.
- August 28-30 Battle
of Second Manassas
(Bull Run), Virginia. [Handbook, reaction,
and more.]
- September 1 Battle of Chantilly
(Ox Hill), Virginia.
- September 12-15 Siege
and capture of Harpers
Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).
- September 14-17 Battles of South
Mountain and Antietam (Sharpsburg), Maryland.
[Cemetery, handbook, reaction,
and more.]
- November 7 Ambrose
E. Burnside replaces McClellan as commander of the Army
of the Potomac.
- December 11-13 Battle of Fredericksburg,
Virginia. [Cemetery, handbook,
and more.]
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Eastern Theater - 1863 |
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Source: The Civil War at a Glance
brochure, National Park Service.
The 1863 campaigns open along the Rappahannock in the final days of
April as Burnside's replacement, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, leads the
Army of the Potomac upstream to slip around Lee's left flank. Lee
responds aggressively and during the first week of May wins what has
been called his greatest victory. That victory is costly, because,
Stonewall Jackson is mortally wounded, but it gives the Confederate
the opportunity to march northward into Pennsylvania. The Army of
the Potomac follows, and, now under Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's direction,
gives Lee a stinging defeat at Gettysburg on July 1-3.
After Lee's retreat into Virginia, both armies spend the next three
months recuperating while the military frontier alternates between
the river lines of the Rappahannock and Rapidan west of Fredericksburg.
Both armies are also reduced in strength as troops are ordered west
to bolster operations around Chattanooga. Lee's attempt to turn
Meade's flank in October crests in defeat at Bristoe Station. A
similar move by Meade south of the Rapidan culminates in stalemate
at Mine Run at the end of November.
- January 1 Lincoln issues Emancipation
Proclamation.
- January 19-23 Burnside's
Mud March.
- January 26 Joseph
Hooker succeeds Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac.
- April 11-May 4 Siege
of Suffolk,
Virginia.
- April-May Chancellorsville
Campaign, Virginia. [Handbook
and more.]
- May 10 Stonewall Jackson dies at Guiney's
Station, Virginia.
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High Water Mark of the Confederacy at
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Source: National Park Service.
June 3-July 13 Gettysburg
Campaign, Pennsylvania. [Cemetery,
handbook,
reaction,
context,
and more.]
- July 13-16 New
York City draft riots.
- October 9-22 Bristoe
Campaign, Virginia.
- November 6 Battle
of Droop
Mountain, West Virginia.
- November 7 Engagement
at Rappahannock
Station, Virginia.
- November 19 Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg
Address. [Context]
- November 26-December 2 Mine
Run Campaign,
Virginia.
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Eastern Theater - 1864 |
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Source: The Civil War at a Glance
brochure, National Park Service.
The last full year of campaigning in the east begins with Federal
forces east and west making a unified effort to wear down the South's
will to continue fighting. Lincoln has given Ulysses S. Grant the
received rank of lieutenant general and placed him in command of
all Union armies. His mission: destroy Joe Johnston's Army of Tennessee
and Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.
Leaving Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman to deal with Johnston, Grant
concentrates on Lee. Their first encounter, the Battle of the Wilderness,
opens on May 5 and for the next 40 days the armies remain locked
in deadly embrace. The course of the fighting leads through Spotsylvania
Court House, across the North Anna River to Cold Harbor, and finally
to Petersburg. There the opponents settle down to a siege, punctuated
by Grant's relentless efforts to outflank the Confederates and seize
vital transportation arteries. His attempt to capture Petersburg
outright fails at the Battle of the Crater. Meanwhile, Lt. Gen.
Jubal Early's Confederate troops expel Union forces from the Shenandoah
Valley and march to the outskirts of Washington, before being turned
back at Fort Stevens. Outnumbered but defiant, they return to the
Valley where, in a series of hard-fought engagements, Maj. Gen.
Philip Sheridan erases Early's army from the war.
The
"Dictator," a 13 inch mortar used during the Siege
of Petersburg, Virginia.
Source: Library of Congress, Prints &
Photographs Division.
- May 5-6 Battle
of the Wilderness,
Virginia. [Handbook
and more.]
- May 8-21 Battle
of Spotsylvania
Court House, Virginia. [Handbook
and more.]
