What are some post-Civil War events and battles that actually have to do with the Civil War??

Question

I am making a timeline of these events, so I need dates too!

Answer 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_Civil_War_topics#Post-War

Try it!

Answer 2

You have several answers that provide timelines for conventional events and battles. However, here are some very important items that were a direct result of the Civil War that are often overlooked. Each one of these had dramatic or historically significant ramifications and have made us, good or bad, the nation we are today.

1. Redefining "Freedom of the press"
Prior and during the Civil War, the press was only allowed
to print what the administration considered "proper" and
did not undermine its position on the war or seccession.
Post war policy determined that the press should truly be
free to express their opinions for or against anything the
administration might be doing. This is why we have the
freedom today to critize both Clinton and Bush and not be
shut-down (they literally tore down publisher's presses who
supported an end to the war during Lincoln's administration
and charged the publishers with Treason and Sedition)

2. Amendments to the constitution banning slavery and seccession.
Although the North claimed it was already unconstitutional
for a state to seceed, the reality was that many states, both
North and South, had threatened to seceed a number of
times between 1779 and the start of the civil war. The
amendment made it "officially" unconstitutional.
Although the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in
those states supporting secession, the amendment
made slavery illegal in "all" states, present and future.

3. Elevation of importance of the Supreme Court
Lincoln ignored several Supreme Court decisions during
his administration. The Supreme Court was not always
considered the last word on a topic and prior to the civil
war it had limited power to rule over many issues. This
changed as a direct result of these "conflicts" between the
administration, states and the Supreme Court after the war.
It also showed how it was possible to "legislate from the
bench" and made it clear to savvy politicians that in order
to control what was considered "constitutional", you had
to make sure those nominated and confirmed to the bench
of the same mind as your party. THIS IS ONE OF THE
MOST IMPORTANT REASONS THAT EITHER PARTY
WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT. He/She who controls the
Administration, controls the selection of Supreme Court
Justices, and therefore which way the court will lean on
any given decision.

4. Death of Federalism/Establishment of Nationalism
Prior to the Civil War, many states considered themselves
part of a "union" of like-minded states. They were, for
example, "Virginians first". This is why Robert E. Lee
refused Lincoln's request to put down a rebellion; he said
he would not fight his fellow statesmen over an issue that
was their own affair. Even those who signed the original
Constitution were divided over this issue, as many believed
the country was better off as a Nation, while the rest wanted
a certain degree of self-determination afforded by being
a Federal Union of states, where states rights were of
paramont importance. The civil war ended the debate and
the U.S. as a nation was born.

5. Loss of state sovereignty
See paragraph above. Although there is still a certain
degree of state sovereignty (different age of consent,
drinking age, taxes, etc.), these are trivial when compared
to the rights lost by "independed" states belonging to a
union by their own consent.

6. War Powers Act redefined
Lincoln pushed the interpretation of the wars powers
invested in a commander in chief to the limit. Suspension
of Habeus Corpus nation wide, using the national army
against a state in the union, suspension of the freedom of
the press, instituting a draft at the national level, amongst
other things, many of which would get a modern president
either impeached or torn to pieces. The result was a
series of rulings that have redefined the war powers act.

Hope this helps shed some modern light on history.

Answer 3

Grant elected President ... Amendments to the Constitution 13, 14, & 15... reconstruction ... carpetbaggers .... rise of the KKK ... film The Birth of A Nation

Answer 4

Nah! As a tenet to all and sundry perchance we could consistently have the presidents/ministers publicly humiliated then shot for being traitors to the electorate and make all administration experience the two unworthy and then centred with huge expenses costs for 2d residences.

Answer 5

this should help:

Answer 6

this may be a lot but its worth it...

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 folder, 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.

Where the Armies Fought

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.

