1862:  
Confederates destroy the CSS Virginia - It's only 1862 and the Confederacy can't hold their rivers, ports and coast lines.

Affair at Cave City, Kentucky


1863:  
Skirmishes at Mount Vernon and Taylor's Creek, Arkansas


1864:  
Battle of Yellow Tavern; Confederate Cavalry General J.E.B. Stuart is mortally wounded.
A dismounted Union trooper fatally wounds J.E.B. Stuart, with at 100 plus yard pistol shot, one of the most colorful generals and one of the biggest "it's about me guys" of the South, at the Battle of Yellow Tavern, just six miles north of Richmond. Stuart died the next day.

During the 1864 spring campaign in Virginia, General Ulysses S. Grant applied constant pressure on Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. In early May, the two armies clashed in the Wilderness and again at Spotsylvania Court House as they lurched southward toward Richmond. Meanwhile, Grant sent General Phil Sheridan and his cavalry on a raid deep behind Confederate lines. The plan was to cut Lee's supply line and force him out of the trenches in retreat. Sheridan's troops wreaked havoc on the Rebel rear as they tore up railroad tracks, destroyed supply depots, and held off the Confederate cavalry in several engagements, including the Battle of Yellow Tavern.

Although Sheridan's Federal troops held the field at the end of the day, his forces were stretched thin. Richmond could be taken, Sheridan wrote later, but it could not be held. He began to withdraw back to the north.

The death of Stuart was a serious blow to Lee. Stuart was not without his faults: He had been surprised by a Union attack at the Battle of Brandy Station in 1863, and failed to provide Lee with crucial information at Gettysburg. Stuart's death, like Stonewall Jackson's the year before, seriously affected Lee's operations.



Combats at Ashland and Glen Allen Station, Virginia


1865:  
Confederate Forces under the command of Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson surrender at Chalk Bluff, Arkansas

Skirmish at Brown's Planation, Louisiana

Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens is arrested at Liberty Hall, his estate in Crawfordville, Georgia by members of the 4th Iowa Cavalry.


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

Quote :

GrumpyDave wrote :  Stuart's death, like Stonewall Jackson's the year before, seriously affected Lee's operations.

Interestingly, (well, okay, to me at least   ) Gen. Lee did not name an immediate successor to Stuart for the Cavalry, ANV. For a time, until Jan. 1865 if my memory is correct, both the Divisions of Wade Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee reported directly to him.  Some historians speculate that there was an animosity between the two Major Generals and that neither wanted to serve under the other. Hampton because he had seniorty as a general officer, and Fitz Lee because he was "from Virginia" and a confidant of Stuart. Whatever it was, Hampton was finally named the ANV Cavalry chieftan in the waning months of the war. However, he and his division ended the war with Gen. Joe Johnston's folks in N.C., having been sent (or volunteering, depending on which book you read) to his native South Carolina as Sherman's hordes approached. Hampton was supposed to have rejoined Lee in Virginia, but the war ended before he could return.

Lot's of Palace Intrigue within the Cavalry, ANV, before and after the death of Stuart. Politics, egos, glory........you know, the stuff that has plagued armies since the beginning of time.