- May 9-24 Sheridan's
Richmond
Raid.
- May 15 Battle
of New
Market, Virginia.
- May 23-26 Battle
ofNorth
Anna River, Virginia.
- May 31-June 12 Battle
of Cold Harbor,
Virginia. [More]
- June 5 Battle
of Piedmont,
Virginia.
- June 11-12 Battle
of Trevilian
Station, Virginia.
- June 15-18 Battle
of Petersburg,
Virginia. [Cemetery
and handbook.]
- June 17-18 Battle
of Lynchburg,
Virginia.
- June 18-December 31 Siege
of Petersburg,
Virginia. [Cemetery,
handbook,
and more.]
- June 23-July 25 Early's
Washington
Raid.
- August 7-October 19 Sheridan's Shenandoah
Valley Campaign, Virginia.
- November 8 Lincoln reelected
President of the United States.
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Eastern Theater - 1865 |
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Source: The Civil War at a Glance
brochure, National Park Service.
The year opens with both armies largely inactive and still entrenched
around Petersburg. With each passing week, the hopelessness of Lee's
cause becomes more apparent. Early in February, Grant sends his
cavalry and infantry south and west of Petersburg in an attempt
to sever the only remaining supply lines into the city and to force
Lee to extend his already strained defensive positions. Confederate
attempts to halt the movement are checkmated at Hatcher's Run. As
March begins, Lee realizes that he cannot hold the Petersburg-Richmond
lines much longer. On the 25th he makes a desperate attempt to extricate
his army by attacking Federal Fort Stedman east of Petersburg. The
attempt fails and Lee tells Confederate president Jefferson Davis:
"I fear now it will be impossible to prevent a junction between
Grant and Sherman...." Shortly thereafter, the Federals achieve
the inevitable and break the thin Confederate defenses at Five Forks,
southwest of Petersburg. Lee evacuates the city and Richmond falls.
His forlorn retreat lasts one week until Grant cuts off the remnant
of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House. Lee's
surrender on April 9 signals the early end of the Confederacy.
The Grand Review of the Army in Washington,
D.C., 1865.
Source: Library of Congress, Prints &
Photographs Division.
- January 1-April 2 Siege of Petersburg
continued. [Cemetery
and handbook.]
- April 2 Confederates
evacuate Richmond
and Petersburg,
Virginia.
- April 3 US forces occupy Richmond,
Virginia.
- April 6 Battle
of Sayler's
Creek, Virginia.
- April 9 Lee
surrenders
at Appomattox
Court House, Virginia.
- April 14 Lincoln
shot by John
Wilkes Booth at Ford's
Theater, Washington, D.C. [Handbook]
- May 23-24 Grand
Review of Federal armies in Washington, D.C.
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Western Theater |
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Union Strategy in the West 1861 -
1865
1. Mississippi River Campaigns, 1861-63
2. Campaign to Secure Missouri, 1861-62
3. Operations against Chattanooga, 1861-63
4. Red River Campaign, 1864
5. Sherman's Atlanta Campaign, 1864
6. Sherman's Savannah Campaign (March to the Sea)
1864
7. Sherman's Carolinas Campaign, 1865
Source: The Civil War at a Glance
brochure, National Park Service.
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When the Civil War began, the Confederacy possessed fewer military
resources and pursued principally a defensive posture while the
Union took a more aggressive role. Northern strategy was directed
at keeping the Border States of Kentucky and Missouri (along with
Delaware and Maryland in the East) within the Union; starving the
South by blockading her coastline from Virginia to Texas; regaining
control of the Mississippi; and dividing and subdividing the Confederacy.
The Border States were secured by the spring of 1862 and a string
of Union victories--Forts Henry and Donelson, Pea Ridge, Shiloh,
Island No. 10, and New Orleans--caused many to believe that the
Confederacy was finished. The North's blockade of Southern ports
to deny the Confederates access to much-needed foreign war material
and manufactured goods and to keep them from exporting cotton was
slow to take effect. But each year the blockade continued to tighten
and more and more Confederate ports fell to Union forces. Union
amphibious operations to regain control of the Mississippi River
began in 1862 and, although initially thwarted, eventually culminated
in Grant's successful Vicksburg Campaign of 1863 and the subsequent
fall of Port Hudson. This not only closed down the South's most
important commercial waterway; it also severed the Confederacy
on a north/south axis.
