6/12/2006 • Civil War Times Facts, information and articles about the Battle Of Palmetto Ranch, the last Civil War Battle of the American Civil War By May 11, 1865, nearly everyone in the United States and in the moribund Confederacy considered the Civil War over. Both of the South’s principal armies had capitulated. Lieutenant General Richard Taylor had surrendered most of the remaining Confederate forces east of the Mississippi. President Jefferson Davis had just been captured, and his cabinet had scattered to escape Yankee vengeance. Even the elusive Confederate guerrilla William Quantrill had been fatally wounded. The martyred president, Abraham Lincoln, had been buried a week before, and Federal troops had begun their long occupation of Dixie. Arrangements were underway for a grand review — a victory parade — in Washington, and the War Department was preparing to muster out most of the huge Union Army. Peace had come at last. As usual, things were different in Texas. Hostile forces still faced each other at the southernmost tip of the state, where the Rio Grande spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.

On Brazos Santiago Island lay nearly 2,000 Union troops, including the 62nd and 87th U.S. Colored Infantry, the 34th Indiana and a few dozen loyal Texans who had volunteered for cavalry service but remained dismounted. Across the bay and several miles inland, fragmented battalions of Confederate cavalry guarded the Mexican border, beyond which French imperial forces and native Juaristas vied for control of the northern province. The Western Sub-District of Texas, commanded by Confederate Brig. Gen. James E. Slaughter, encompassed virtually all of Texas below San Antonio. Slaughter, a Virginia native who had served in the U.S. Army from the Mexican War until Texas seceded, had been assigned his post some eight months before by Maj. Gen. John G. Walker, whom Slaughter had previously served as chief of staff. As late as the end of 1864, Slaughter had been able to count more than 2,600 soldiers under his command, but with the new year that number began to dwindle rapidly.

On the last day of January 1865, only 1,722 of those men remained, of whom fewer than 1,450 officers and men stood ready for duty. By March 31, Slaughter’s returns revealed only 1,200 men of all ranks present. With spring, desertions increased rapidly, and Slaughter began to suspect that he could not rely on those who remained. Slaughter’s troops consisted almost entirely of cavalry, from a tiny detachment at Fort Clark 200 miles up the Rio Grande to his heaviest concentration of several companies and a light battery at Brownsville and Fort Brown, about 20 miles from the river’s mouth. By April 6, 1865, Slaughter had made his headquarters at Brownsville, which he styled the Southern Division of his subdistrict. Colonel John Salmon Ford — a Mexican War veteran, former captain of Texas Rangers, onetime Austin mayor and an already legendary character — commanded Slaughter’s Southern Division. Ford, popularly known as ‘Old Rip,’ had been appointed colonel of Texas troops early in 1861, when Slaughter was still a lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

Ford had accepted the surrender of Brazos Santiago in February of that year, and he had spent most of the war on duty in southern Texas. For about a year he served in the Conscription Bureau in Austin; the camp of instruction near Tyler was named in his honor, although he may have felt little honored after Camp Ford became notorious as a prison pen. In the spring of 1865, Colonel Ford’s immediate force amounted to nine companies of cavalry in two battalions. In addition, three more unassigned companies and Captain O.G. Jones’ six-gun battery were stationed at Fort Brown. He also exercised control over half a regiment of cavalry that covered the river below Ringgold Barracks, too far away for assistance on short notice. Between the end of January and the end of March, his troop strength shrank almost 20 percent; as April opened, he had only 763 officers and men to guard about 100 miles of river, and only 625 of them were fit for duty. By May, desertion had diminished Ford’s command even further. In that remote corner of the Confederacy, few military units adhered to numerical state designations, instead taking the names of their commanders.

The largest organized force on which Ford could call was the six-company battalion temporarily commanded by Captain William N. Robinson, who could still muster about 250 troopers when every man answered the bugle. Ford posted Robinson about 15 miles from the Rio Grande at Palmetto (also spelled Palmito) Ranch. A smaller vanguard lay a little closer to the enemy, at White’s Ranch. Despite the precaution of maintaining that outpost at White’s Ranch, Ford did not anticipate that there would be significant trouble with the Union troops at Brazos Santiago. In March he and a civilian emissary had corresponded with Federal Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace on the subject of peace, and although they came to no conclusions, it was evident even to the Confederate forces that the rebellion was about finished. Many of the Texas cavalry companies had scattered in an effort to find grass for their horses; some of those mounts were so broken down that Slaughter hoped he might be able to replace them with a few hundred mustangs. At Brazos Santiago, a change in command appears to have ended the unofficial truce. Colonel Robert B. Jones of the 34th Indiana left for home in April, turning the island over to Colonel Theodore H.

Barrett of the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry. Unlike Jones, Barrett had never led his regiment in combat, and he seems to have thirsted for a little battlefield glory before the war ended altogether. In the wee hours of May 11, Barrett summoned his lieutenant colonel, David Branson, and gave him instructions that would lead to the last clash of arms between organized Union and Confederate forces. At 4 a.m. Branson, who had been appointed lieutenant colonel directly from the noncommissioned ranks of the 28th Illinois less than a year and a half before, gathered 250 of his men and a full complement of officers on the waterfront, with a view to crossing over to Port Isabel. However, a storm kicked up, and the steamer he intended to use broke down, so Barrett ordered the expedition back to camp. Later in the day, he found enough small boats to cross the troops over the shorter passage to Boca Chica, at the southern end of the island, and in the evening Branson moved his command down there. Along the way he picked up 50 recruits from the Union 2nd Texas Cavalry Battalion and two of their officers, all of whom still lacked horses.