Virginia 2,154 Ref Virginia's Civil War
Tennessee 1,462 Ref Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee: A Portrait of Life in a Confederate Army
Missouri 1,162 Ref Guerilla Warfare in Civil War Missouri
Mississippi 772 Ref Portraits of Conflict: A Photographic History of Mississippi in the Civil War
Arkansas 771 Ref With Fire and Sword: Arkansas, 1861-1874 (Histories of Arkansas)
West Virginia 632 Ref West Virginia Civil War Almanac Volume 2
Louisiana 566 Ref Scarred By War: Civil War In Southeast Louisiana
Georgia 549 Ref Plain Folk in a Rich Man's War: Class and Dissent in Confederate Georgia
Kentucky 453 Ref The Civil War in Kentucky
Alabama 336 Ref Law's Alabama Brigade in the War Between the Union and the Confederacy
North Carolina 313 Ref The Civil War in North Carolina: Soldiers' and Civilians' Letters and Diaries, 1861-1865
South Carolina 239 Ref Portraits of Conflict: A Photographic History of South Carolina in the Civil War
Maryland 203 Ref A Southern Star For Maryland: Maryland and the Secession Crisis
Florida 168 Ref Confederate Military History Florida
Texas 90 Ref In The Saddle With The Texans: Day-by-Day with Parsons's Cavalry Brigade, 1862-1865
Indian Territory 89 Ref The American Indian in the Civil War, 1862-1865
California 88 Ref California Sabers: The 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry in the Civil War
New Mexico Territory 75 Ref Civil War in the Southwest: Recollections of the Sibley Brigade
Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac Ref The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac, 1861-1865

Eastern Theater
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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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 Bulls 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 Major General 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.

March 4 Abraham Lincoln inaugurated 16th President of the U. S.
April 12-13 Bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter Ref Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War
April 15 President Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers
April 17 Virginia secedes
April 19 Confederates occupy Harpers Ferry, (now West Virginia) Ref Harpers Ferry (grades 5-8) or A Matter of Hours: Treason at Harper's Ferry
June 10 Engagement at Big Bethel, First land battle in Virginia
July 11 Engagement at Rich Mountain, Virginia (West Virginia) Ref The Battle of Rich Mountain
July 21 First battle of Manassas (Bull Run), Virginia Ref A Single Grand Victory: The First Campaign and Battle of Manassas
July 27 George McClellan takes command Union Army of the Potomac Ref Army Of The Potomac: McClellan Takes Command
October 21 Battle of Ball's Bluff, Virginia Ref Balls Bluff: A Small Battle and Its Long Shadow

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1862
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, Major General Ambrose E. Burnside, throws his army against Lee's near Fredericksburg, Virginia, in a series of frontal assaults that are easily and bloodily repulsed.

March 9 USS Monitor vs CSS Virginia in Hampton Roads, Virginia First naval battle between ironclad vessels.

Mar 23-Jun 9 Stonewall's Shenandoah Valley Campaign Ref The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862
March 23 Battle of Kernstown
Ref We Are in for It!: The First Battle of Kernstown March 23, 1862
May 8 Battle of McDowell
Ref Battle of McDowell (The Virginia Civil War battles and leaders series)
May 23 Battle of Front Royal
Ref Front Royal and Warren County (Images of America: Virginia)
May 25 First Battle of Winchester
Ref The First Battle of Winchester (Virginia Civil War Battles and Leaders Series)
June 8 Battle of Cross Keys
Ref The battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic
June 9 Battle of Port Republic
Ref Conquering the Valley: Stonewall Jackson at Port Republic

Apr 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-Jun 1 Battle of Seven Pines (Fair Oaks), Virginia Ref The Battle of Seven Pines, May 31-June 1, 1862
Jun 1 Robert E. Lee assumes command Army of Northern Virginia Ref Lee and His Army in Confederate History (Civil War America)
June 25-July 1 Seven Days' Battles Richmond, Virginia Ref Seven Days Battles: Lee's Defense of Richmond
June 25 Battle of Oak Grove

June 26 Battle of Mechanicsburg

June 27 Battle of Gaines' Mill

June 29 Battle of Savage's Station

June 30 Battle of Glendale (Fraser's Farm)

