Major Battles of the Civil War

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Major Battles of the Civil War
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• April 1861 -- Attack on Fort Sumter.
• When President Lincoln planned to send supplies
  to Fort Sumter, he alerted the state in advance,
  in an attempt to avoid hostilities. South
  Carolina, however, feared a trick the commander
  of the fort, Robert Anderson, was asked to
  surrender immediately. Anderson offered to
  surrender, but only after he had exhausted his
  supplies. His offer was rejected, and on April
  12, the Civil War began with shots fired on the
  fort. Fort Sumter eventually was surrendered to
  South Carolina.

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• July 1861 -- First Battle of Bull Run.
• Public demand pushed General-in-Chief Winfield
  Scott to advance on the South before adequately
  training his untried troops. Scott ordered
  General Irvin McDowell to advance on Confederate
  troops stationed at Manassas Junction, Virginia.
  McDowell attacked on July 21, and was initially
  successful, but the introduction of Confederate
  reinforcements resulted in a Southern victory and
  a chaotic retreat toward Washington by federal
  troops.

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• April 1862 -- The Battle of Shiloh.
• On April 6, Confederate forces attacked Union
  forces under General Ulysses S. Grant at Shiloh,
  Tennessee. By the end of the day, the federal
  troops were almost defeated. Yet, during the
  night, reinforcements arrived, and by the next
  morning the Union commanded the field. When
  Confederate forces retreated, the exhausted
  federal forces did not follow. Casualties were
  heavy -- 13,000 out of 63,000 Union soldiers
  died, and 11,000 of 40,000 Confederate troops
  were killed

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The Battle of Shiloh Mini Site
                                                  
                                                  
                 
                     side of him
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Island No. 10 and New Orleans

• The Battle of Island Number Ten was a military
  engagement on the Mississippi River during the
  Civil War. Union land and naval forces besieged
  and captured the island in early 1862, further
  opening the river.

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The Battle of Second Manassas           August
28-30, 1862In August 1862, Union and Confederate
armies converged for a second time on the plains
of Manassas. The naive enthusiasm that preceded
the earlier encounter was gone. War was not the
holiday outing or grand adventure envisioned by
the young recruits of 1861. The contending
forces, now made up of seasoned veterans, knew
well the realities of war. The Battle of Second
Manassas, covering three days, produced far
greater carnage-3,300 killed-and brought the
Confederacy to the height of its power. Still the
battle did not weaken Northern resolve. The war's
final outcome was yet unknown, and it would be
left to other battles to decide whether the
sacrifice at Manassas was part of the high price
of Southern independence, or the cost of one
country again united under the national standard.

• GRAND TOTAL - 9,420 (South)
• GRAND TOTAL - 14,449 (North)

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• September 1862 -- Antietam.
• On September 17, Confederate forces under General
  Lee were caught by General McClellan near
  Sharpsburg, Maryland. This battle proved to be
  the bloodiest day of the war 2,108 Union
  soldiers were killed and 9,549 wounded -- 2,700
  Confederates were killed and 9,029 wounded. The
  battle had no clear winner, but because General
  Lee withdrew to Virginia, McClellan was
  considered the victor. The battle convinced the
  British and French -- who were contemplating
  official recognition of the Confederacy -- to
  reserve action, and gave Lincoln the opportunity
  to announce his Preliminary Emancipation
  Proclamation (September 22), which would free all
  slaves in areas rebelling against the United
  States, effective January 1, 1863.

