Battles of the American Civil War were fought between April 12, 1861, and May 12–13, 1865 in 19 states, mostly Confederate (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia), the District of Columbia, and six territories (Arizona Territory, Confederate Arizona, Colorado Territory, Dakota Territory, Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), New Mexico Territory, and Washington Territory), as well as naval engagements. Virginia in particular was the site of many major and decisive battles. These battles would change the standing and historical memory of the United States.
Trans-Mississippi theater of the American Civil War
Some battles have more than one name. For instance, the battles known in the North as Battle of Antietam and Second Battle of Bull Run were referred to as the Battles of Sharpsburg and Manassas, respectively, by the South. This was because the North tended to name battles after landmarks (often rivers or bodies of water), whereas the South named battles after nearby towns.
Other non-Indian wars battles and skirmishes not rated by CWSAC.
Other battles and skirmishes, not rated by CWSAC, of the American Indian Wars between either USA or CSA forces and the Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Dakota, Kiowa, Navajo, and Shoshone which occurred during the American Civil War – including: the Apache Wars, Colorado War, Dakota War of 1862, Navajo Wars, and Texas–Indian wars.
This is a chronological summary and record of every engagement between the troops of the Union and of the Confederacy, showing the total losses and casualties in each engagement. It was collated and compiled from the Official Records of the War Department.
Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War
Spreadsheet of over 5,000 Civil War battles and incidents
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
This page covers Engagement at Columbia Bridge (1862). A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.