July 1 Battle of Malvern Hill

August 9 Battle of Cedar Mountain, Virginia Ref Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain
August 28-30 Battle of Second Manassas (Bull Run), Virginia Ref Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas
September 1 Battle of Chantilly (Ox Hill), Virginia Ref Tempest at Ox Hill: The Battle of Chantilly
September 12-15 Siege and capture Harpers Ferry, (WestVirginia) Ref The History of the Harpers Ferry Cavalry Expedition, September 14 & 15, 1862
September 14-17 Battles of South Mountain and Antietam, Maryland Ref Antietam Battlefield, Sharpsburg, Maryland, 1862 (A Civil War Watercolor Map)
November 7 Burnside replaces McClellan Army of the Potomac Commander Ref The life and public services of Ambrose E. Burnside,: Soldier - citizen - statesman
December 11-13 Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Ref The Fredericksburg Campaign: Decision on the Rappahannock

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1863
The 1863 campaigns open along the Rappahannock in the final days of April as Burnside's replacement, Major General 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 Major General 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 Ref Burnside (Union General Ambrose Burnside)
January 26 Hooker succeeds Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac Ref Fighting Joe Hooker
April 11-May 4 Siege of Suffolk, Virginia
April-May, Chancellorsville Campaign, Virginia Ref Chancellorsville: The Battle and Its Aftermath (Campaigns of the Civil War)
April 29-May 8 Stoneman's Road

May 1-4 Battle of Chancellorsville
Ref Chancellorsville
May 3 Second Battle of Fredericksburg
Ref Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville: The Dare Mark Campaign
May 3-4 Battle of Salem Church


May 10 Stonewall Jackson dies at Guiney's Station, Virginia
Ref Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend

June 3-July 13 Gettysburg Campaign, Pa
June 9 Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia

June 13-15 Second Battle of Winchester, Virginia

June 28 Meade replaces Hooker as Army of the Potomac Commander
Ref George Gordon Meade and the War in the East (Campaigns and Commanders Series)
July 1-3 Battle of Gettysburg

July 13-16 New York City draft riots Ref The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War
October 9-22 Bristoe Campaign, Va
October 14 Battle of Briscoe Station

November 6 Battle of Droop Mountain, West Virginia Ref Last Sleep: The Battle of Droop Mountain November 6, 1863
November 7 Engagement at Rappahannock Station, Virginia Ref The Fredericksburg Campaign: Decision on the Rappahannock
November 19 Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg Address Ref The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows
November 26-December 2 Mine Run Campaign, Virginia Ref Mine Run: A Campaign of Lost Opportunities October 21. 1863-May 1, 1864

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1864
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 Major General 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 a 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, Major General Philip Sheridan erases Early's army from the war.

May 5-6 Battle of the Wilderness, Virginia Ref The Battle of the Wilderness May 5-6, 1864
May 8-21 Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia Ref The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7-12, 1864
May 9-24 Sheridan's Richmond Raid Ref The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 (Military Campaigns of the Civil War)
May 15 Battle of New Market, Virginia Ref Cadets at War: The True Story of Teenage Heroism at the Battle of New Market
May 16 Battle of Drewry's Bluff, Virginia
May 23-26 Battle of North Anna River, Virginia Ref Bloody Roads South: The Wilderness to Cold Harbor, May-June 1864
May 31-Jun 12 Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia Ref The Battle of Cold Harbor (Virginia Civil War Battles & Leaders)
June 5 Battle of Piedmont, Virginia
June 11-12 Battle of Trevilian Station, Virginia Ref Glory Enough for All: Sheridan's Second Raid and the Battle of Trevilian Station
June 15-18 Battle of Petersburg, Virginia Ref Petersburg Campaign the Battle of Old Men & Young Boys June 9 1864
June 17-18 Battle of Lynchburg, Virginia Ref Military Operation, 1861-1864: Fayetteville, West Va. & Lynchburg Va. Campaign
June 18-December 31 Siege of Petersburg, Virginia Ref The Last Citadel: Petersburg, Virginia, June 1864-April 1865
July 30 Battle of the Crater
Ref The 48th Pennsylvania in the Battle of the Crater: A Regiment of Coal Miners Who Tunneled Under the Enemy
August 18-25 Battle of Weldon Railroad and Ream's Station
Ref Destruction of Weldon Railroad Deep Bottom Globe Tavern and Reams Station Aug 14-25, 64
September 29 Engagement at New Market Heights
Ref Petersburg (Sieges That Changed the World)
September 29-30 Battle of Fort Harrison (Chaffin's Farm)