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• June-July 1863 -- The Gettysburg Campaign.
• Gettysburg, Pa.June 1863 Confederate General
  Lee decided to take the war to the enemy. On June
  13, he defeated Union forces at Winchester,
  Virginia, and continued north to Pennsylvania.
  General Hooker, who had been planning to attack
  Richmond, was instead forced to follow Lee.
  Hooker, never comfortable with his commander,
  General Halleck, resigned on June 28, and General
  George Meade replaced him as commander of the
  Army of the Potomac.
• On July 1, a chance encounter between Union and
  Confederate forces began the Battle of
  Gettysburg. In the fighting that followed, Meade
  had greater numbers and better defensive
  positions. He won the battle, but failed to
  follow Lee as he retreated back to Virginia.
  Militarily, the Battle of Gettysburg was the
  high-water mark of the Confederacy it is also
  significant because it ended Confederate hopes of
  formal recognition by foreign governments. On
  November 19, President Lincoln dedicated a
  portion of the Gettysburg battlefield as a
  national cemetery, and delivered his memorable
  "Gettysburg Address."

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Little Round Top
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Dead Confederate Soldier in Devil Den
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The Harvest of Death
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November 1864 -- General William T. Sherman's
March to the Sea.General Sherman continued his
march through Georgia to the sea. In the course
of the march, he cut himself off from his source
of supplies, planning for his troops to live off
the land. His men cut a path 300 miles in length
and 60 miles wide as they passed through Georgia,
destroying factories, bridges, railroads, and
public buildings.
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General William Tecumseh Sherman
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Burning of a Railroad Station
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Map of Sherman's March to the Sea imposed on a map of Georgia showing railroads of 1864
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Allatoona Pass, shortly after the battle. Note the Clayton (now Mooney) House to the left of the picture (still standing). Also the artillery stables at the top of the hill on right. Part of the fort can been seen on the top of the ridge to the left of the pass.
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• April 1865 -- Fallen Richmond.
• On March 25, General Lee attacked General Grant's
  forces near Petersburg, but was defeated --
  attacking and losing again on April 1. On April
  2, Lee evacuated Richmond, the Confederate
  capital, and headed west to join with other
  forces.

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   Shells of the buildings of Richmond,
silhouetted against a dark sky after the
destruction by Confederates fleeing advancing
Union forces, 1865.
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• April 1865 -- Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.
• General Lee's troops were soon surrounded, and on
  April 7, Grant called upon Lee to surrender. On
  April 9, the two commanders met at Appomattox
  Courthouse, and agreed on the terms of surrender.
  Lee's men were sent home on parole -- soldiers
  with their horses, and officers with their side
  arms. All other equipment was surrendered.

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NPS Image
The McLean House
 
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Large Easy to Read Map Printable PDF
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"The Surrender" by Keith Rocco is based upon research by National Park Service Historians and Curators.
 
On April 9, 1865 after four years of Civil War,
approximately 630,000 deaths and over 1 million
casualties, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the
Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to
Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, at the home
of Wilmer and Virginia McLean in the rural town
of Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
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April 14, 1865 -- The Assassination of President
Lincoln at Fords Theater
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Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancé Clara Harris
with the President
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The Conspirators
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Hanging Preparations
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From left John Wilkes Booth, Edwin Booth, and
Junius Booth
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End of Battles Slideshow
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New Military Technology

• Ironclads Ironsides
• Artillery (Many different improved types)
• Ammunition
• Move away from musket towards repeating rifles
• Use of Cavalry
• Use of Signal Corps
• Hot Air Balloons
• Medical techniques

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The First Ironclad built in America-USS St. Louis
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USS Merrimac to CSS Virginia
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• Battle of the "Monitor" and the "Merrimac" --
  March 1862
• In an attempt to reduce the North's great naval
  advantage, Confederate engineers converted a
  scuttled Union frigate, the U.S.S. Merrimac, into
  an iron-sided vessel rechristened the C.S.S.
  Virginia. On March 9, in the first naval
  engagement between ironclad ships, the Monitor
  fought the Virginia to a draw, but not before the
  Virginia had sunk two wooden Union warships off
  Norfolk, Virginia.

