The Battle of Fort Sumter

The election of Abraham Lincoln in November of 1860 brought to a head the issue of slavery in the United States. In direct response to Lincoln's election as president, seven southern states seceded from the Union rather than continue to negotiate and compromise over the issue of slavery, which had been the norm for so many decades. Read More

The Battle of First Bull Run

One of earliest battles of the Civil War, it introduced Americans to the idea that this would likely not be a short conflict and blood would be shed: Read More

The Siege of Yorktown (1862)

Most of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army was not on the peninsula on April 4th when Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan departed Fortress Monroe on his Peninsula Campaign. The only force opposing the Yankee advance up the peninsula toward the Confederate capital at Richmond was Maj. Gen. John B. Magruder's small force of two divisions at Yorktown behind the Warwick River. Magruder's deceptive theatrics, conspicuously parading his men back and forth behind his defenses, convinced the Federals that his works were s… Read More

The Battle of Williamsburg

Following the Confederate withdrawal from their Yorktown position, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan was not prepared to mount an immediate pursuit with his entire force from the siege lines he had occupied for nearly a month. Initially, he was able to send forward only a portion of his army, led by the Third Corps of Samuel P. Heitzelman, to follow Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's Confederates. Heitzelman's divisions, led by Brig. Gens. Joseph Hooker and Phil Kearny, made contact with Johnston's army four miles sout… Read More

The Battle of Malvern Hill

On June 30th, the retreating Federal Army of the Potomac finally stopped at the James River at the end of seven days of fighting outside of Richmond. Read More

The Battle of Second Bull Run

After the early summer collapse of the Union Peninsula Campaign offensive to capture Richmond, Robert E. Lee sought to move his army north and threaten Washington DC before Union forces could regroup. Read More

The Battle of Harpers Ferry

As General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia advanced into Maryland in the fall of 1862, Lee made plans to capture the vital Union garrison at Harpers Ferry in the rear of his invading army. Although Maj. Gen. George McClellan's Army of the Potomac was in pursuit, in a bold maneuver Lee divided his army, sending three columns under Gen. Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson to Harpers Ferry while the rest of the army marched towards Hagerstown, Maryland. Surrounded on three sides by steep heights, the terrai… Read More

The Battle of Antietam

The Army of the Potomac, under the command of Maj. Gen. George McClellan, mounted a series of powerful assaults against General Robert E. Lee's forces along Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17th, 1862. Read More

The Battle of Fredericksburg

In early November, Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside took command of the Army of the Potomac, and made immediate plans to move the army once again toward Richmond. Read More

The Battle of Chancellorsville

On April 27, 1863, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker launched a turning movement designed to pry Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia out of its lines at Fredericksburg. Read More

The Battle of Gettysburg

In the summer of 1863, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee launched his second invasion of the Northern states. Lee sought to capitalize on recent Confederate victories and defeat the Union army on Northern soil, which he hoped would force the Lincoln administration to negotiate for peace. Lee also sought to take the war out of the ravaged Virginia farmland and gather supplies for his Army of Northern Virginia. Using the Shenandoah Valley as cover for his army, Lee was pursued first by Union Maj. Gen. Joseph Ho… Read More

The Battle of Chickamauga

After the successful Tullahoma Campaign, Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans continued the Union offensive, aiming to force Gen. Braxton Bragg's Confederate army out of Chattanooga. Through a series of skillful marches towards the Confederate-held city, Rosecrans forced Bragg out of Chattanooga and into Georgia. Determined to reoccupy the city, Bragg followed the Federals north, brushing with Rosecrans' army at Davis' Cross Roads. While they marched on September 18th, his cavalry and infantry skirmished with Un… Read More

The Battle of Wauhatchie

Wary of troops marching to the aid of the Federal army besieged at Chattanooga, General Braxton Bragg ordered General James Longstreet to take action against the force massing in Lookout Valley. In a rare nighttime attack, a division of Longstreet's corps attacked the Union rearguard near the crossroads of Wauhatchie. The brief fight was a bloody repulse for the Confederates, who were forced to withdraw. The Confederates had missed their last best chance to prevent supplies from reaching the Union Army of… Read More

The Battle of Wilderness

The first battle between Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. Robert E. Lee erupted late in the morning of May 5, 1864, as Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren's Union V Corps attacked Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's Second Corps on the Orange Turnpike southwest of the old Chancellorsville battlefield. Although Federal infantry managed to break through at several points, the Confederate line held. Fighting shifted to the south as Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill's Third Corps engaged Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock's II Corps and ele… Read More

The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House

Following the Battle of the Wilderness, Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant marched the Union army south with the hope of capturing Spotsylvania Court House and preventing Robert E. Lee's army from retreating further. Lee's Confederates, however, managed to get ahead of the Federals and block the road. Fighting began on May 8th, when the Union Fifth Corps under Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren and the Sixth Corps under Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick engaged Confederate Maj. Gen. Richard Anderson's First Corps at Laurel Hi… Read More

The Battle of North Anna

Following the stalemate at Spotsylvania Court House, Grant was determined to continue his offensive against Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. After a failed attempt to bait Lee out of his earthworks, he found the Confederates entrenched on the south side of the North Anna River, where Lee's "inverted V" defenses forced Grant to divide his army into three parts in order to attack. On May 23rd, one of Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill's divisions assaulted the isolated Fifth Corps on the Union right which had crossed the r… Read More

The Battle of Cold Harbor

After two days of inconclusive fighting along Totopotomoy Creek northeast of Richmond, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. Robert E. Lee turned their sights on the crossroads of Cold Harbor. Roads emanating through this critical junction led to Richmond as well as supply and reinforcement sources for the Union army. On May 31, 1864, Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan's cavalry captured Cold Harbor. The next day, Sheridan held the crossroads against a Confederate attack. With reinforcements from both armies arriving… Read More

The Battle of First Deep Bottom

Two weeks after Union forces arrived to invest the Confederate defenders of Petersburg, the battle lines of both sides settled into a stalemate. Since Cold Harbor, Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was reluctant to mount a large frontal attack against well-entrenched Confederates. By late June, Grant's lines covered most of the eastern approaches to Petersburg, but neither side seemed ready to risk an offensive move. Determined to break the stalemate, Grant agreed to plans to blow up part of the Confederate def… Read More

The Battle of Second Deep Bottom

As he had done in late July during the Battle of the Crater, Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant called upon Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock and his Second Corps to attack Gen. Robert E. Lee's forces around Richmond to exploit suspected weaknesses in Lee's lines. In early August, Grant had detached the Sixth Corps from the Union lines around Richmond and Petersburg and sent them to the Shenandoah Valley under Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan. Sheridan's new army there was to counter Gen. Jubal Early, then operating in the v… Read More

The Battle of Third Winchester

To clear the Shenandoah River valley of Confederates, Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan moved on Winchester in mid-September 1864. Sheridan's force of over 39,000 men was more than twice the size of Maj. Gen. Jubal Early's Confederate army defending the valley. After Brig. Gen. Joseph Kershaw's division left Winchester to rejoin Robert E. Lee's army at Petersburg, Early renewed his raids on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Martinsburg in the lower valley, dispersing his four remaining infantry divisions. On Septem… Read More

The Battle of Cedar Creek

Known As: Cedar Creek, Belle Grove Read More

The Battle of Averasborough

After his march through Georgia, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman headed north into the Carolinas, reaching central North Carolina by mid-March 1865. On the afternoon of March 15, Maj. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick's Union cavalry came up against Lt. Gen. William Hardee's corps, consisting of two divisions of infantry and one of cavalry deployed across the Raleigh Road near Averasboro. Hardee's orders from Gen. Joseph E. Johnston were to delay the progress of Sherman's army so that Johnston could consolidate the rema… Read More

The Battle of Bentonville

After his march to the sea, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman headed north in early 1865 to unite with Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's army in Virginia. Only Confederate Gen. Joseph Johnston's army stood between Sherman and Grant. After briefly blocking Sherman's advance at Averasboro, North Carolina on March 16, Johnston struck Maj. Gen. Henry Slocum's wing of Sherman's army near Bentonville on March 19. The Confederates ran into stiff resistance, as Slocum established a defensive position. Johnston's assaults con… Read More