By 1864, with the development of a unified command system, Northern
strategy focused on cutting the Confederacy along an east/west
axis in order to destroy its food supply and its war-making industrial
capacity in the deep South. Sherman's Atlanta Campaign and his
subsequent March to the Sea achieved the desired results by the
end of the year. By early 1865, with Sherman's troops pushing northward
into the Carolinas, it was clear that the days of the Confederacy
were numbered.
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Western Theater - 1861 |
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Source: The Civil War at a Glance
brochure, National Park Service.
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Confederate strategy in the early months is mainly defensive in
the face of Federal efforts to retain control of the slave-holding
Border States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri; to
tighten a blockade of the Southern coastline; and to regain control
of the Mississippi River from Cairo, Illinois, to the Gulf of Mexico.
In Missouri, in a lightning-like campaign, Brig. Gen. Nathaniel
Lyon crowds the Missouri State Guard into the southwestern part
of the State before being killed and his army defeated at Wilson's
Creek in August. The Missouri State Guard moves on to besiege and
capture Lexington, but retires into southwest Missouri when threatened
by Federal columns converging from the east and west. A union army
is defeated at Belmont, Missouri, early in November--the first
test of battle for a rising young brigadier general named Ulysses
S. Grant. Along the Southern coasts, Federals cling to several
forts and employ their power afloat to seize and establish additional
fortified enclaves at Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina, Port Royal
Sound (Fort Walker), South Carolina, and Ship Island, Mississippi.
These enclaves not only provide bases for blockading squadrons
but serve as spring boards for future amphibious operations.
Palmetto reinforcements on the channel side of Fort Sumter.
Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs
Division.
- April 12-13 Bombardment
and surrender of Fort
Sumter, South Carolina. [Handbook]
- July 5 Engagement at Carthage,
Missouri.
- August 10 Battle of Wilson's
Creek. [More]
- August 27-29 Battle of Hatteras
Inlet, North Carolina. [More]
- September 12-20 Siege
and capture of Lexington,
Missouri.
- November 7 Battle of Belmont,
Missouri. [More]
- November 7 Battle of Port
Royal Sound (Fort
Walker), South Carolina.
- December 6 Union forces take over abandoned Fort
Massachusetts on Ship
Island, Mississippi.
- December 9 Engagement at Chusto-Talasah,
Indian Territory
- December 26 Engagement at Chustenahlah,
Indian Territory.
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Western Theater - 1862 |
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Source: The Civil War at a Glance
brochure, National Park Service.
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From January through June, Union forces thrust deep into the South,
forcing Confederates to abandon southern Kentucky, much of Middle
and West Tennessee, and southwest Missouri following defeats at
Mill Springs, Kentucky, Forts Henry and Donelson, Tennessee, and
Pea Ridge, Arkansas. Early in April, Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston's
army assails Federal troops under Grant at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee,
but Johnston is killed and his army beaten in the two-day battle
of Shiloh. In Mississippi in December, Grant directs Union forces
led by General Sherman to try and directly capture the Confederate
stronghold of Vicksburg.
July brings a dramatic change in the tide of war as Confederate
armies invade Union territory from the trans-Mississippi to the
Atlantic seaboard. By early October, however, the offensives are
halted, and during the last two months of the year Federal forces
are again pressing ahead. In Middle Tennessee on December 31, Maj.
Gen. William S. Rosecrans' Union army confronts Gen. Braxton Bragg's
Confederate army at Stones River in a battle that lasts into the
new year. In north Mississippi, Grant's attempts to take Vicksburg
are thwarted by slashing Confederate cavalry raids on his supply
lines. The blockade tightens as Union forces capture Roanoke Island
and Fort Macon on the North Carolina sounds and bombard Fort Pulaski,
Georgia, into surrender.
Close-up
photo of Fort Pulaski's damaged wall.
Source: NPS Southeast Archeological Center
- January 19 Battle of Mill
Springs, Kentucky. [More]
- February 6-16 Forts Henry & Donelson Campaign, Tennessee. [Cemetery]
- February 8 Battle of Roanoke
Island, North Carolina. [More]
- February 21 Engagement at Valverde,
New Mexico Territory.