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Basic Terminology This is a schematic of a
Napoleon, with the addition of a chamber purely
for illustrative purposes. (From Dean S. Thomas,
Cannons An Introduction to Civil War Artillery)
                                               
                               
a - knob b - neck c - vent d - trunnion e - muzzle swell f - muzzle face g - muzzle h - rimbase i - cascable j - breech k - chamber l - bore

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Name TubeLength TubeLength TubeWeight BoreDiameter BoreDiameter Range1 Range1 Material
GUNS GUNS GUNS GUNS GUNS GUNS GUNS GUNS GUNS
Six-Pounder, M1841 Six-Pounder, M1841 60 inches 884 pounds 884 pounds 3.67 inches 3.67 inches 1520 yards Bronze
Light 12-pounder, M18572 Light 12-pounder, M18572 66 inches 1227 pounds 1227 pounds 4.62 inches 4.62 inches 1620 yards Bronze
10-pounder Parrott, M1861 10-pounder Parrott, M1861 78 inches 890 pounds 890 pounds 2.9 inches 2.9 inches 2000 yards Cast Iron
20-Pounder Parrott 20-Pounder Parrott 89 inches 1750 pounds 1750 pounds 3.67 inches 3.67 inches 2100 yards Cast Iron
3-inch ordnance rifle 3-inch ordnance rifle 73 inches 816 pounds 816 pounds 3.0 inches 3.0 inches 1850 yards Wrought Iron
HOWITZERS HOWITZERS HOWITZERS HOWITZERS HOWITZERS HOWITZERS HOWITZERS HOWITZERS HOWITZERS
12-Pounder 12-Pounder 53 inches 778 pounds 778 pounds 4.62 inches 1100 yards 1100 yards Bronze
24-pounder 24-pounder 65 inches 1318 pounds 1318 pounds 5.82 inches 1325 yards 1325 yards Bronze
Mountain Howitzer Mountain Howitzer 37 inches 220 pounds 220 pounds 4.62 inches 900 yards 900 yards Bronze
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Artillery (Indirect Fire)

• Cannons
• Guns
• Howitzer
• Mortar
• Muzzle Loader Vs. Breechloader

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13-inch seacoast mortarScan courtesy Dave Smith
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Rampart
                                                                                                              

                                             In both temporary and permanent fortifications a rampart was a mound of earth that enclosed the fortified ground. Its basic purpose was to shield the interior of a fortification from horizontal artillery fire and increase the relief of the work to protect it against assault by storming or escalade. In most cases the exterior side of the rampart formed the scarp wall which was retained with at a slope of 1 base for 24 of height by a masonry wall buttressed by internal counterforts. The interior side could either be revetted or allowed to fall with a gentle slope to form the ramp of the terre-plein of the rampart. Ramparts were rarely included in the profile of field fortifications, but were employed on occasion to increase the relief of an important and provide the artillery armament with a better command of the surrounding country than it would otherwise have. In sea-coast field fortifications ramparts were sometimes used to provide the artillery armament with a better angle to fire down on warships engaging the fortification.

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The Balloons With The Army  Of The Potomac 
                                                  
     
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THE MILITARY-TELEGRAPH SERVICE
                                                  
                         Telegraph battery-wagon
near Petersburg, June 1864
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War on Horseback                                
                             
