     - American Civil War -

      - Eastern Theater -


            - 1861 -

On July 21, 1861, roughly equal 
forces met near Manassas, 
Virginia, in the first major 
land battle of the war.  
McDowell's army (soon to be 
known as the Army of the 
Potomac) attacked Beauregard's 
lines along Bull Run Creek.  
Successful early in the day, 
the Union army was at last held 
on the Confederate left by 
Thomas Jackson's brigade.  

Following Bull Run, both sides 
reorganized.  Union President 
Lincoln called George 
Mcclellan, fresh from small 
successes in western Virginia, 
to command the main Union 
force.  Confederate President 
Davis combined Beauregard's 
force with Joseph Jonhston's 
troops, and Johnston took the 
senior command of the 
Confederate forces in Virginia. 

Major military activity 
centered in Virginia in 1861.  
McClellan built an enormous 
army to hurl against Richmond.  
Jefferson Davis, concentrated 
forces to defend Richmond, 
as it became the Confederacy's 
new capital.   While the 
heaviest preparations for 
battle continued in Virginia, 
conflict flickered along the 
border. 


            - 1862 -

McClellan, the Union commander, 
had at last begun to move his 
vast army in March.  He planned 
a giant amphibious operation 
aimed at capturing Yorktown and 
moving onto Richmond.  The 
water route to Richmond up the 
James River was closed by the 
presence of the Confederate 
ironclad, Virginia.  McClellan, 
however, intended to advance 
up the peninsula between the 
York and James rivers.  By 
early April his forces had 
been transported by sea to the 
end of the peninsula and were 
massed to take Yorktown.  

Lee, serving as military 
advisor to Davis, encouraged 
Stonewall Jackson to conduct 
a campaign in the Shenandoah 
Valley, where his activities 
would threaten Washington.  
In a series of actions from 
March to June, Jackson confused 
and stalled the Union troops 
in the valley.  As a result, 
Union General McClellan, who 
had hoped for aid from a force 
under McDowell at 
Fredericksburg, did not 
receive any reinforcements 
for his campaign.
   
Having occupied Yorktown on 
May 4, McClellan began his 
advance up the peninsula.  
After a rear-guard action at 
Williamsburg on May 5th, the 
Confederates, under Johnston, 
withdrew slowly until McClellan 
reached Seven Pines.  There 
at the end of May, Johnston 
finally checked McClellan's 
advance.  Johnston, however, 
was severely wounded, and 
command of what would soon 
be known as the Army of 
Northern Virginia passed to 
Lee.  

Lee called Jackson to Richmond 
and planned a great wheeling 
turn to flank McClellan's 
right and pin part of his 
army against the Chickahominy 
River.  The plans were 
formulated on the basis of 
information from J.E.B. Stuart, 
who had made a complete circuit 
of the Union positions.  
Inexperienced staff officers, 
unexpected delays, and stiff
Union resistance prevented 
the total envelopment Lee had 
hoped for, but the Seven Days' 
Battles a the end of June 
forced McClellan to retreat 
from the peninsula, removing 
the threat against Richmond.

Lincoln appointed Henry Halleck 
commanding general on July 
11th.  Halleck put another 
Union army into Virginia under 
John Pope.  As Pope advanced 
from Washington, Lee detached 
Jackson with more than half 
the Army of Northern Virginia 
to meet him.  At Cedar Mountain 
on August 9th, Jackson drove 
Pope back toward Manassas 
Junction.  Having moved up to 
join Jackson, Lee sent him 
ahead again to flank Pope and 
outmarch him to Manassas. 
There Jackson destroyed the 
Union supply depot and took 
position near the old Bull 
Run battlefield.  While Pope 
moved to attack Jackson on 
August 29, Lee sent forward 
James Longstreet's wing of the 
army, which hit Pope's left 
flank on August 30.  Pope was 
smashed back across the 
Potomac.  With McClellan's 
force already withdrawn from 
Virginia, the Confederate 
state of Virginia was now 
virtually free from invaders.

If Lee and Braxton Bragg 
moved in concert, the South 
might exploit its inner lines 
and concentrate more troops 
at crucial points than the 
enemy.  Bragg moved north in 
late August, and Lee crossed 
the Potomac in early September.
The Army of the Potomac, once 
more under McClellan, 
reorganized near Washington.  
Buell's army retreated in 
confusion ahead of Bragg and 
was soon in what appeared to 
be a losing race for Louisville,
Kentucky.  

If Louisville fell, all of 
Indiana and Ohio would be 
open to rebels and the 
Baltimore and Ohio rail 
link would break.  If McClellan 
failed to halt Lee, Washington 
might fall.  Bragg maneuvered 
Buell deftly out of Tennessee, 
but was defeated at Perryville, 
Kentucky, on Oct.  8, 1862.  
He retired toward Chattanooga.  
Union commander William 
Rosecrans in late October, 
finally forced Bragg's 
withdrawal from central 
Tennessee with a costly 
victory at Stones River.  