The two lieutenants had not even acquired rank insignia. Branson procured 100 rounds of ammunition and five days’ rations for each man, and by 9:30 p.m. all of them had reached the mainland. Followed by two mule-drawn supply wagons, the procession started immediately for White’s Ranch, where Robinson’s forward companies were reportedly still camped. Branson reached White’s Ranch at 2 a.m. on May 12 and silently surrounded the main building. Upon springing the trap, however, he learned that his prey had withdrawn to Palmetto Ranch a couple of days earlier. His men had already been on their feet for more than 24 hours, so Branson gave up any hope of surprising the Palmetto Ranch detachment before daylight. He marched his command another 1 1/2 miles upriver, then scattered the men into the chaparral for a few hours’ sleep. French forces patrolled the Rio Grande on the Mexican side, and by 8:30 that morning their videttes had spotted the Federal troops. The news quickly drifted over the river to the Confederates, and French troops appeared on the bank opposite Branson’s camp.

Branson nevertheless formed his 300 riflemen and marched them toward Palmetto Ranch. Palmetto Ranch was 112 miles away, but Branson did not arrive there until noon. A flurry of musketry erupted between Branson’s skirmishers and Robinson’s pickets without drawing blood on either side. When the Federal infantrymen had driven the startled Confederates away from the hilltop hacienda, they settled down to count up their prizes: two or three sick Texans, a couple of horses and rations for 190 men, including four beef cattle. Captain Robinson, who could initially collect only about 60 of his retreating battalion, sent word of the attack back to Colonel Ford at Brownsville. Ford instructed Robinson to hold on while he rounded up other scattered companies and brought them to his assistance. Robinson did more than hold on. With his little command he returned to the ranch on Palmetto Hill and launched a bold midafternoon assault on the Union troops, who were enjoying a siesta. Branson, who thought he faced ‘a considerable force of the enemy,’ thought his position untenable and immediately began to retreat. He backpedaled to White’s Ranch, losing one Texan.

Once he had dug in for the night, Branson sent a courier back to Brazos Santiago with an appeal for help. Colonel Barrett ordered Lt. Col. Robert G. Morrison to take 200 of his 34th Indiana to Branson’s aid. Morrison, an experienced officer who had led his regiment through the Vicksburg campaign, took his men to Boca Chica in skiffs. Barrett followed with some acting staff officers, and they all reached White’s Ranch at dawn on May 13. At Barrett’s direction, Branson detailed a platoon from his regiment to guard the captured supplies, the few prisoners and the wounded Texan. Then, while the Hoosiers stopped to cook breakfast, the black regiment started back toward Palmetto Ranch, about three miles away, skirmishing briskly with Robinson’s cavalrymen. Half an hour later, Morrison put his men back in line and trailed after Branson, lagging a mile or so behind. At 11 a.m. Colonel Ford started to Robinson’s aid with as much of the rest of the battalion as he could muster, adding to it the three independent companies and the battery from Fort Brown.

After an urgent appeal from Captain Robinson, Ford sent one company galloping ahead while he remained behind to personally hurry the main body forward. The advance of Barrett’s little brigade passed Palmetto Hill again, burning what remained of the supplies at the ranch before pressing on after Robinson’s weary troopers. Two companies of the 34th Indiana preceded the 62nd as skirmishers. One company deployed on the right, while the other — 27 men of Company K, under 2nd Lt. Charles A. Jones — fanned out on the left in the thick chaparral along the riverbank. Their sporadic fire escalated sharply as Ford’s reinforcements began to show up. Ford threw most of his men into line at 3 p.m. He later calculated that his entire force, some of whom were ‘volunteers,’ had amounted to 275 cavalry and 25 foot soldiers to work the six guns. Years afterward he explained that the volunteers were French soldiers who had crossed the river to see a little action. Riding around in civilian dress, Ford placed one section of the battery on either end of his line and kept two guns in reserve.

He gave Robinson the rest of his original battalion, bracing his right with the three companies under Captain D.M. Wilson. Later Colonel Barrett claimed that he had wanted to bivouac that night on Telegraph Road, a better-drained thoroughfare that led directly to Port Isabel, where a transport could carry his troops back to Brazos Santiago. The arrival of Ford, whose force Barrett overestimated by a factor of two, changed those plans. Though Barrett still commanded 500 officers and men, he started falling back before the 300 Texans. Veteran officers in the 34th Indiana found Barrett unimpressive, charging that he asked the most junior officers their opinions and requested their cooperation rather than giving orders. At one point he acceded to Lieutenant Jones’ request for 100 men to perform a ‘little maneuver’ on the Confederates, apparently directing Colonel Branson to follow the second lieutenant’s instructions. To even Jones’ surprise, Branson submitted, although Ford’s arrival canceled the experiment. Ford took one company each from Robinson and Wilson to swing around his left and assail the Federal right. Two companies under Captains J.B.

Cocke and John Gibbons strung out parallel to the Rio Grande, but wary Yankees saw the movement. Barrett directed Colonel Morrison to confront that threat with two more companies of the 34th, and Morrison sent Captain Abraham M. Templer out with Companies B and E. The first rounds from Ford’s artillery struck the Federals at about 4 p.m., when Barrett’s line had fallen back to within a mile and a half of Palmetto Hill. Those first shells alarmed the Union soldiers, who had not suspected the presence of any guns and had none with which to reply. When Cocke and Gibbons opened fire on his right, Barrett started his main body to the rear at the double-quick. Lieutenant Jones reported that his men were too exhausted to serve as the rear guard, so Barrett ordered the 50 Texans to cover the retreat. First Lieutenant James Hancock, who commanded the Texans, complained that his men had already expended all but a couple of rounds of ammunition apiece, but Barrett ordered him out anyway with a promise to relieve him soon. The two fleeing Union regiments left 100 of their comrades behind.