- March 6-8 Battle of Pea
Ridge, Arkansas. [Context, and more]
- March 26-28 Battle of Glorieta
Pass, New Mexico Territory. [More]
- April 6-7 Battle of Shiloh,
Tennessee. [Cemetery, handbook,
and more.]
- April 7 Capture of Island
No. 10, Tennessee.
- April 10-11 Bombardment
and capture of Fort
Pulaski, Georgia. [Handbook and more.]
- March 23-April 26 Conflict at Fort
Macon.
- April 29-May 30 Siege of Corinth,
Mississippi. [More]
- April-August Farragut's Mississippi
River Operations.
[Cemetery and more.]
- June 6 Battle of Memphis,
Tennessee.
- August 5 Battle of
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
- August 29-30 Battle of Richmond,
Kentucky.
- September 19 Battle of Iuka,
Mississippi.
- September 14-17 Siege of Munfordville,
Kentucky.
- October 3-4 Battle of Corinth,
Mississippi.
- October 8 Battle of Perryville,
Kentucky.
- December 1862-January 1863 Grant's First Vicksburg Campaign,
Mississippi. [Park, cemetery,
and handbook.]
- December 7 Battle of Prairie
Grove, Arkansas.
- December 27-29 Battle of Chickasaw
Bayou, Mississippi.
- December 31 Battle of Stones
River, Tennessee, begins. [Cemetery, guide, context, and more.]
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Western Theater - 1863 |
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Source: The Civil War at a Glance
brochure, National Park Service.
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Grant's efforts to capture Vicksburg are finally rewarded on July
4 when, after one of the great campaigns of military history and
a 47-day siege, the Confederacy's mighty bastion succumbs to Union
arms. Five days later Port Hudson surrenders and Lincoln proclaims, "The
father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea." The South
is cut in half along the Mississippi. Meanwhile, Rosecrans' brilliant
Tullahoma Campaign forces Bragg to abandon most of Tennessee and
concentrate around Chattanooga. In September Rosecrans occupies
Chattanooga and pursues Bragg into Georgia, where, at Chickamauga
Creek, the Confederates turn on the Northerners and drive them
back.
To relieve the beleaguered Federal troops, the Union Government
rushes reinforcement to Chattanooga, names Grant to command in
the west, and replaces Rosecrans with Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas.
In several battles around Chattanooga between October and November,
Grant's armies defeat Bragg's troops, forcing them to retreat to
Dalton, Georgia, where Bragg is succeeded in command by Gen. Joseph
E. Johnson. The two-week siege of Union-occupied Knoxville by Lt.
Gen. James Longstreet's Confederate troops ends December 3 with
the approach of a relief column led by General Sherman. Charleston,
under attack much of the year, enters the third winter of the war
battered but unconquered.
Levee and steamboats in Vicksburg,
Mississippi.
Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs
Division.
- January 1-2 Battle of Stones
River, Tennessee, continued.
[Cemetery, guide, context, and more.]
- January 1 Battle of Galveston,
Texas.
- January 9-11 Battle of Arkansas
Post, Arkansas.
- March 29-July 4 Grant's
Second Vicksburg
Campaign, Mississippi. [Park, cemetery, handbook, reaction, and more.]
- April 7 Federal Ironclads attack Charleston,
South Carolina.
- May 21-July 9 Siege
and surrender of Port
Hudson, Louisiana. [Cemetery, graves
database, reaction, context,
and more.]
- June 23-July 4 Tullahoma
Campaign, Tennessee.
- July 2-26 Morgan's
Raid, Kentucky-Indiana-Ohio.
- July 11 and 18 Assaults on Fort
Wagner, Charleston,
South Carolina. [The assault in 3 parts (1, 2, 3), the
54th regiment, and more.]
- July 17 Battle of Honey
Springs (Elk Creek), Indian Territory.
- August-September Chickamauga
Campaign, Georgia. [Handbook]
- September 8 Second
battle of Sabine
Pass, Texas.
- October-November Chattanooga
Campaign, Tennessee. [Handbook and more.]
- November-December Knoxville
Campaign, Tennessee. [More]
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Western Theater - 1864 |
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Source: The Civil War at a Glance
brochure, National Park Service.
