Civil War Western Theater

September 13, 1862 Fought on September 13, 1862, in Charleston, Virginia (now West Virginia), the Battle of Charleston was the culminating engagement of Confederate Major General William Wing Loring's successful Kanawha Valley campaign. During the summer of 1861, Union and Confederate forces struggled for control of western Virginia. The area was of considerable importance because…

December 26–29, 1862 The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou (also known as the Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs, and the Battle of Walnut Hills) was the first major engagement of the Federal campaign to capture the Confederate fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi on the Mississippi River. After the Union successes at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, the Federals…

May 9, 1864 The Federal victory at the Battle of Cloyd's Mountain on May 9, 1864 enabled Army of West Virginia to destroy the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad in western Virginia, the last southern railroad connecting Virginia and Tennessee. On March 12, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Ulysses S. Grant as General-in-Chief of the Armies…

November 24–29, 1864 The Battle of Columbia was a series of military skirmishes that took place from November 24 to 29, 1864, near the town of Columbia, Tennessee. It was the initial engagement between the Confederate forces of Lieutenant General John Bell Hood and the Union forces of Major General John Schofield in Hood's Franklin-Nashville…

October 3–4, 1862 Fought on October 3 and 4, 1862, between Earl Van Dorn's Confederate Army of West Tennessee and William S. Rosecrans's Union Army of the Mississippi, the Battle of Corinth II was an unsuccessful Confederate attempt to re-occupy the city Corinth, Mississippi. Union prospects were bright for a successful end of the American…

July 13, 1861 Fought on July 13, 1861, in Tucker County, Virginia (now West Virginia), the Battle of Corrick's Ford was instrumental in securing Federal control of western Virginia and in contributing to the establishment of the State of West Virginia. As the possibility of civil war in the United States evolved during the early…

February 25, 1864 On February 25, 1864, Union soldiers commanded by Major General George H. Thomas failed to dislodge heavily fortified Confederate forces near Dalton, Georgia during the Battle of Crow Valley prior to the start of the Atlanta Campaign. In September 1863, Confederate General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee was attempting to recapture Chattanooga,…

September 7–9, 1863 The bloodless Battle of Cumberland Gap took place from September 7 through 9, 1863 at the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. On June 8, 1861, Tennessee became the last Southern state to secede from the Union. The decision, however, was far from unanimous. In the eastern…