Browse all Entries, Images, Videos, and Audio Files in the Civil War Organizations category.
1st Battalion Governor’s Guards
September 24, 1862–July 3, 1865 The 1st Battalion Governor’s Guards was mustered into service between September 24, and October 27, 1862, at Camp Chase, in Columbus, Ohio. Consisting of four companies, the Governor’s Guards principally served as guards of the Confederate prisoners at Camp Chase. The battalion did briefly serve in Kentucky, guarding Cincinnati, Ohio…
Army of Northern Virginia
June 1, 1862 – April 12, 1865 Organized in 1861, and officially named in 1862, the Army of Northern Virginia was the principal military force of the Confederate States of America in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. Following the election of Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln on November 6, 1860, the United…
Army of Tennessee
November 20, 1862–April 26, 1865 The Army of Tennessee was the Confederacy's primary fighting force in the Western Theater of the American Civil War between 1862 and 1865. Although not officially designated the Army of Tennessee until 1862, the roots of the Confederacy's primary fighting force in the West trace back to 1861. Prior to…
Army of the Potomac (CSA)
June 20, 1861 – June 1, 1862 Organized on June 20, 1861, the Army of the Potomac later became the Army of Northern Virginia, the principal military force of the Confederate States of America in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. Following the election of Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln on November 6,…
Army of the Shenandoah (CSA)
May 15, 1861 – July 20, 1861 The main Confederate force in northwestern Virginia after the beginning of the American Civil War, the Army of the Shenandoah, reinforced the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Bull Run I, securing a Confederate victory. Prelude Following the election of Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln on…
Copperheads
A majority of Northerners supported the Union war effort, yet a sizable and vocal minority opposed the conflict. Most of the opponents, the Copperheads, preferred a peaceful resolution to the war, with some of these people even calling on the North simply to leave the seceded Confederate states alone. During the American Civil War, people…
Department of the Ohio
1861 – 1865 Created on May 3, 1861, the Department of the Ohio was a Union military administrative unit that existed in various forms during the American Civil War until January 17, 1865. On April 15, 1861, one day after the surrender of Fort Sumter propelled the nation into civil war, President Abraham Lincoln issued…
Freedmen’s Bureau Acts
1865–1872
Ohio Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphans’ Home
1870–1997 In 1869, the Grand Army of the Republic proposed the formation of and began to construct the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphans’ Home to provide for children orphaned when their father died during the American Civil War. The State of Ohio assumed control of the institution in 1870 and eventually permitted children orphaned as a…