September 29-Oct 2 Battle of Peebles' Farm

October 27-28 Battle of Burgess' Mill (Boydton Plank Road)

June 23-July 25 Early's Washington Raid
July 9 Battle of Monocacy, Maryland

July 12 Battle of Fort Stevens, near Washington, D.C.
Ref Season of Fire: The Confederate Strike on Washington
July 24 Second Battle of Kernstown, Virginia

August 7-October 19 Sheridan's Shenandoah Valley, Campaign Ref The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864
September 19 Third Battle of Winchester (Opequon Creek)
Ref From Winchester to Cedar Creek: The Shenandoah Campaign of 1864
September 22 Battle of Fisher's Hill
Ref Tibbits' Boys, The 21st New York Cavalry
October 19 Battle of Cedar Creek
Ref Battle of Cedar Creek: Showdown in the Shenandoah, October 1-30th, 1864
November 8 Lincoln reelected President of the United States Ref How We Elected Lincoln: Personal Recollections

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1865
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 President 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.


January 1-April 2 Siege of Petersburg continued

February 5-7 Battle of Hatcher's Run
March 25 Battle of Fort Stedman
April 1 Battle of Five Forks Ref Five Forks: Waterloo of the Confederacy
April 2 Petersburg lines breached
April 2 Confederates evacuate Richmond and Petersburg

April 3 US forces occupy Richmond

April 6 Battle of Sayler's Creek, Virginia

April 9 Lee surrenders at Appomattox Court House

April 14 Lincoln shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater, Washington, D.C.

May 23-24 Grand Review of Federal armies in Washington, D.C.



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Western Theater An excellent history of the fascinating and little published campaigns of the American West during the Civil War. Includes activities the Union had with the Sioux in the great Minnesota uprising and along with Kit Carson with the Apache at the Battle of Adobe Wells, Colorado troops and the Shoshone and the Cheyenne and the horrid Colonel Chivington at the massacre of Sand Creek. You'll find out that there were actually confederate prisoners fighting Indians in the Norhwest that were referred to as Galvanized Yankees and you'll find out what happened to General Pope after 2nd Manasass. Besides these fascinating and unique situations, the author covers Banks' failed Red River campaign against Taylor but the high point to me is the description of Sibley's attempt to conquer the western states particularly New Mexico and the Battle of Glorietta Pass.

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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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1861
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 the 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, Mo., 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, South Carolina, and Ship Island, Mississippi. These enclaves not only provide bases for blockading squadrons but serve as spring boards for future amphibious operations.

April 12-13 Bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, South Carolina

July 5 Engagement at Carthage, Missouri Ref Battle of Carthage: Border War in southwest Missouri

August 10 Battle of Wilson's Creek, Missouri Ref Wilson's Creek: The Second Battle of the Civil War

August 27-29 Battle of Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina Ref The Civil War on Hatteras Island North Carolina

September 12-20 Siege and capture of Lexington, Missouri

November 7 Battle of Belmont, Missouri

November 7 Battle of Port Royal Sound, South Carolina

December 9 Engagement at Chusto-Talasah, Indian Territory

December 26 Engagement at Chustenahlah, Indian Territory


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1862
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 June, Union amphibious forces converge on but fail to 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.