Lee's invasion of Maryland 
went well at first.  At 
Frederick he divided his 
army, sending Jackson to 
take Harpers Ferry and open 
up a possible line of retreat 
to the Shenandoah Valley.  
However, a copy of Lee's order 
detailing troop dispositions 
fell into McClellan's hands, 
giving the latter a chance of 
success.  Concentrating his 
troops quickly in front of 
Lee at Sharpsburg, Maryland, 
along Antietam Creek, McClellan 
almost wrecked Lee's army, 
which Jackson had rejoined on 
September 17th.  The last-
minute arrival of an absent 
division under A. P. Hill saved 
Lee, but he was forced to 
retreat across the Potomac into 
Virginia on September 18th.  

Ambrose Burnside, in 
McClellan's place for the 
Union by November, attempted 
a new drive on Richmond, but 
failed to cross the 
Rappahannock River with 
necessary speed at 
Fredericksburg and found 
Lee's army concentrated 
against him.  Burnside 
launched a series of assaults 
against the entrenched 
Confederate lines on December 
13th.  The Confederates held 
their position without 
difficulty.  A month later 
Burnside was relieved of 
command.  Lincoln still looked 
for someone willing to take 
the initiative and use 
effectively the massive 
strengths of the North.  


            - 1863 -

Joseph Hooker, Burnside's 
successor, had planned to 
flank Lee, and get between 
him and Richmond.  Lee came 
out to meet Hooker at the 
beginning of May.  Hooker 
was decisively beaten at 
Chancellorsville, but Jackson 
was mortally wounded. 

On the heels of this victory, 
Lee seized the initiative by 
invading Pennsylvania.  
Virginia was picked clean of 
food, and Lee thought he could 
reprovision his army as well 
as aid the campaigns in the 
West by moving north.  At 
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on 
July 1, 1863, Lee's men met 
the Army of the Potomac, now 
commanded by George Meade.  

Three days of fierce fighting 
resulted.  On the first day the 
Confederates drove the Union 
forces back, until the latter 
reached a strong defensive 
position on Culp's Hill and 
Cemetery Hill.  On the second 
day, Confederate attacks on 
the Union flanks failed to 
dislodge Meade.  Finally, on 
July 3, Lee ordered George 
Pickett to lead a charge 
against the Union center on 
Cemetery Ridge.  The charge 
was replused and Lee had to 
retire back to Virginia.


            - 1864 -

Lincoln had noted that Meade 
failed to press victory after 
Gettysburg, while Grant at 
Vicksburg had stuck to his 
campaign until victorious.  
Grant seemed to be the 
commander that Lincoln was 
looking for, and in March 
1864 he became general in 
chief of all the Union armies.  

Grant's plan was simple - 
keep pressure on the South's 
major armies, prevent them 
from reinforcing each other, 
and fight throughout the 
summer.  Launching a new drive 
on Richmond, Grant and Meade 
suffered heavy losses in the 
Wilderness Campaign of May - 
June 1864.  

Instead of retiring to lick 
its wounds, the Army of the 
Potomac pushed on across the 
James River, intending to 
capture Petersburg.  If 
direct approaches were 
impossible, Richmond might 
be toppled by sealing it 
off from outside help.   The 
initial assault on Petersburg 
was repelled on June 15th by 
a force of old men, boys, and 
casuals under Beauregard.  They 
held on until Lee sent help 
and established fortified 
lines that stopped Grant's 
main attack on June 18.  Grant 
then dug in for a siege.

Lee knew that his only hope lay 
in restoring maneuverability to 
his army.  He tried to divert 
some of Grant's strength by 
detaching Jubal Early, with 
Jackson's old corps, against 
Washington in mid-June.  Early 
stormed down the Shenandoah 
Valley and in July bombarded 
Washington's defenses - some 
of his sharpshooters even 
fired on Lincoln, who was 
watching from Fort Stevens's 
parapet.  But the attack on 
Washington was no more than a 
raid.  

In August, Grant dispatched 
Philip Sheridan to the valley, 
where he conducted a campaign 
of systematic devastation.  He 
finally defeated Early at Cedar 
Creek on October 19th.


            - 1865 -

On February  3rd, 1865, a 
Southern delegation met 
Lincoln and Seward on a ship 
in Hampton Roads, but Davis's 
insistence on recognition of 
Southern independence prevented 
effective negotiations.  The 
siege of Petersburg, however, 
was wearing Lee down.  His 
lines finally broke at the end 
of March 1865; he evacuated 
Richmond on April 2nd and 
retreated west, hoping to join 
Johnston's army somewhere in 
the Carolinas.  A week's 
desperate quest for rations 
brought the Army of Northern 
Virginia to Appomattox Court 
House, where on April 9, 1865, 
Lee surrendered his army to 
Grant.