Captain Templer, one lieutenant and 48 Indiana infantrymen were surrounded and compelled to throw down their arms. Company E was the color company of the 34th, and the prisoners included the men who carried the national and state flags. Sergeant John R. Smith, who bore the Stars and Stripes, took the state flag from Corporal George Burns and disappeared into the chaparral with both banners. He tried to swim the river with them, but when troops on the Mexican side fired on him he swam back, evidently losing the state flag near the far side. Troubled by an old foot wound, Smith could not outrun his pursuers, but he tucked the U.S. flag beneath some undergrowth along the riverbank just before Confederate cavalrymen caught up with him. Lieutenant Hancock, his second lieutenant and 20 of their Union Texans also surrendered when they were cut off. In addition, nearly 30 stragglers from the 34th fell into enemy hands while their regiment raced toward Palmetto Ranch. The precipitous retreat quickly exhausted the Indiana troops. A few of the laggards did manage to swim the Rio Grande without interference.

Now Colonel Barrett ordered out several companies of skirmishers from the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry to cover his rear and flank. The white regiment and the black one crossed paths near Palmetto Ranch, each breaking the other’s ranks. The 34th, which had been behind, took the road nearest the river, while the 62nd bore to the left and slowed its step to quick time. Still trotting at the double-quick, the 34th overtook the 62nd despite having the longer road around a bend in the river, and when the white regiment reached the far side of Palmetto Hill, it had taken the lead in the retreat. One witness later testified that Colonel Barrett had promised the Indiana troops he would stop and fight at Palmetto Hill, but instead he barely slowed the retreat. Barrett ordered Morrison to keep up with the wagons, which rolled ahead of the harried column. Canteens, haversacks and even rifles littered the road in its wake. Morrison stayed near the head of his regiment, trying to reassure the men and maintain a pace that would not wear them out before they reached the relative safety of Boca Chica.

He threw a company ahead to hold back anyone with the inclination to bolt, but the column still moved steadily forward. Occasionally a shell or a solid shot whistled overhead, after which a volley or two would come echoing back from the rear guard. When the fugitives reached White’s Ranch, they still had another 12 miles to Boca Chica. Ford’s Confederates pursued doggedly, but from there the narrow peninsula foiled any flanking maneuvers. All the Confederates could do was hasten the withdrawal with artillery fire. Three miles from Boca Chica, one of the Federal wagons became mired in a bog, but the Indiana regiment filed around it and made for the boats. The sun had just set when the first of Morrison’s men reached the landing, rushing into the water to secure their places in the skiffs. A staff officer tried to hold them back so the wounded could cross first, but they ignored him. The enemy was no longer in sight by now, so there was no need for such frenzy. With Union reinforcements just across the inlet, Colonel Ford preferred not to linger, but as he started back upriver he encountered Brig. Gen.

Slaughter, who rode up at the head of 120 men of the other cavalry battalion. Slaughter told Ford to resume the pursuit. Ford argued against it, but Slaughter insisted and threw out such a heavy line of skirmishers that the Federals feared he meant to charge. About 2l2 miles from the landing, Colonel Branson deployed his skirmishers one final time. Company K of the 62nd, under Captain Fred Coffin, spread out and leveled another volley at the Confederates, who returned it. The two lines fired ineffectually at each other for a few more minutes, and then Captain Coffin turned his line back to Boca Chica. The Texans eased their horses forward again, but the last shots of the Civil War had been fired. Slaughter thought better of his aggressiveness, and Barrett ferried the rest of his men across without further molestation. When all the reports had come in, Colonel Barrett discovered that he had lost only one man killed, Private John Jefferson Williams, of Jay County, Ind. Nine men had been wounded and 103 officers and men captured, most of them from the 34th Indiana.

Colonel Ford summarized his losses as ‘five or six, wounded.’ The prisoners from the 34th Indiana carried their comrade’s body to the outskirts of Brownsville, where they buried him. One black soldier, Sergeant David Clark, evidently fell out on the retreat and spent the night of May 13 huddled in the chaparral a mile below Palmetto Ranch. Ford’s men found him as they swept back through at noon the next day. He was the last prisoner ever taken by the Confederate Army, and as Texans prodded him back toward Brownsville that afternoon, other horsemen came galloping up to the column with the battered national colors of the 34th Indiana. Military authorities recovered the state flag on the Mexican shore a couple of days later. The commander of the post at Bagdad, Mexico, turned it over to an Indiana lieutenant. Within a fortnight of the battle, an official armistice ended the fighting in Texas, and on May 30 the 34th Indiana marched into Brownsville to begin occupation duty.

That did not end the matter, though, for Colonel Barrett’s poor showing in his only engagement led him to bring charges against Colonel Morrison, on whom he tried to blame the disaster. A court-martial sat on the case through late July and most of August, listening to conflicting stories divided along partisan lines. Witnesses from Morrison’s regiment gave testimony that supported him, while Barrett’s officers recounted versions that flattered their leader. Even Colonel Ford appeared on Morrison’s behalf, offering the embarrassing information that Barrett had fled before a force barely half the size of his own. Despite lax discipline in the 34th and the relative disorder of its retreat, the court refused to convict Morrison on a single charge or specification. Apparently by virtue of overweening ambition, Colonel Barrett had initiated a perfectly unnecessary battle. Through his incompetence, he had given the dying Confederacy the satisfaction of claiming victory in the last battle of the war. This article was written by William Marvel and originally published in the February 2006 issue of Civil War Times Magazine. For more great articles, be sure to subscribe to Civil War Times magazine today!

The Civil War's Forgotten Battlefield | The Huffington Post The Civil War's Forgotten Battlefield 05/04/2015 02:16 pm ET | Updated May 03, 2016 Mark Yzaguirre Houston attorney May 12 and 13 will mark the 150th anniversary of the last battle of the American Civil War: the Battle of Palmito Ranch. Chances are, most of the people reading this piece have never heard of that battle. Speaking personally, the main reason I'm aware of it is because it occurred on a tract of land that was owned by some of my ancestors. The battle was really more of a skirmish than a major engagement and it was located far from the famous battlefields of the Civil War, on the Texas-Mexico border near Brownsville, Texas. It took place over a month after General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, even though the participants were well aware of Lee's surrender.