                               
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                            Springfield Rifle
MusketThe most frequently used rifle of the
Civil War was the American-made Springfield rifle
musket (above)--a single-shot, muzzle-loading gun
detonated with a percussion cap. Not only did it
have the rifled barrel, which dramatically
increased accuracy over a smoothbore musket, but
it also was the first rifle to fire the famous
.58 cal. Minié ball--an inch-long, bullet-shaped
projectile, rather than a round ball as used in
older muskets. The 39-inch-long rifled barrel
made it possible to hit a target with a Minié
ball as far away as 500 yards. By the end of the
war, approximately 1.5 million Springfield rifle
muskets had been produced by the Springfield
Armory and 20 subcontractors. Since the South
lacked sufficient manufacturing capability, most
of the Springfields in Southern hands were
captured on the battlefields during the early
part of the war.
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Spencer repeating rifle The Spencer repeating
rifle was a manually operated lever-action,
repeating rifle fed from a tube magazine with
cartridges. It was adopted by the Union Army,
especially by the cavalry, during the American
Civil War, but did not replace the standard issue
muzzle-loading rifled muskets in use at the time.
The Spencer carbine was a shorter and lighter
version.
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                        As many as 50 of the .52 calibre breech-loading Billinghurst-Requa batteries, as they were called, were produced for the Union. Some were used in battles, though with limited effect. This gun used a light carriage to mount 25 rifled barrels side by side. When loaded and primed, the gun was set off by use of a lanyard -- firing the barrels in sequence with a rippling sound. Several different types of rapid-firing weapons were designed and produced during the war, although few saw much actual service.
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                                                     The first machine-gun type weapon ever used in combat was built for the Confederate War Dept in Sept 1861. The Williams breech-loading rapid-fire gun was first used at the Battle of Seven Pines and worked so well that the War Dept ordered 42 more of them. The gun was actually a crank-operated, very light artillery piece that fired a one-pound (1.57 calibre) projectile with a range of 2,000 yards. It was operated by a crew of three and could fire at a rate of 65 rounds per minute. One operator aimed and fired the weapon by turning the crank, the second placed a paper cartridge into the breech, and the third placed the percussion cap. The major problem with this gun was overheating, which made the breech jam due to heat expansion.
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                    In 1848 Morgan James of
Utica, N.Y. invented the long-tube telescopic
sight that would be used by Civil War marksmen
just 13 years later. Priced at about 20, these
telescopes were no more than four power. But in
the hands of a skilled soldier with a sharp wit
and keen eye, these devices offered sufficient
magnification for aiming a rifle with deadly,
long-distance accuracy
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Caring for the Men The History of Civil War
Medicine                                        
                              
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Fig. 452  The "MOSES" Ambulance WagonFront View
                                                                                         
Fig. 459.  The "TRIPLER" Ambulance Wagon Rear
View
Fig. 453. The "MOSES" Ambulance WagonRear View
                                             
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Civil War Nurses"The Angels of the Battlefield"
                                 
 Approximately two thousand women, North and
South, served as volunteer nurses in military
 hospitals during the American Civil War. Seeking
convention and direct involvement in the national
struggle rather than the domestic support roles
to which social minimum career opportunity had
traditionally confined the majority of their sex,
they experienced at first hand the grim constants
of war -- amputated limbs, mutilated bodies,
disease and death -- and provided invaluable aid
to the sick and wounded soldiers and medical
authorities on either side.
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Amputations  "Saved By The Saw" The trademark of
Civil War surgery, amputations accounted for 75
percent of all operations performed by Civil War
doctors. More arms and legs were chopped off in
this war than in any other fought by this
country. Three out of every four wounded soldiers
were hit in the extremities, and at that time,
amputation was the only proper medical treatment
for a compound fracture or severe laceration of a
limb.
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Union Amputations
Cases Deaths Fatal
Fingers 7,902 198 2.5
Forearms 1,761 245 13.9
Upper Arms 5,540 1,273 23.0
Toes 1,519 81 5.3
Shins 5,523 1,790 32.4
Thighs 6,369 3,411 53.6
Knee Joints 195 111 56.9
Hip Joints 66 55 83.3
Ankle Joints 161 119 73.9

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TABLE XV.Summarizing the Records of the Hospital
at Camp Sumter, Andersonville, Georgia.
  Cases admitted into hospital Died Percentage of fatal cases
All diseases and injuries  17,875 12,541 70.2 
Continued Fevers 283 241 85.8
Malarial Fevers 254 163 67.6
Diarrhea and Dysentery 7,352 5,605 80.3
Consumption 35 26 74.3
Rheumatism 202 83 48.2
Scurvy 5,662 3,614 68.4
Bronchitis 205 141 70.1
Pneumonia 553 322 65.8
Totals 33,421 22,736 70.2
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Summary of Military Technology

• Ironclads Ironsides
• Artillery (Many different improved types)
• Ammunition
• Move away from musket towards repeating rifles
• Use of Cavalry
• Use of Signal Corps
• Hot Air Balloons
• Medical techniques