1862:  
Skirmish at Stony Creek, Virginia

Skirmish near Walkersville, Missouri


Putnam's Ferry, near Doniphan, Mo. 21st and 38th Ill., 5th 111. Cav., 16th Ohio Battery and Col. Carlin's Brigade. Confed. 3 killed.


1863:  
Bread riots in Richmond
Responding to acute food shortages, hundreds of angry women riot in Richmond, demanding that the government release emergency supplies. For several hours, the mob moved through the city, breaking windows and looting stores, before President Jefferson Davis threw his pocket change at them from the top of a wagon. Davis ordered the crowd to disperse or he would order the militia to fire upon them. The riot ended peacefully, although 44 women and 29 men were arrested.


Skirmish at Carter Creek, Tennessee

Skirmish on the Little Rock Road, Arkansas

Engagement at Hill's Point, North Carolina


1864:  
Cape Lookout Lighthouse, North Carolina, destroyed by the Confederates

Skirmish on Cedar Creek, Florida

Skirmish at Cow Ford Creek, near Pensacola, Florida

Skirmish at Antoine Creek, Arkansas

Skirmish on Wolf Creek, Arkansas


1865:  
Union captures Petersburg line and General Hill is killed
After a ten-month siege, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant capture the trenches around Petersburg, Virginia, and Confederate General Robert E. Lee leads his troops on a desperate retreat westward.

The ragged Confederate troops could no longer maintain the 40-mile network of defenses that ran from southwest of Petersburg to north of Richmond, the Rebel capital 25 miles north of Petersburg. Through the winter, desertion and attrition melted Lee's army down to less than 60,000, while Grant's army swelled to over 120,000. Grant attacked Five Forks southwest of Petersburg on April 1, scoring a huge victory that cut Lee's supply line and inflicted 5,000 casualties. The next day, Lee wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, "I think it absolutely necessary that we should abandon our position tonight..."

Grant's men attacked all along the Petersburg front. In the predawn hours, hundreds of Federal cannon roared to life as the Yankees bombarded the Rebel fortifications. Said one soldier, "the shells screamed through the air in a semi-circle of flame." At 5:00 in the morning, Union troops silently crawled toward the Confederates, shrouded in darkness. Confederate pickets alerted the troops, and the Yankees were raked by heavy fire, but the determined troops poured forth and began overrunning the trenches. Four thousand Union troops were killed or wounded, but a northern officer wrote, "It was a great relief, a positive lifting of a load of misery to be at last let at them."

Confederate General Ambrose Powell Hill, a corps commander in the Army of Northern Virginia and one of Lee's most trusted lieutenants, rode to the front to rally his men. As he approached some trees with his aide, two Union soldiers emerged and fired, killing Hill instantly. Hill had survived four years of war and dozens of battles only to die during the final days of the Confederacy. When Lee received the news, he quietly said "He is at rest now, and we who are left are the ones to suffer."

By nightfall, President Davis and the Confederate government were in flight and Richmond was on fire. Retreating Rebel troops set ablaze several huge warehouses to prevent them from being captured by the Federals and the fires soon spread. With the army and government officials gone, bands of Southern thugs roamed the streets looting and setting fire to what was left.


Confederates evacuate Richmond, Virginia

Actions at Scott's Cross Roads and Namozine Church, and engagement at Sutherland's Station, Virginia

Skirmish near Hickory Station, Arkansas

Skirmish near Van Buren, Arkansas

Skirmish near Goldsborough, North Carolina

Skirmish at Summerfield, Alabama

Union troops occupy Selma, Alabama

Engagement at Selma, Alabama

Skirmish near Scottsville, Alabama

Skirmish at Centerville, Alabama

Siege of Fort Blakely begins in Alabama


Primary sources:
Official Records of the War of the Rebellion
A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion ; by Frederick Dyer;
The Civil War Day By Day: An Almanac 1861-1865 by E. B. Long with Barbara Long;
National Archives Guide Index