January 19 Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky
February 6-16 Forts Henry & Donelson Campaign, Tennessee Ref An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign
February 6 Battle of Fort Henry, Tennessee

February 13-16 Battle of Fort Donelson, Tennessee

February 8 Battle of Roanoke Island, North Carolina
February 21 Engagement at Valverde, New Mexico Territory Ref Bloody Valverde: A Civil War Battle on the Rio Grande
March 6-8 Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas Ref Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West
March 26-28 Battle of Glorieta Pass, New Mexico Territory Ref The Battle of Glorieta Pass: A Gettysburg in the West
April 6-7 Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee Ref Shiloh: The Battle That Changed The Civil War
April 7 Capture of Island No. 10, Tennessee
April 10-11 Bombardment and capture of Fort Pulaski, Georgia Ref Sumter Is Avenged!: The Siege and Reduction of Fort Pulaski
April 29-May 30 Siege of Corinth, Mississippi Ref The Darkest Days of the War: The Battles of Iuka & Corinth
April-August Farragut's Mississippi River Operations
April 18-24 Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, Louisiana

August 5 Battle of Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Ref The Battle of Baton Rouge: 1862
June 6 Battle of Memphis, Tennessee
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 Ref Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle
October 16-December 20 Grant's First Vicksburg Campaign, Mississippi Ref The Beleaguered City : The Vicksburg Campaign
December 11-January 1 Forrest's West Tennessee Raid

December 17-28 Van Dorn's Holly Springs Raid
Ref Van Dorn: The Life and Times of a Confederate General
December 7 Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas
December 27-29 Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, Mississippi
December 31 Battle of Stones River, Tennessee begins. Ref No Better Place to Die: The Battle of Stones River



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1863
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 be 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.

January 1-2 Battle of Stones River, Tennessee, continued.

January 1 Battle of Galveston, Texas Ref Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle for Galveston

January 9-11 Battle of Arkansas Post, Arkansas

March 29-July 4 Grant's Second Vicksburg Campaign, Mississippi Ref The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi
April 11-May 3 Streight's Raid, Tennessee-Alabama Ref Lightning Mule Brigade: Streight's Raid into Alabama
April 16-22 Union fleet passes Vicksburg river batteries Ref The Butternut Guerillas: A Story of Grierson's Raid
April 17-May 2 Grierson's Raid, Tenn.-Miss.-La.
April 29 Battle of Grand Gulf, Mississippi

May 1 Battle of Port Gibson, Mississippi

May 12 Battle of Raymond, Mississippi

May 14 Battle of Jackson, Mississippi

May 16 Battle of Champion Hill, Mississippi
Ref Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg
May 17 Battle of Big Black River Bridge, Mississippi

May 19-July 4 Siege and surrender of Vicksburg
Ref Vicksburg, city under siege: William Foster's letter
June 7 Battle of Milliken's Bend, Luisiana


April - September- Operations against Defenses of Charleston, South Carolina
April 7 Federal Ironclads attack Charleston, South Carolina

July 10-11 Fort Wagner

July 16, Secessionville
Ref Secessionville: Assault on Charleston
July 18-September 7, Fort Wagner / Morris Island

August 17-August 23, Fort Sumter/Charleston Harbor/Morris Island

September 7-8, Charleston Harbor/Battery Gregg


May 21-July 9 Siege and surrender of Port Hudson, Louisiana

June 23-July 4 Tullahoma Campaign, Tennessee

July 2-26 Morgan's Raid, Ky.-Ind.-Ohio Ref The Longest Raid of the Civil War

July 10-16 Siege of Jackson, Mississippi

July 17 Battle of Honey Springs (Elk Creek), Indian Territory

August-September Chickamauga Campaign, Georgia Ref Six Armies in Tennessee: The Chickamauga and Chattanooga Campaigns
September 18-20 Battle of Chickamauga
Ref Chickamauga 1863: The River of Death

September 8 Battle of Sabine Pass, Texas Ref Sabine Pass: The Confederacy's Thermopylae

October-November Chattanooga Campaign, Tennessee Ref The Fight for Chattanooga: Chickamauga to Missionary Ridge
October 28-29 Wauhatchie Night Attack

November 23-25 Battle of Chattanooga
Ref Storming the Heights: A Guide to the Battle of Chattanooga

November-December Knoxville Campaign, Tennessee
November 17-December 4 Siege of Knoxville

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1864
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.

