| 12–13 April 1861 | USA | Confederate forces take the federal garrison of Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina, after a 40-hour bombardment, marking the outbreak of the American Civil War. |
| 21 July 1861 | USA | The Confederates gain an indecisive victory over the Union army in the Battle of Bull Run in Virginia, the first major military engagement of the American Civil War. |
| 8–9 March 1862 | USA, Confederate States of America | The Confederate warship Merrimack and the ironclad warship Virginia sink the Union Cumberland and Congress at Hampton Roads, Virginia, but are forced to withdraw by the ironclad Union vessel Monitor, in the first battle between two ironclad warships. |
| 6 April 1862 | USA, Confederate States of America | Union and Confederate soldiers clash at Shiloh, Tennessee, with the Union forces getting the better of the battle by the end of the second day. Each side suffers roughly 10,000 casualties. |
| 25 June–1 July 1862 | USA | After an inconclusive action at Seven Pines (Fair Oaks) near Richmond, Virginia, Confederate forces newly under the command of Robert E Lee mount a series of attacks on George B McClellan's superior Union army threatening the Confederate capital. In the Seven Days' Battle, at Mechanicsville, Gaines's Mill, Savage's Station, Frayser's Farm, and Malvern Hill, Lee drives McClellan back on his base at Harrison's Landing on the James River, and McClellan begins to evacuate the Peninsula altogether. |
| 29–30 August 1862 | USA, Confederate States of America | In the Second Battle of Bull Run (known to Confederates as Second Manassas), Confederate forces effectively block a Union advance on the Confederate capitol, Richmond, Virginia. |
| 17 September 1862 | USA, Confederate States of America | In the Battle of Antietam, Maryland, (Sharpsburg, in Confederate parlance), the Union army foils a Confederate advance on Washington, DC. Some 23,000 soldiers fall on this, the war's costliest day of fighting. President Abraham Lincoln uses the Union ‘victory’ as a pretext for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation five days later. |
| 13 December 1862 | USA | The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, under the Confederate commander in chief General Robert E Lee, comprehensively defeats the attempt of the Union army of General Ambrose Burnside to cross the Rappahannock River into Virginia at Fredericksburg. Union casualties exceed 12,500, to fewer than 5,000 Confederates. |
| 2–4 May 1863 | USA, Confederate States of America | In one of the most humiliating Union defeats of the American Civil War, 60,000 Confederate troops defeat a Union force over twice that size at the Battle of Chancellorsville. The Confederacy suffers the most grievous loss, however, as the outstanding Confederate general Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson is mortally wounded by one of his own men and subsequently dies on 10 May. |
| 1–3 July 1863 | USA | General Robert E Lee's Confederate army is defeated by General George G(ordon) Meade's Union force in the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Confederate casualties in the three-day battle total 28,000, Union casualties 23,000. |
| 19–20 September 1863 | USA, Confederate States of America | Confederate forces under Braxton Bragg win a clear but strategically indecisive victory over a Union army commanded by William Rosecrans at the Battle of Chickamauga, Tennessee. The Confederacy loses 18,000 men, the Union 16,000. |
| 19 November 1863 | USA | US president Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Civil War cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He reiterates the principles of freedom, equality, and democracy embodied in the US constitution. |
| 23–25 November 1863 | USA, Confederate States of America | Union forces attain command of a crucial railway junction at the Battle of Chattanooga, Tennessee, thus strengthening the Union's grip on Confederate supply lines. |
| 5–6 May 1864 | USA | The Union under General Ulysses S Grant and the Confederates under General Robert E Lee fight the indecisive Battle of the Wilderness, Virginia. |
| June 1864 | USA, Confederate States of America | At the Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia, a Confederate army repels a Union army nearly twice its size. In the aftermath, Union general Grant begins a prolonged siege of Petersburg, Virginia, that will last to the end of the war. |
| 18 February 1865 | USA, Confederate States of America | The Confederate port of Charleston, South Carolina, besieged by the US Navy since 1861, surrenders. |
| 9 April 1865 | USA, Confederate States of America | The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E Lee surrenders to Union general Ulysses S Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. |
| 26 May 1865 | USA, Confederate States of America | The surrender of the last Confederate army at Shreveport, near New Orleans, Louisiana, ends the American Civil War. |