While insignificant in the larger drama of the Civil War, the Battle of Palmito Ranch was a strange coda to the war that was in many ways a harbinger of the conflict over the postwar order that raged for decades throughout the South. The Confederacy won the Battle of Palmito Ranch and in doing so was able to maintain a stronger position in setting the terms of the postwar world in Texas. For example, the leader of the Confederate forces at Palmito Ranch went on to become a successful Texas journalist, Texas State Senator and the Mayor of Brownsville, Texas. Tom Zoellner has written an excellent piece about the battle in the Texas Observer, and I suggest that anyone reading this post read his article at the Texas Observer. Zoellner describes how the battle was fought by "a confusing array of French nationals, Yankees, African Americans, Tejanos and hardcore insurrectionists fighting each other for reasons that were hazy to most everyone concerned" as part of a larger struggle for access to port facilities across the border in Mexico, namely smuggling via a port with the evocative and ironic name of Bagdad.

This lucrative trade helped provide a trickle of international commerce for the Confederacy during the Civil War as well as revenue for businessmen in Mexico, which was embroiled in its own civil war at the time. There's a detail in Zoellner's article that I think is worth noting and which I think tells us a lot about why the Battle of Palmito Ranch was linked to broader post-Civil War matters. Zoellner writes that "incredibly, French soldiers then occupying Mexico under the puppet emperor Maximilian I began taking potshots at [Union soldiers] from across the river. At least a few French officers were said to be on the north side of the Rio Grande helping the Confederates aim their cannons". Actually, that isn't so incredible, given American alliances in Mexico's civil war. Those who supported the Confederacy also generally supported the French-backed Imperialist forces in Mexico and the Union supported Benito Juarez's Republican army. President Abraham Lincoln supported Juarez and the United States probably would have intervened in France's installation of Maximilian as the Emperor of Mexico had it not been otherwise engaged in the Civil War and Reconstruction.

(Events in Mexico played themselves out quickly anyway, as exhibited in these famous artworks by Edouard Manet.) In many ways, the Battle of Palmito Ranch was a minor battle over the much larger issues that would define the political terms in North America in the middle of the 19th Century. It had implications related to Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine as well as the epic struggle over slavery. While it can't be mentioned in the same breath as Gettysburg or Antietam, it does tell us something about the political and military machinations of that era and how intrigues on both sides of the US-Mexico border played themselves out during that era with terrible human costs. That is something worth remembering, as such intrigues aren't relegated to history books. Follow Mark Yzaguirre on Twitter: More: » See all American Civil War Articles Civil War Summary: The American Civil War, 1861–1865, resulted from long-standing sectional differences and questions not fully resolved when the United States Constitution was ratified in 1789.

With the defeat of the Southern Confederacy and the subsequent passage of the XIII, XIV and XV amendments to the Constitution, the Civil War’s lasting effects include abolishing the institution of slavery in America and firmly redefining the United States as a single, indivisible nation rather than a loosely bound collection of independent states. Milestones It was a war that saw many “firsts.” The long list of Civil War firsts include America’s first income tax, the first battle between ironclad ships, the first extensive use of black soldiers and sailors in U.S. service, the first use of quinine to treat typhoid fever, America’s first military draft, and many others. There were advances in medical treatment, military tactics, the chaplain service, and other fields. Over the course of the Civil War weapons ranged from obsolete flintlocks to state-of-the-art repeaters. During the Civil War, women took on new roles, including running farms and plantations and spying; some disguised themselves as men and fought in battle. All of the nation’s ethnic groups participated in the war, including Irish, Germans, American Indians, Jews, Chinese, Hispanics, etc.

Other Names for the Civil War Northerners have also called the Civil War the War to Preserve the Union, the War of the Rebellion (War of the Southern Rebellion), and the War to Make Men Free. Southerners may refer to it as the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression. In the decades following the conflict, those who did not wish to upset adherents of either side simply called it The Late Unpleasantness. It is also known as Mr. Lincoln’s War and, less commonly, as Mr. Davis’ War. Troop Strength and Casualties Between April 1861 and April 1865, an estimated 1.5 million troops joined the war on the side of the Union and approximately 1.2 million went into Confederate service. An estimated total of 600,000 were killed in action or died of disease. More than twice that number were wounded but survived at least long enough to muster out. Casualties of the Civil War cannot be calculated exactly, due to missing records (especially on the Southern side) and the inability to determine exactly how many combatants died from wounds, drug addiction, or other war-related causes after leaving the service.

An untold number of civilians also perished, primarily from disease as entire towns became hospitals. Naval Battles Most naval actions occurred on rivers and inlets or in harbors, and include history’s first clash between two ironclads, the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (a captured and converted ship formerly called the Merrimac), at Hampton Roads, Virginia , on March 9, 1862. Other actions include the Battle of Memphis (1862), Charleston Harbor (1863), and Mobile Bay (1864), and the naval sieges of Vicksburg in 1862 and again in 1863. The most famous clash between ocean-going warships was the duel between USS Kearsarge and CSS Alabama off Cherbourg, France, June 19, 1864. Throughout the war, the Union had a decided advantage in both numbers and quality of naval vessels. The War Between The States Begins On April 10, 1861, knowing that resupplies were on their way from the North to the federal garrison at Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, provisional Confederate forces in the city demanded the fort’s surrender.

The fort’s commander, Major Robert Anderson, refused. On April 12, the Confederates opened fire with cannon. At 2:30 p.m. the following day, Major Anderson surrendered. On April 15, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the Southern rebellion, a move that prompted Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina to reverse themselves and vote in favor of session. (Most of the western section of Virginia rejected the session vote and broke away, ultimately forming a new, Union-loyal state, West Virginia .) The United States had always maintained only a small professional army; the nation’s founders had feared a Napoleon might rise up and use a large army to overthrow the government and make himself a dictator. Many graduates of the U.S. Army’s military academy, West Point, resigned their commissions in order to fight for the South—this was especially true in the cavalry arm, but no members of the artillery “went South.” The Lincoln Administration had to rely on large numbers of volunteers from the states and territories. In Richmond, Virginia, the President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis , faced a similar problem in raising and equipping armies. Neither side expected a war of long duration.

