Troop engagements of the American Civil War , 1861 The following is a list of engagements that took place in 1861 during the American Civil War . History . The war started on April 12 when Confederate forces commanded by General P . G . T . Beauregard opened fire on the Union garrison of Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston , South Carolina ; after a thirty - four hour bombardment , the Union garrison surrendered . There had been no casualties during the bombardment ; but the following day while the Union garrison commander , Major Robert Anderson , was firing a fifty - gun salute , there was an explosion that resulted in one man being killed and five wounded . United States president Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for the states to raise 75 , 000 volunteers for ninety days to suppress the South ; in response to the proclamation , an additional four states ( Virginia , Arkansas , Tennessee , and North Carolina ) seceded and joined the Confederacy , pledging troops to the volunteer forces it was raising . In the Eastern Theater , there were two major campaigns in Virginia . The first , the Western Virginia Campaign , started in May . Union forces commanded by Major General George B . McClellan invaded western Virginia and drove the Confederate forces from the area following a series of small skirmishes . Although these fights involved only a few hundred men on either side , the newspaper coverage of the campaign turned McClellan into a national hero . After McClellan was transferred to command the Army of the Potomac , Confederate General Robert E . Lee was assigned to drive the Union forces out of the state but failed to do so at Cheat Mountain and in the Kanawha Valley ; Lee was subsequently transferred to other duties in November . The other major campaign ended with the First Battle of Bull Run on July 17 , when Union forces commanded by Major General Irvin McDowell attacked the Confederate Army of the Potomac , commanded by Brigadier General P . G . T . Beauregard ; although initially successful , Confederate reinforcements from the Shenandoah Valley routed McDowell and forced him back to Washington , D . C . McDowell was replaced by McClellan , who renamed his force the Army of the Potomac and spent the rest of the year training his men and stockpiling supplies , despite pressure from the Union government to launch an offensive as soon as possible . There were several minor skirmishes in Virginia during the remainder of the year , the most significant being the Battle of Ball ' s Bluff , due to the death of Colonel Edward Baker , a senator from Oregon . Outrage in Congress over his death led to the creation of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War , which was used by the Radical Republicans in Congress in an attempt to prosecute the war according to their views . In the Western Theater , there were several skirmishes in the border state of Kentucky but no major battles . Kentucky , with divided sympathies , attempted to declare itself neutral ; however , Confederate Major General Leonidas Polk sent a force to occupy Columbus , Kentucky , saying it was necessary for the defense of the Mississippi River . The Kentucky legislature then requested Union help in driving the Confederates out of the state , at which point both armies set up defensive positions all through the state . The governor and most of the legislature were Unionists , but a pro - Confederate state government , with some members of the legislature , was organized in Russellville ; both armies then began recruiting efforts . Along the Atlantic seacoast and Gulf coast , Union forces captured several coastal areas for use as naval ports for the Union blockade , including Port Royal , South Carolina and the Outer Banks of North Carolina . Lincoln declared on April 19 a blockade of the Confederate coastline and ports ; this required the Union navy to build hundreds of ships to enforce the blockade , growing from forty - two ships in April to a total of 264 ships at the end of the year . In the Trans - Mississippi Theater , most of the fighting took place in Missouri between the pro - secessionist Missouri State Guard , commanded by Major General Sterling Price , and the Union Department of the West . Union forces under the command of Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon drove the Missouri State Guard and the pro - secessionist portion of the state government into the southwestern part of the state , where it united with the Confederate Western Army commanded by Brigadier General Benjamin McCulloch . There , on August 10 in the Battle of Wilson ' s Creek , Lyon attacked the combined forces of Price and McCulloch and was defeated , with Lyon being killed during the battle . McCulloch returned to Arkansas , while Price moved north , attempting to recapture the state from Union forces . Another Confederate offensive took place in the New Mexico Territory , where a Confederate cavalry battalion moved into the southwestern part of the territory and captured Fort Filmore , forcing the surrender of the Union garrison . A secessionist convention in Mesilla declared the southern portion of the territory to be the Confederate Territory of Arizona and raised several militia companies , which fought several skirmishes with both the Union forces remaining in the territory and the Apache tribes .