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Ulysses S. Grant, promoted to lieutenant general and transferred
East to command all Union armies, calls for a war of attrition
against the Confederacy's two principal armies: Robert E. Lee's
Army of Northern Virginia and Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee.
Early in May, with Atlanta as his objective, Sherman, Grant's successor
in the West, attacks Johnston at Rocky Face Ridge west of Dalton.
For the next eight weeks the two armies grapple their way south
into central Georgia. On July 17, with Sherman's armies approaching
Atlanta, Confederate president Jefferson Davis fires Johnston and
replaces him with Gen. John B. Hood. Hood abandons Johnston's defensive
strategy and boldly sends his troops to attack Sherman in a series
of costly battles that only serve to underscore the futility of
such tactics.
On September 1, after a long siege by Sherman's soldiers, Atlanta
is evacuated and Hood withdraws, regroups, and advances into Tennessee.
Within three months his Army of Tennessee is virtually destroyed
in battles at Spring Hill, Franklin, and Nashville. Meanwhile,
in mid-November, Sherman burns Atlanta and begins his famous "March
to the Sea." Elsewhere, the blockade continues to tighten
as Union amphibious forces seize the forts guarding the entrance
to Mobile Bay and Admiral Farragut's ocean-going squadron crushes
a Confederate fleet.
Major
General W. T. Sherman and horse near Atlanta, Georgia.
Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs
Division.
- February 3-March 4 Meridian
Expedition, Mississippi.
- February 22 Battle of
Okolona.
- February 20 Battle of
Olustee (Ocean Pond), Florida.
- March 12-May 18 Red River Campaign, Louisiana. [Cemetery and more.]
- April 3-30 Camden Campaign/Expedition, Arkansas.
- April 12 Fort Pillow Massacre,
Tennessee. [More]
- May 7-September 2 Sherman's Atlanta
Campaign, Georgia. [Defenses and more.]
- June 10 Battle of Brice's Cross Roads,
Mississippi.
- July 14 Battle of Tupelo,
Mississippi.
- August 5 Battle of Mobile
Bay, Alabama. [Battle
plan, context, quote,
and more.]
- August 29-December 25 Price's
Raid, Arkansas-Missouri-Kansas-Indian Territory-Texas.
- November 15-December 21 Sherman's Savannah Campaign
(March
to the Sea).
- November 29-December 27 Hood's Tennessee
Campaign.
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Western Theater - 1865 |
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Source: The Civil War at a Glance
brochure, National Park Service.
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The year begins with Union forces capturing Fort Fisher, which
guards the approaches to the Cape Fear River and Wilmington, North
Carolina. Wilmington is occupied February 22, the same day that
Joseph E. Johnston is restored to the command of what is left of
the Army of Tennessee and given the impossible task of stopping
Sherman's armies then sweeping northward through South Carolina.
Sherman's troops occupy Columbia on February 17 and compel the
evacuation of Charleston that evening. Entering North Carolina,
Sherman defeats Johnston at Averasboro and at Bentonville.
At Goldsboro, Sherman is joined by Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield's
force, fresh from victory at Kinston. The outnumbered Johnston
surrenders his troops to Sherman on April 26, at Durham Station.
Meanwhile in Alabama, Mobile falls to Federal forces while Maj.
Gen. James H. Wilson's Union cavalry corps sweeps through Selma
and Montgomery and on to Columbus and Macon, Georgia. Near Irwinville,
Georgia, on May 10, his troopers capture Confederate president
Davis, who had fled Richmond when that city was evacuated on April
2. From Jonesboro, Tennessee, Maj. Gen. George Stoneman and his
4,000 cavalrymen raid eastward across the Appalachians into southwest
Virginia and North Carolina's Piedmont region. By June 23, the
last Confederate army has surrendered and the long war is finally
over.
Gun with muzzle shot away, Fort Fisher, North Carolina. January 1865.
Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs
Division.
- January 13-14 Attack
and capture of Fort
Fisher, North Carolina. [More]
- January 14-April 26 Sherman's Campaign of the Carolinas.
- February 22 Capture of
Wilmington, North Carolina.
- March 22-April 22 Wilson's
Alabama and Georgia Raid.