February 3-March 4 Meridian Expedition, Mississippi

February 22 Battle of Okolona
February 20 Battle of Olustee (Ocean Pond), Florida Ref Confederate Florida: The Road to Olustee

March 12-May 20 Red River, Camden Campaigns, La.-Ark. Ref The Texas Overland Expedition
March 23-May 3 Camden Expedition, Arkansas

April 8 Battle of Mansfield, Louisiana

April 9 Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana
Ref Journey to Pleasant Hill: Letters of Captain Petty CSA
April 12 Fort Pillow "massacre," Tennessee
Ref Black Flag! Black Flag!: The Battle at Fort Pillow
April 30 Battle of Jenkins' Ferry, Arkansas

May 7-September 2 Sherman's Atlanta Campaign Ref Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864
May 13-15 Battle of Resaca
Ref The Battle of Resaca: Atlanta Campaign
May 25-26 New Hope Church

May 26-June 1 Dallas

May 27 Pickett's Mill

June 27 Battle of Kennesaw Mountain
Ref Kennesaw Mountain June 1864: Bitter Standoff
July 20 Battle of Peachtree Creek

July 22 Battle of Atlanta

July 28 Battle of Ezra Church

August 31-September 1 Battle of Jonesboro

September 2 Union troops occupy Atlanta
Ref Battles for Atlanta: Sherman Moves East

June 10 Battle of Brice's Cross Roads, Mississippi

July 14 Battle of Tupelo, Mississippi Ref The Struggle for Tennessee: Tupelo to Stones River

August 5 Battle of Mobile Bay, Alabama Ref Mobile Bay and the Mobile Campaign

August 29-December 25 Price's Raid, Ark.-Mo.-Kan.-Indian Terr.-Tex Ref The American Indian in the Civil War, 1862-1865

November 15-December 21 Sherman's March to the Sea
November 22 Engagement at Griswoldville, Georgia
Ref Fields of Gray: Battle of Griswoldville
November 30 Engagement at Honey Hill, South Carolina

December 13 Capture of Fort McAllister, Georgia
Ref Best Men the South Could Boast, The Fall of Fort McAllister
December 21 Savannah, Georgia, occupied


November 29-December 27 Hood's Tennessee Campaign
November 29 Affair at Spring Hill

November 30 Battle of Franklin
Ref Five Tragic Hours: The Battle of Franklin
December 15-16 Battle of Nashville



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1865
The year begins with Union forces capturing Fort Fisher guarding 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 Jefferson 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 is surrendered and the long war is finally over.

January 13-14 Attack and capture of Fort Fisher, North Carolina Ref Hurricane of Fire: The Union Assault on Fort Fisher

January 14-April 26 Sherman's Carolinas Campaign
March 8-10 Battle of Kinston, North Carolina

March 16 Battle of Averasboro, North Carolina

March 19-21 Battle of Bentonville, North Carolina
Ref Bentonville: The Final Battle of Sherman and Johnson
April 13 Raleigh, North Carolina occupied

April 26 Surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston's Confederate forces near Durham Station, North Carolina


February 22 Capture of Wilmington, North Carolina Ref The Wilmington Campaign: Last Departing Rays of Hope

March 22-April 22 Wilson's Alabama and Georgia Raid Ref Yankee Blitzkrieg: Wilson's Raid Through Alabama and Georgia

March 23-April 23 Stoneman's North Carolina and Virginia Raid Ref The Mobile Campaign: Last Battles of the Civil War

March 25-April 12 Mobile Campaign, Alabama
March 27-April 8 Siege of Spanish Fort

April 2-9 Siege and Capture of Fort Blakely

April 12 Surrender of Mobile


April 2 Battle of Selma, Alabama

April 9 General Robert E. Lee Surrenders to General Ulysses S. Grant
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.