Virginia 42nd Infantry (Confederate)

First Kernstown

In the spring of 1862, relying on faulty intelligence that under-reported the strength of the Union garrison at Winchester in the lower Shenandoah Valley, Confederate Maj. Gen. 'Stonewall' Jackson marched aggressively north with his 3,800-man division. In Winchester, the 8,500 Federals were a detachment from the Army of the Potomac's Fifth Corps, and were commanded by Col. Nathan Kimball, who outnumbered Jackson more than two to one. Kimball established a defensive position on the Valley Turnpike and Midd…READ MORE

ColonelJohn Campbell

McDowell

As Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan prepared to march his Army of the Potomac up the Virginia Peninsula and capture Richmond, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston ordered Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson to prevent Union troops in the Shenandoah Valley from reinforcing McClellan. After his tactical defeat at the First Battle of Kernstown, Jackson moved up the valley to confront a Union force entering it from western Virginia. Joining forces with Brig. Gen. Edward "Allegheny" Johnson's Army of the…READ MORE

First Winchester

Part of Jackson's Valley Campaign, the First Battle of Winchester took place May 24, 1862. The battle was huge victory for Jackson's troops and disrupted the Union's plans to take Richmond.READ MORE

Cross Keys

Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont's and his 11,000-man Mountain Department army were tasked with keeping Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's two-division force engaged in the Shenandoah Valley and unable to join with Robert E. Lee's army defending Richmond during the Peninsula Campaign against the Confederate capital. In early June, Jackson's men under Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell were encamped in the vicinity of Cross Keys on the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. Union screening cavalry approached Jackson f…READ MORE

Lieutenant ColonelWilliam T. Martin

ColonelJohn M. Patton

Port Republic

One day after the battle at Cross Keys, Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson concentrated his division east of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River near Port Republic against the isolated brigades of Brig. Gen. Erastus Tyler and Col. Samuel S. Carroll. Confederate assaults across the bottomland of the Lewis family farm, along the River Road, spearheaded by the Stonewall Brigade, were repulsed with heavy casualties. A Confederate flank attack, including a brigade of the Louisiana Tigers, overtook an ar…READ MORE

ColonelT.S. Garnett

Brigadier GeneralCharles S. Winder

Brigadier GeneralWilliam B. Taliaferro

MajorHenry Lane

Brigadier GeneralCharles S. Winder

Cedar Mountain

Maj. Gen. John Pope was placed in command of the newly-constituted Army of Virginia on June 26th. Pope's orders were to defend Washington DC and Union-held northern Virginia while the Army of the Potomac under Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan battled Robert E. Lee outside of Richmond. When McClellan was defeated at the end of the Seven Days battles less than a week later, Lee turned his attention north toward Pope while McClellan regrouped his army. Pope's three army corps were arrayed in a line from the Blu…READ MORE

ColonelBradley T. Johnson

Brigadier GeneralWilliam B. Taliaferro

Brigadier GeneralWilliam E. Starke

Brigadier GeneralWilliam B. Taliaferro

Second Bull Run

After the early summer collapse of the Union Peninsula Campaign offensive to capture Richmond, Robert E. Lee sought to move his army north and threaten Washington DC before Union forces could regroup.READ MORE

Brigadier GeneralWilliam E. Starke

Chantilly

Confederate Maj. Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson hoped to cut off the Union retreat from Manassas the day after the Confederate victory at the second battle fought there. Jackson's wing of Lee's army made a wide, flanking march, screened by Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry, north and then east, to take the strategically important village of Germantown. There, Maj. Gen. John Pope's only two retreat routes to Washington - the Warrenton Pike and the Little River Turnpike - converged. On September 1st, beyond Chanti…READ MORE

CaptainA. C. Page

CaptainJohn E. Penn

CaptainRobert W. Withers

Brigadier GeneralJohn R. Jones

Brigadier GeneralWilliam E. Starke

ColonelAndrew J. Grigsby

CaptainJohn E. Penn

CaptainA. C. Page

Brigadier GeneralJohn R. Jones

Brigadier GeneralWilliam E. Starke

Antietam

The Army of the Potomac, under the command of Maj. Gen. George McClellan, mounted a series of powerful assaults against General Robert E. Lee's forces along Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17th, 1862.READ MORE

Brigadier GeneralJohn R. Jones

Brigadier GeneralWilliam B. Taliaferro

Fredericksburg

In early November, Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside took command of the Army of the Potomac, and made immediate plans to move the army once again toward Richmond.READ MORE

Brigadier GeneralJohn R. Jones

ColonelAlexander S. Vandeventer

ColonelThomas S. Garnett

Brigadier GeneralRaleigh E. Colston

ColonelThomas S. Garnett

Chancellorsville

On April 27, 1863, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker launched a turning movement designed to pry Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia out of its lines at Fredericksburg.READ MORE

Brigadier GeneralJohn M. Jones

Major GeneralEdward "Allegheny" Johnson

Brigadier GeneralJohn M. Jones

Lieutenant ColonelRobert H. Dungan

Major GeneralEdward Johnson

Lieutenant ColonelRobert W. Withers

Brigadier GeneralJohn M. Jones

Gettysburg

In the summer of 1863, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee launched his second invasion of the Northern states. Lee sought to capitalize on recent Confederate victories and defeat the Union army on Northern soil, which he hoped would force the Lincoln administration to negotiate for peace. Lee also sought to take the war out of the ravaged Virginia farmland and gather supplies for his Army of Northern Virginia. Using the Shenandoah Valley as cover for his army, Lee was pursued first by Union Maj. Gen. Joseph Ho…READ MORE

