The Battle of the Volturnus, also known as the Battle of Casilinum or Battle of Capua, was fought in 554 near the Volturno River between an army of the Byzantine Empire and a combined force of Franks and Alemanni. The Byzantines, led by the general Narses, were victorious, marking the end of the Gothic War (535–554).
After the death of the Ostrogothic king Teia, a 75,000-strong force of Franks and Alemanni under Leutharis and Butilinus invaded Italy and threatened Byzantine control of the peninsula in the spring of 553. Initially, Narses avoided direct engagement with the Frankish army, staying behind walls most of the year. This course of action effectively allowed the Franks to pillage as they moved south along the Italian Peninsula, exhausting their supplies. The Frankish army split into two parts. One part of the army, led by Leutharis, moved north, but upon reaching the River Po, it was decimated by plague. The second army, led by Butilinus, continued to pillage, but once it moved north, it was intercepted by Narses with an army of approximately 18,000 men near the Volturno River.
Before the battle, Byzantine cavalry disrupted the Franks' supply lines and destroyed a watchtower guarding a bridge over the river. This prompted both sides to assemble for battle. The Franks, emboldened by news that the Byzantine center appeared weak due to a dispute between Narses and his Heruli mercenaries, formed their forces into a wedge formation. Narses then deployed his forces, with infantry in the center with a small gap in the middle, and cavalry on the flanks, drawing the Frankish army into a frontal assault. The Franks pressed into the Byzantine center, but then Narses ordered his horse archers to attack their exposed rear, effectively encircling them. Unable to counter the maneuver, the Franks were surrounded, and most of Butilinus's army was destroyed.
Despite a few Gothic and Frankish strongholds continuing to resist for several more years, the victory secured Byzantine control of the Italian Peninsula, as it was the last major engagement in the Gothic War.
Following the fall of the Gothic king Teia in the Battle of Mons Lactarius in October 552, the remaining Goths in the Po Valley called upon the Franks for help against the Byzantine armies under Narses. Although King Theudebald refused to send aid, he allowed two of his subjects, the Alemanni chieftains Leutharis and Butilinus, to cross into Italy. According to the contemporary historian Agathias Scholasticus, the two brothers gathered a host of 75,000 Franks and Alemanni, and in early 553 crossed the Alps and took the town of Parma.
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.
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