Volunteers were asked to serve for 90 days. “One big battle, and it’ll be over,” was the commonly expressed belief on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Southerners thought Northerners too weak and cowardly to fight. Northerners thought a dependence upon slave labor had rendered Southerners too weak both physically and morally to present a serious battlefield threat. Both sides were due for a rude awakening. The Challenges of North and South To win the war would require Lincoln’s armies and navy to subdue an area from the East Coast to the Rio Grande, from the Mason-Dixon Line to the Gulf of Mexico. To prevent a Northern victory, the South would have to defend that same large area, but with a smaller population and less industry than the North could ultimately bring to bear. A short war would favor the South, a long one the North. Theaters of War Actions in the war were divided into the Eastern Theater, primarily comprised of Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the coast of North Carolina. The Atlantic Coast farther south was the Lower Seaboard Theater.

The Western Theater began west of the Alleghenies (West Virginia excepted) and continued to the Mississippi River, but it also included the interior of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Events farther west are considered to have occurred in the Trans-Mississippi Theater and the Far West. 1861 The first inland clash between significant bodies of troops occurred on the morning of June 3, 1861, when 3,000 Union volunteers surprised 800 Confederates at Philippi in (West) Virginia. Lasting less than half an hour, the affair would barely qualify as a skirmish later in the war, but the Union victory there and subsequent ones in the region elevated the reputation of Major General George B. McClellan , commander of the Department of the Ohio. Read More in America’s Civil War Magazine Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!! The first real battle took place July 21, 1861, on the hills around Bull Run creek outside Manassas, Virginia, a railroad junction some 30 miles south of the Northern capital at Washington City (Washington, D.C.) and about 90 miles north of the Confederate capital at Richmond on July.

It is known as the First Battle of Bull Run (Northern name) or the First Battle of Manassas (Southern name). During the war, the North named battles for the nearest body of water, and the South used the name of the nearest town. The Union army made progress early in the battle, but Confederate reinforcements arrived late in the day from the Shenandoah Valley and routed the Federals. The unfortunate Union commander, Irvin McDowell, was made the scapegoat and was replaced with an officer who had some victories to his credit: George Brinton McClellan. On September 10, a Union victory at Carnifax Ferry in the Big Kanawha Valley of (West) Virginia virtually ended Confederate control in most of the western counties, although there would be raids and guerilla warfare there. A successful naval invasion of North Carolina took place in August. The Western Theater saw only minor skirmishing. Kentucky was attempting to remain neutral and had vowed to take sides against whichever side first moved troops into it. That was the Confederacy, which felt compelled to establish Mississippi River forts and establish camps within the state to repel any attempted Union move south.

Near Springfield, Missouri, in the Trans-Mississippi, the South won a major battle on August 10, 1861. The Battle of Wilson’s Creek , also known as the Battle of Oak Hills, saw some 12,000 Confederates defeat less than 5,500 Union soldiers and take control of southwestern Missouri, but the Southerners did not immediately pursue northward. The Union commander, Nathaniel Lyon, was killed, the first Federal general to die in action during the war. The South had already lost Brigadier General Robert S. Garnett in a skirmish at Carrick’s Ford, (West) Virginia, and Brigadier General Bernard E. Bee at First Manassas. After Wilson’s Creek, Confederate forces won another Missouri victory at the First Battle of Lexington, September 13–20, 1861. During the fall and winter, both sides swelled their ranks, trained troops, and obtained additional weapons, food and equipment, and horses and mules for the coming year’s campaigns.

1862 If 1861 had disabused Americans north and south of the notion this would be a short war, 1862 showed how terrible its cost in human life would be, beginning with the two bloody days of the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee and continuing through a series of battles in Virginia and America’s bloodiest single day, the Battle of Antietam in Maryland. The year saw the first clash between ironclad warships, in the Battle of Hampton Roads . Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation . The South found two heroes: Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson , for his Shenandoah Valley Campaign, and Robert E. Lee , who took command of the main Confederate army. Lincoln would be hard-pressed to find a commander Lee could not out-general. Farther south along the Atlantic Coast, Federals captured territory in North and South Carolina and Georgia, but lost a chance to shorten the war when they were turned back at the Battle of Secessionville, South Carolina. In the Western Theater, Union forces made deep penetrations into Dixie, beginning the year along the Ohio River and finishing it in control of Middle and West Tennessee, with outposts in Mississippi.

Even New Orleans was under the Stars and Stripes again. Beyond the Mississippi, initial Confederate successes in New Mexico territory were nullified by a defeat at Glorietta Pass. Texans lynched 50 Unionists in what became known as the Great Hanging at Gainesville and attacked German immigrants trying to leave the state, executing nine of the wounded after the Battle of the Nueces. In August, starving Sioux Indians in Minnesota, angered because they’d not received badly needed payments promised by their treaty, began an uprising that killed at least 113 white men, women and children. Three hundred Sioux were sentenced to hang, but Lincoln cut that number to 38—still the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Antietam and Shiloh If 1861 had disabused Americans north and south of the notion this would be a short war, 1862 showed how terrible its cost in human life would be, beginning with the two bloody days of the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee and continuing through a series of battles in Virginia and America’s bloodiest single day, the Battle of Antietam in Maryland. September saw simultaneous Confederate invasions into Maryland and Kentucky in September.

Neither, however, was long lived. The year 1862 ended—and the new year would begin—with another bloodbath, on the banks of Stones River outside Murfreesboro , Tennessee. Overall, the scales were still nearly balanced between the two sides in their struggle to restore the Union or to establish a Southern Confederacy. 1863 The tide of war shifted noticeably in favor of the Union in 1863, despite a brilliant victory by Robert E. Lee in the Battle of Chancellorsville , a battle that cost the life of his daring lieutenant Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Lee then suffered a major defeat at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in early July. The victor, George Gordon Meade , did not pursue aggressively, and the Confederate “Gray Fox” escaped to fight another day. The two antagonists met again in November in a confused, inconclusive affair known as the Mine Run Campaign. Battle of Chancellorsville On April 17, the Army of the Potomac , under yet another commander, Maj. Gen.

Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker , attempted to outflank Lee at Fredericksburg by crossing the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers above the town. In response, Lee divided his force, leaving part of it to guard the river at Fredericksburg. On April 30, Hooker and Lee collided near a mansion called Chancellorsville in a densely thicketed area of woods known as The Wilderness. After a brilliant flank attack that disorganized Hooker’s right, Lt. Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson was mortally wounded by his own men in the darkness. He died May 10. Lee, learning the Federals had captured Fredericksburg, divided his force again and defeated them at Salem Church. Hooker gave up the campaign and withdrew on the night of May 5–6. The Battle of Chancellorsville is regarded as Lee’s most brilliant victory. Read more about the Battle of Chancellorsville . Vicksburg, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga The “Confederate Gibraltar,” Vicksburg , Mississippi, fell to Ulysses S. Grant on July 4 after a 47-day siege.

Confederates won their greatest victory in the Western Theater at the Battle of Chickamauga in September, but failed to capitalize on it and in late November were routed from the hills above Chattanooga , opening the road to Atlanta for the Union’s Western armies. Grant was placed in command of all Western armies, a prelude to an even greater promotion that would come the following spring. Two massacres marked 1863. In response to raids by Shoshoni Indians in the Idaho Territory of the far northwest, U.S. troops under Col. Patrick E. Connor attacked the camp of Chief Bear Hunter on January 29. A number of Shoshoni women, children and old men were killed along with Hunting Bear’s warriors in the Bear River Massacre (Massacre at Boa Ogoi). On August 21, Confederate guerrillas under Captain William C. Quantrill sacked and burned Lawrence, Kansas, a center for pro-Union, anti-slavery Jayhawkers and Redlegs, killing 150–200 men and boys.

Gettysburg In mid-June, Lee led his Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland and Pennsylvania in his second invasion of the North, hoping to take pressure off Virginia’s farms during the growing season and seeking a victory on Northern soil. His men encountered the Army of the Potomac, now under George Gordon Meade, at a crossroads town in southeastern Pennsylvania on July 1. Capturing the town but failing to take the high ground around it, Lee assailed the Union flanks the next day. The fighting on the Union left was particularly costly to both sides, memorializing Little and Big Round Top, Devil’s Den, the each Orchard and the Wheatfield. On the right, the Confederates nearly broke through on Culp’s and Cemetery hills before being repulsed. On July 3, Lee made perhaps his greatest mistake of the war, ordering a frontal attack across open ground against the Union center on Cemetery Ridge. Known as “Pickett’s Charge” for the commander of the largest Confederate division involved, George Pickett, the attack failed, leaving thousands of Southern soldiers dead and wounded. On Independence Day, a wagon train of wounded over 14 miles long began Lee’s retreat.

With the Confederate’s loss of Vicksburg, Mississippi, that same day, July 4, 1863, is often described as the turning point of the Civil War. Read more about the Battle Of Gettysburg Read More in Civil War Times Magazine Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!! The year also saw an event unique in American history. Counties of western Virginia had refused to leave the Union when the state seceded in 1861. On June 20, 1863, West Virginia entered the Union as the 35th state, although the U.S. Constitution requires a mother state’s permission before a new state can be carved out of it. At the end of 1863, both sides still had significant forces, and the Confederates enjoyed good defensive terrain in Virginia and North Georgia. If they could inflict enough losses on their Northern opponents, they might win at the ballot box what they could not on the field of battle: Lincoln was vulnerable and in the 1864 elections might be replaced by a Democrat who would make peace with the Confederacy.

1864 Since the beginning of the war, Lincoln had sought in vain for a general who understood that destroying the Confederate armies in Virginia was more important than capturing Richmond, and who wouldn’t turn back in the face of a defeat in battle. He believed he’d found that man in Ulysses S. Grant, who was put in charge of all Union armies in March 1864. “Unconditional Surrender” Grant proved Lincoln right, but the cost in lives led many, including the president’s wife, Mary, to call the general a “butcher.” The Wilderness Following his promotion, Grant attached himself to the North’s largest army, the Army of the Potomac , while leaving George Gordon Meade , the victor of Gettysburg, in command of that force. On May 2, the Army of the Potomac crossed Virginia’s Rapidan River. Three days later, it collided with Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in a wooded area thick with underbrush, known as The Wilderness, near the old Chancellorsville battlefield, site of Lee’s most brilliant victory. There was no such clear-cut outcome this time.

After two blood-soaked days of close-quarters fighting, Grant maneuvered his army to outflank Lee’s right. Lee anticipated the move, and the two armies tore at each other again for two weeks in May around Spotsylvania Courthouse . Again, Grant sidestepped, and again Lee met him in the Battle of the North Anna. Grant intended to “fight it out along this line if it takes all summer,” and the two armies clashed again and again, moving ever southward. At Cold Harbor, Grant made one of the worst mistakes of his career, suffering 7,000 casualties within 20 minutes while Lee’s losses were negligible. Eventually, the Federals maneuvered their opponents so close to Richmond and Petersburg—a town essential to the Confederates’ supply line—that Lee had to give up his ability to maneuver and settle into trench warfare. The siege of Richmond and Petersburg had begun. Read more about the Battle Of The Wilderness Petersburg and Richmond On July 30, the Union exploded a mine beneath a portion of the Confederate works around Petersburg. A tardy advance by a large number of Union soldiers into the 30-foot-deep crater it created allowed the Southerners time to recover.