Brigadier GeneralJohn M. Jones

ColonelWilliam A. Witcher

Brigadier GeneralJohn M. Jones

Wilderness

The first battle between Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. Robert E. Lee erupted late in the morning of May 5, 1864, as Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren's Union V Corps attacked Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's Second Corps on the Orange Turnpike southwest of the old Chancellorsville battlefield. Although Federal infantry managed to break through at several points, the Confederate line held. Fighting shifted to the south as Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill's Third Corps engaged Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock's II Corps and ele…READ MORE

ColonelJohn C. Higginbotham

ColonelRobert H. Dungan

ColonelWilliam Witcher

ColonelWilliam Witcher

ColonelJohn C. Higginbotham

Major GeneralEdward Johnson

Spotsylvania Court House

Following the Battle of the Wilderness, Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant marched the Union army south with the hope of capturing Spotsylvania Court House and preventing Robert E. Lee's army from retreating further. Lee's Confederates, however, managed to get ahead of the Federals and block the road. Fighting began on May 8th, when the Union Fifth Corps under Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren and the Sixth Corps under Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick engaged Confederate Maj. Gen. Richard Anderson's First Corps at Laurel Hi…READ MORE

Cold Harbor

After two days of inconclusive fighting along Totopotomoy Creek northeast of Richmond, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. Robert E. Lee turned their sights on the crossroads of Cold Harbor. Roads emanating through this critical junction led to Richmond as well as supply and reinforcement sources for the Union army. On May 31, 1864, Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan's cavalry captured Cold Harbor. The next day, Sheridan held the crossroads against a Confederate attack. With reinforcements from both armies arriving…READ MORE

Monocacy

After marching north down the Shenandoah Valley from Lynchburg, the Confederate army of Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early side-stepped the Federal garrison at Harpers Ferry and crossed the Potomac River at Shepherdstown into Maryland on July 5-6th, 1864. On July 9th, a makeshift Union force under Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace attempted to stop Early's invading Confederate divisions along the Monocacy River, just east of Frederick. The strategic area was near the junction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Georgetown…READ MORE

Brigadier GeneralWilliam Terry

Major GeneralJohn B. Gordon

Fort Stevens

After his victory over Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace at the Battle of Monocacy in central Maryland on July 9th, Confederate Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early pressed his advantage and moved south toward the Union capital in Washington, DC. On July 11th, Early's exhausted Confederates reached the outskirts of Washington near Silver Spring. Skirmishers advanced to feel the fortifications that encircled the city, which at the time were manned only by Home Guards, clerks, and convalescent troops. During the night, Union reinfo…READ MORE

Third Winchester

To clear the Shenandoah River valley of Confederates, Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan moved on Winchester in mid-September 1864. Sheridan's force of over 39,000 men was more than twice the size of Maj. Gen. Jubal Early's Confederate army defending the valley. After Brig. Gen. Joseph Kershaw's division left Winchester to rejoin Robert E. Lee's army at Petersburg, Early renewed his raids on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Martinsburg in the lower valley, dispersing his four remaining infantry divisions. On Septem…READ MORE

Fisher's Hill

Confederate Maj. Gen. Jubal Early's Army of the Valley, bloodied by its defeat at the Third Battle of Winchester on September 19th, retreated 20 miles up the valley and took a defensive position in an east-west line across Fisher's Hill, southwest of Strasburg. Maj. Gen. Phillip Sheridan's Army of the Shenandoah, in accordance with Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's orders, aggressively pursued Early. Sheridan, outnumbering Early about three to one, noted that the right of the Confederate line was anchored o…READ MORE

Cedar Creek

Also known as: Cedar Creek, Belle GroveREAD MORE

Fort Stedman

By March of 1865, Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's grip on the Confederate lines around Petersburg was having its desired effect. Outnumbered and weakened by disease, desertion and shortage of food and supplies, Gen. Robert E. Lee had few options. After careful study of the Union troops in his sector of the line, Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon suggested to Lee the possibility of a successful offensive strike against Grant. In front of Gordon's men, Union-held Fort Stedman seemed the best target for a Confederate a…READ MORE

High Bridge

Harried mercilessly by Federal troops and continually cut off from turning south to reach Gen. Joseph Johnston's army in North Carolina, General Robert E. Lee and his army headed west along the Appomattox River, eventually arriving in Cumberland County on April 6th. Food and supplies that Lee's men desperately needed were waiting at Farmville, across the river. To get there, Lee needed to use the 2,500-foot long, 130-foot tall High Bridge, which carried the South Side Railroad over the Appomattox. A small…READ MORE

Sailor's Creek

Five days after Robert E. Lee's men retreated from the trenches of Petersburg, cavalry under Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan effectively cut off three separate corps of Lee's army near Sailor's Creek, a tributary of the Appomattox River, while the Union Second and Sixth Corps approached from the east. On April 6th, two brigades of Andrew H. Humphrey's Second Corps overwhelmed two brigades of Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon's division as the Confederates struggled to move their supply and artillery trains across the creek…READ MORE

Appomattox Court House

Between 26,000 and 28,000 Confederate soldiers surrendered and were paroled.READ MORE