“We shall be in one of the bloodiest civil wars that history has recorded.”
On April 12, 1861, forces from the Confederate States of America attacked the United States military garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Less than two days later, the fort surrendered. No one was killed. The battle, however, started the Civil War, the bloodiest conflict in American history.
The Battle of Antietam pitted Union General George McClellan's Army of the Potomac against General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. The Maryland Campaign was Lee's first attempt to take the war North and it was McClellan who was tasked by President Abraham Lincoln with stopping him.
"As night drew nearer, whispers of a great battle to be fought the next day grew louder, and we shuddered at the prospect, for battles had come to mean to us, as they never had before, blood, wounds, and death."
The Battle of Appomattox Court House started during the early morning hours of April 9, 1865. By the afternoon of the same day, General Robert E. Lee, commander of all Confederate forces, surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant.