On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter, forcing them to surrender, and began the war.

Even though they had the advantage of fighting on the defensive, the Confederate forces had " almost as high a percentage of casualties as the Union forces ".

Gen. George H. Thomas moved against the Confederates, Crittenden decided to attack one of the two parts of Thomas's command at Logan's Cross Roads near Mill Springs before the Union forces could unite.

His passive defensive performance while positioning himself in a forward position at Bowling Green, spreading his forces too thinly, not concentrating his forces in the face of Union advances, and appointing or relying upon inadequate or incompetent subordinates subjected him to criticism at the time and by later historians.

The fall of the forts exposed Nashville to imminent attack, and it fell without resistance to Union forces under Brig.

Johnston kept the Union forces, now under the overall command of the ponderous Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck, confused and hesitant to move, allowing Johnston to reach his objective undetected.

Johnston now planned to defeat the Union forces piecemeal before the various Union units in Kentucky and Tennessee under Grant with 40, 000 men at nearby Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, and the now Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell on his way from Nashville with 35, 000 men, could unite against him.

As the Confederate forces overran the Union camps, Johnston seemed to be everywhere, personally leading and rallying troops up and down the line on his horse.

* 1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Shiloh begins – in Tennessee, forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant meet Confederate troops led by General Albert Sidney Johnston.

* 1861 – Union forces attack Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

* 1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Cedar Mountain – At Cedar Mountain, Virginia, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson narrowly defeats Union forces under General John Pope.

* 1862 – American Civil War: New Orleans, Louisiana falls to Union forces under Admiral David Farragut.

* 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Gainesville – Confederate forces defeat Union troops near Gainesville, Florida.

* 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Globe Tavern – Union forces try to cut a vital Confederate supply-line into Petersburg, Virginia, by attacking the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad.

* 1943 – World War II: The discovery of a mass grave of Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced, causing a diplomatic rift between the Polish government in exile in London from the Soviet Union, which denies responsibility.

After the election Johnson was most anxious to complete the re-establishment of civil government in Tennessee ; Union forces brought the war to an end in that state with their victory in the Battle of Nashville in December.

* 1864 – During the American Civil War, Union forces led by General William T. Sherman launch an assault on Atlanta, Georgia.

* 1862 – American Civil War – Battle of Richmond: Confederates under Edmund Kirby Smith rout Union forces under General Horatio Wright.

Following the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he personally supervised the transportation of the defeated forces.

* 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Mansfield – Union forces are thwarted by the Confederate army at Mansfield, Louisiana.

* 1865 – American Civil War: Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America.

After having had several years of dramatic military success, Germany was defeated in 1945, having been repelled and invaded by the Soviet Union from the east and invaded from the west by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Free France.

While visiting his forces in Florida, which had just repelled a Union advance at Jacksonville, Beauregard received a telegram that his wife had died on March 2, 1864.

Philadelphia began preparing for invasion in 1863, but the Confederate Army was repelled by Union forces at Gettysburg.

After Lee repelled the Union army in the Seven Days Battles, Union Maj. Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia threatened to attack from the north, so Jackson was sent to intercept him.

Initially successful, the Confederates were repelled by a Union counterattack and the Valley was firmly under Union control.

The Union forces again repelled the attack.

With the artillery reserve at the Battle of Malvern Hill, his 250 guns repelled repeated Confederate infantry assaults with such gruesome efficiency that the Union infantry had little to do.

One notable exception was the Battle of Fort Stevens in July 1864 in which Union soldiers repelled troops under the command of Confederate General Jubal A.

On October 9, a Confederate force of 1000 troops landed east of Fort Pickens, but was repelled by Union forces.

Again Reverend Corder saved the bridge when Union soldiers planned to destroy it, after filling its two lanes with hay and straw -- but for what reason is not recorded nor remembered, certainly not because of pressure from an opposing Confederate force.

Under Lincoln's leadership, the Union set up a naval blockade that shut down the South's normal trade, took control of the border slave states at the start of the war, gained control of communications with gunboats on the southern river systems, and tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia.

Virginia declared its secession and was rewarded with the Confederate capital, despite the exposed position of Richmond so close to Union lines.

Once the abolition of slavery in the rebel states became a military objective, as Union armies advanced south, more slaves were liberated until all three million of them in Confederate territory were freed.

His Amnesty Proclamation of December 8, 1863, offered pardons to those who had not held a Confederate civil office, had not mistreated Union prisoners, and would sign an oath of allegiance.

Considered by Confederate President Jefferson Davis to be the finest general officer in the Confederacy before the emergence of Robert E. Lee, he was killed early in the Civil War at the Battle of Shiloh and was the highest-ranking officer, Union or Confederate, killed during the entire war.

As the battle progressed, Zollicoffer was killed, Crittenden was unable to lead the Confederate force since he was probably intoxicated and the Confederates were turned back and routed by a Union bayonet charge, suffering 533 casualties from their force of 4, 000.

On February 6, 1862, Union Navy gunboats quickly reduced the defenses of ill-sited Fort Henry, inflicting 21 casualties on the small remaining Confederate force.

The Gallant Dead: Union & Confederate Generals Killed in the Civil War.

Eleven southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America (" the Confederacy "); the other 25 states supported the federal government (" the Union ").

Considering the relative weight given to causes of the Civil War by contemporary actors, historians such as Chandra Manning argue that both Union and Confederate fighting soldiers believed slavery to be the cause of the Civil War.

* 1863 – American Civil War: The Siege of Vicksburg – ships led by Union Admiral David Dixon Porter move through heavy Confederate artillery fire on approach to Vicksburg, Mississippi.

* 1864 – The Union Navy captures Fort Morgan, Alabama, thus breaking Confederate dominance of all ports on the Gulf of Mexico except Galveston, Texas.

* 1865 – American Civil War: The Siege of Petersburg is broken – Union troops capture the trenches around Petersburg, Virginia, forcing Confederate General Robert E. Lee to retreat.

* 1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Baton Rouge – along the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Confederate troops attempt to take the city, but are driven back by fire from Union gunboats.

* 1864 – American Civil War: the Battle of Mobile Bay begins – at Mobile Bay near Mobile, Alabama, Admiral David Farragut leads a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and seals one of the last major Southern ports.