In June 1861, he joined the Confederate Army and was made Captain of the Markham Guard and subsequently the Fauquier Artillery. The artillery was more commonly known as Stribling's Battery. Stribling saw action at Antietam, Bull Run, Suffolk, and provided cover at Gettysburg during his cousin George Pickett's Charge. By the end of the war Stribling was a Lt. Colonel in command of the 38th Virginia Light Artillery Battalion.