They poured fired into the densely packed Federals; eventually, the fighting was hand-to-hand. Angered by the blast and the presence of black troops, the Confederates gave no quarter and the Battle of the Crater resulted in 4,000 Union casualties for no gain. Read more about the Battle Of Petersburg Although much of Lee’s army was tied down in the defense of Richmond and Petersburg, other portions resisted Union advances in the Shenandoah Valley. After a victory at Lynchburg in June, Jubal A. Early took his Army of the Valley across the Potomac and boldly marched on the Northern capital at Washington, D.C. A desperate delaying action on July 9 at Monocacy, Maryland, by an outnumbered force under Lew Wallace—the future author of Ben Hur—bought the capital time to prepare. When Early attacked Fort Stevens outside the city on July 11—12, President and Mrs. Lincoln came out to watch the fighting. After Early retired back down the Shenandoah Valley, Grant ordered Philip Sheridan to lay waste to the Valley. On October 9, Early surprised Sheridan’s camps on Cedar Creek near Winchester.

Sheridan galloped to the sound of the guns, arriving in time to halt the Union rout and crushed the Confederates, effectively ending Early’s ability to take offensive actions to protect the Valley. When Grant went east his friend and subordinate, William Tecumseh Sherman , took command of the armies of the Tennessee and the Cumberland at Chattanooga. While Grant bludgeoned and sidestepped his way toward Richmond, Sherman was slugging through the mountains of North Georgia. There, Confederate general Joseph Johnston made superb use of terrain to slow the Federal advance. After a series of clashes followed by maneuvers around Johnston’s defenses, Sherman lost patience and ordered a frontal assault on Kennesaw Mountain that cost 3,000 Union lives compared with 1,000 for the Confederates. But gradually, his armies closed in on the rail center of Atlanta. Finally, on September 2, Sherman’s men entered Atlanta after the Confederate army, now under the command of John Bell Hood , evacuated the town, setting fire to it before leaving. The capture of Atlanta was one of the most crucial events of the war.

The South’s last remaining hope was that war-weary Northern voters might turn Lincoln out of the White House in the November elections and replace him with a Peace Democrat. The Democrats had nominated George B. McClellan, the former commander of the Army of the Potomac, as their candidate. The party made many missteps during the campaign, and for the first time ever, the North allowed soldiers to vote in the field. Both of those contributed to Lincoln winning a second term, but had Sherman not taken Atlanta, the long casualty rolls from Grant’s Overland Campaign and the on-going stalemate around the Confederate capital might have been enough to convince Northerners to “give peace a chance” and vote against Lincoln and the war. Sherman’s March To The Sea Sherman left Atlanta November 15 on his march to the sea. Along the way, he intended to “make Georgia howl,” letting his men live off the land and burning all they couldn’t take with them. He reached Savannah by Christmas, leaving a 60-mile wide swath of ashes, wrecked railroads and utter destruction behind him.

Read more about Sherman’s March To The Sea In an attempt to pull Sherman back into Tennessee, John Bell Hood swung the Army of Tennessee through upper Alabama and struck north for Nashville. Sherman detached George Thomas and the Army of the Cumberland to deal with him. At the town of Franklin, Hood ordered frontal assaults that after five hours of intense fighting, left his army in tatters; five generals were dead. Hood’s reduced force then besieged Nashville—the most heavily fortified city in America after Washington, D.C. After an ice storm melted, Thomas came out of his works and finished the job of shattering the Confederate army. Its remnants withdrew to Tupelo, Mississippi. Read More in Civil War Times Magazine Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!! In the spring of 1864, Nathan Bedford Forrest began an expedition that reached Paducah, Kentucky, on the Ohio River before rampaging against Federal installations in West Tennessee. Stories that his men massacred Union soldiers, particularly members of the United States Colored Troops captured at Fort Pillow , a poorly designed Mississippi River fort north of Memphis, gained instant credence in the North, but two official inquiries were unable to reach a conclusion about what had actually happened.

At New Johnsonville, Tennessee, Forrest gained the distinction of commanding the only cavalry group ever to defeat gunboats, when they sunk or frightened crews into scuttling four ships. On the Gulf Coast of Alabama on August 5, Admiral David G. Farragut steamed into the Battle of Mobile Bay with 18 ships. Tradition has it that when he was warned about torpedoes (mines) in the bay he responded, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” After Farragut’s ships defeated the unfinished ironclad CSS Tennessee, Union infantry captured forts Gaines and Morgan, sealing off the mouth of the bay, but the city of Mobile remained defiant. By the end of 1864, the Confederacy had nothing left but courage and tenacity. With Lincoln’s re-election , no viable hope remained for a negotiated peace. The smoke rising above Georgia and the thousands of bodies strung out from Nashville to Atlanta to Petersburg and the gates of Washington said there would be no military victory. Legislators of North Carolina pressed Jefferson Davis to make peace before their state suffered Georgia’s fate but to no avail. The South would fight on, no matter cost.

1865 The noose around the Confederacy was strangling it. In mid-January Fort Fisher in North Carolina fell to a combined land and naval force. The port city of Wilmington followed a month later. Sherman’s bummers were advancing north. When they reached South Carolina, where the rebellion had begun, any bit of restraint they may have shown elsewhere was pitched aside. By February 20, the state capital of Columbia was captured; fires destroyed much of the city, but whether they were set deliberately by Sherman’s troops or by retreating Confederates or accidentally by Union soldiers celebrating with too much alcohol has been long debated. Sherman’s men continued on through North Carolina, setting fire to the pine forests that played an important role in the state’s economy. What remained of the Confederate forces, once more under the command of Joseph Johnston, was far too small to stop the juggernaut. Outside Petersburg, Virginia , Lee launched a costly failed attack against the besiegers’ Fort Steadman on March 25. When Federals under Phil Sheridan captured the crossroads at Five Forks, cutting Lee’s supply line, he withdrew from the Petersburg–Richmond trenches and headed southwest, hoping to link up with Johnston coming up from the south.