- April 2 Battle of
Selma, Alabama.
- March 23-April 23 Stoneman's
North Carolina and Virginia Raid
- March 25-April 12 Mobile Campaign, Alabama.
- Late April Camp
Sumter (Andersonville), Georgia. Surviving prisoners
of war are released from
the notorious military
prison. [Cemetery and
maps drawn by a prisoner (1, 2, 3).]
- May 4 Surrender of Lt.
Gen. Richard Taylor's Confederate forces at Citronelle,
Alabama.
- May 12-13 Battle of Palmito
Ranch, Texas. Last Civil War land engagement.
- May 26 Surrender of Lt.
Gen. E. Kirby Smith's Confederate forces at New Orleans,
Louisiana.
- June 23 Surrender of Brig.
Gen. Stand Watie's Confederate Indian forces at Doaksville,
Indian Territory.
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Where the Armies Fought |
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More than 10,000 military actions of one kind or another took place
during the Civil War. Only a small percentage were big battles like
Gettysburg
or Vicksburg;
most were relatively small affairs, many of them forgotten today.
The following breakdown by State shows where most of these events
took place.
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Virginia |
2,154 |
Tennessee |
1,462 |
Missouri |
1,162 |
Mississippi |
772 |
Arkansas |
771 |
West Virginia |
632 |
Louisiana |
566 |
Georgia |
549 |
Kentucky |
453 |
Alabama |
336 |
North Carolina |
313 |
South Carolina |
239 |
Maryland |
203 |
Florida |
168 |
Texas |
90 |
Indian Territory |
89 |
California |
88 |
New Mexico Territory |
75 |
From the Civil War Day by Day:
An Almanac, 1861-1865. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc.,
1971. |
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Civil War Battlefields in the National
Park System |
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* Fort
Sumter, South Carolina (April 12-14, 1861)
* First
Manassas, Virginia (July 21, 1861)
* Wilson's
Creek, Missouri (August 10, 1861)
* Fort
Pickens (Santa Rosa Island), Florida (October 9, 1861)
* Fort
Donelson, Tennessee (February 11-16, 1862)
* Pea
Ridge, Arkansas (March 6-8, 1862)
* Glorieta
Pass, New Mexico (March 26-28, 1862)
* Shiloh,
Tennessee (April 6-7, 1862)
* Fort
Pulaski, Georgia (April 10-11, 1862)
* Seven
Days' Battles Around Richmond,
Virginia (June 25-July 1, 1862)
* Mechanicsville
(Beaver Dam Creek), Virginia (June 26, 1862)
* Gaines'
Mill, Virginia (June 27, 1862)
* Malvern
Hill, Virginia (July 1, 1862)
* Second
Manassas, Virginia (August 28-30, 1862)
* Harpers
Ferry, West Virginia (September 12-15, 1862)
* Antietam,
Maryland (September 16-18, 1862)
* Fredericksburg,
Virginia (December 11-15, 1862)
* Stones
River, Tennessee (December 31,1862-January 2,1863)
* Arkansas
Post, Arkansas (January 9-11, 1863)
* Chancellorsville,
Virginia (April 30-May 6, 1863)
* Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania (July 1-3, 1863)
* Vicksburg,
Mississippi (May 18-July 4, 1863)
* Chickamauga,
Georgia (September 18-20, 1863)
* Chattanooga,
Tennessee (November 23-25, 1863)
* The
Wilderness, Virginia (May 5-7, 1864)
* Spotsylvania
Court House, Virginia (May 8-21, 1864)
* Brice's
Cross Roads, Mississippi (June 10, 1864)
* Cold
Harbor, Virginia (May 31-June 12, 1864)
* Petersburg,
Virginia (June 15-18, 1864)
* Kennesaw
Mountain, Georgia (June 27, 1864)
* Monocacy,
Maryland (July 9, 1864)
* Fort
Stevens, District
of Columbia (July 11-12, 1864)
* Tupelo,
Mississippi (July 14-15, 1864)
* Appomattox
Court House, Virginia (April 9, 1865) |
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Adapted from the National
Park Service brochure The
Civil War at a Glance, dated 1995, posted online by the
U.S. Government Services
Administration's Federal
Citizen Information Center as:The Civil War at a Glance
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