On April 9 1865 - Gen. Robert E. Lee surrenders his Confederate Army to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the village of Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
He was a general of the confederates and so fought against the Federals on the side of the American states which were formed in February 1861.
James Longstreet was also a general for the confederates and on one occasion defeated 75,000 Federals under Gen. John Pope with 55,000 Confederates and Gen. Stonewall Jackson.
Major General George Thomas gained the nickname The Rock of Chickamauga because he managed to avert a major disaster for the confederates.
The Federals were those who were against the cofederal states and Government.
The Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole tribes were the only Indian tribes who took an active part in the civil war. Before the war very few of the Indians of these tribes manifested any interest in the question of slavery, and only a small number owned slave property. Slavery among them was not regarded in the same light as among the whites, for in many instances the slaves acted as if they were on an equality with their masters. But the tribes named occupied valuable territory, and the Confederate authorities lost no time in sending agents among them to win them over. When the Confederate agents first approached the full-blood leaders of the Cherokee and Creek tribes on the subject of severing their relations with the United States, the Indian expressed themselves cautiously but decidedly as preferring to remain neutral. Eventually the confederates won them over.
The Home guard was made up of civilians who for one reason or another could not join the army.
The Army of Northern Virginia defeats Union troops at Fredericksburg, Va., in December 1862.
The Union and Confederacy clashed in bloody battles across Virginia and Maryland for two years. The Army of the Potomac possessed more men and material, but the Confederate army managed to win victories under excellent leadership.
GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE'S first invasion of the North culminated with the Battle of Antietam, in Maryland (or Sharpsburg, as the South called it). The battle took place on Wednesday, September 17, 1862, just 18 days after the Confederate victory at Second Manassas, 40 miles to the southeast in Virginia.
This was the sixth and last of the Seven Days' Battles. On July 1, 1862, Gen. Robert E. Lee launched a series of disjointed assaults on the nearly impregnable Union position on Malvern Hill. The Confederates suffered more than 5,300 casualties without gaining an inch of ground. Despite his victory, McClellan withdrew to entrench at Harrison's Landing on James River, where his army was protected by gunboats. This ended the Peninsula Campaign. When McClellan's army ceased to threaten Richmond, Lee sent Jackson to operate against Maj. Gen. John Pope's army along the Rapidan River, thus initiating the Northern Virginia Campaign.