Before leaving Richmond, the Confederates set fire to the town. On April 9, at Appomattox Courthouse , after discovering Federals had beaten him to a supply cache, he surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant. Despite his nickname of “Unconditional Surrender” Grant and his policy of waging total war against the South to end the rebellion, Grant offered generous terms, realizing this surrender would virtually end the war. Johnston surrendered to Sherman at Bentonville, North Carolina, on April 26. Sherman extended even more generous terms than Grant had but endured the embarrassment of having to go back to Johnston with harsher conditions. Between Lee and Johnston’s surrenders, an event had occurred that reduced the North’s compassion toward their proud, defeated enemies. Lincoln Assassinated On the night of April 14, John Wilkes Booth , a staunchly pro-slavery Confederate sympathizer, slipped into the President’s Box at Ford’s Theater in Washington and fired a single bullet into the back of Abraham Lincoln’s head. Lincoln died the next morning, the first American president to be assassinated. Booth was shot weeks later while trying to escape from a barn in Virginia.

All those captured who were believed to be his co-conspirators in the plot were hanged, including Mary Surratt, who owned the boarding house where the plotters met. Jefferson Davis, who had escaped Richmond, was captured in Georgia on May 10 and imprisoned for two years at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, before being released on $100,000 bond. One after another, the remaining Confederate forces surrendered. Their last army in the field was surrendered by Cherokee Chief Stand Watie in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) on June 23. The Last Battle The last land battle, a Confederate victory, occurred May 12–13 at Palmito (or Palmetto) Ranch in south Texas, where word of Lee’s surrender had not yet been received. Far across the Atlantic on November 6, 1865, the sea raider CSS Shenandoah surrendered to a British captain; had the ship’s crew surrendered in America, they risked hanging as pirates. Read More in America’s Civil War Magazine Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!! On Christmas Day, 1868, President Andrew Johnson issued an amnesty proclamation to all former Confederates, including Jefferson Davis.

Only one Confederate was executed, Henry Wirtz, commander of the notorious prison camp at Andersonville. Officially known as Fort Sumter, Andersonville was the largest prison camp in the south and was infamous for its ill treatment of Union prisoners who lacked adequate food and medicine. Southerners have long protested that the death rate in Northern prison camps was higher than that of Andersonville, and Wirtz should not have been punished for war crimes. Learn more about the Andersonville Prison Camp Causes There were numerous causes that led to the Civil War, many of which developing around the fact that the North was becoming more industrialized while the South remained largely agrarian. Some causes of the Civil War include: US Civil War - The Land Campaigns | History Clicking You are here: Home / Content / 19th Century History / US Civil War – Overview / US Civil War – The Land Campaigns US Civil War – The Land Campaigns The initial armed confrontations of the US Civil War (1861-1865) were assumed by both sides to be sufficient to force the opposing side to back down.

After a wave of seizures of Federal property across the Confederate states, South Carolina moved to take control of Fort Sumter, a Federal fort in Charleston Harbour. Outgoing President Buchannan had issued orders for Federal troops to avoid bloodshed and to peacefully hand over their installations to local Confederate forces. In contrast, following his inauguration, Lincoln reversed this policy. He ordered Fort Sumter’s commander to resist. The garrison withstood a short siege before being forced to surrender in April 1861. President Lincoln began mobilising an army to compel the Southern states to re-join the Union. The First Battle of Bull Run / First Manassas [1] in Virginia marked the first major military clash between the opposing armies. The Northern army was confident that they brush aside the Southern forces and seize the Confederate Capital of Richmond (located in Virginia). The Northern forces were defeated, partly because of superior general-ship on the part of the Southern forces. And partly because rapidity of the mobilisation had created an army that was poorly trained, lacked cohesion and proper leadership. The war subsequently dragged on until 1865.

Foiled in their first attempt to overwhelm the South at the First Battle of Bull Run by a single decisive stroke, the Union commenced a war of attrition. Confederate ports were blockaded by the US Navy in 1861, maintaining a strange-hold on the Confederacy’s international trade for the whole course of the war. The US Navy also successfully transported Union forces to seize some of these major ports, such as New Orleans. The US Army established its major field armies around Washington DC (‘the Army of the Potomac’) and in the mid-west (the ‘Army of the Cumberland’). For the next fourth years, these armies battled with opposing Confederate armies that attempted to block their respective invasions of the Confederacy from the north-east and the north-west. Some notable campaigns and battles: Siege of Vicksburg (18 May – 4 May 1863) ended with the capture of the city of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River by Union forces, the last Confederate redoubt on the Mississippi River. The capture of Vicksburg meant that Union forces controlled the entire length of the river, slicing the Confederacy in two.

Battle of Gettysburg (1-3 July 1863) was brought about by a Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania, the largest incursion by Confederate forces into the North. The Confederacy maintained that it was waging a defensive war and did not wish to invade the north. However, the continual devastation of Virginia by opposing armies compelled Robert E Lee (the commander of the Confederacy’s ‘Army of Northern Virginia’) to invade Pennsylvania in search of supplies. After three days of blood-letting, the opposing armies fought each other to a stand-still. Exhausted Southern troops withdrew on 4 July, while the equally exhausted Northern forces were unable to pursue. The see-sawing campaigns continued into 1864 and 1865 with increasing territorial gains by the Union. By the last months of the war, the Confederate forces were exhausted and one by one each of the field armies were compelled to surrender. Most Confederate forces, such as the ‘Army of Northern Virginia’, surrendered during April 1865; Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, was captured on 10 May.

The last battle of the war occurred at Palmito Ranch in Texas (13 May) – an unnecessary battle as the war was virtually over. However, the local Union commander wanted to finish his war service with a victory, whilst the Confederate forces at Palmito Ranch had not heard of the general collapse of the Confederacy. In a bitter irony for the Confederacy, the last battle of the war was actually a Southern victory. See Also

Question: The Battle of Palmito Ranch (Hill) was the last major clash of which 19th century war?
Answer: American Civil War