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Historic Organizations and Places
National battlefields, military parks, historic sites, and cemeteries administered by the National Park Service, with official hours, alerts, and ranger programs.
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Showing 1–19 of 19
23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing after twelve hours of savage combat on September 17, 1862. The Battle of Antietam ended the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia's first invasion into the North and led Abraham Lincoln to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
On April 9, 1865, the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia in the McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House, Virginia signaled the effective end of the nation's largest war. Questions remained: could the nation reunite as one? How would emancipation be realized?
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
The Confederate victory at Brices Cross Roads was a significant victory for Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest, but its long-term effect on the war proved costly for the Confederates.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
In 1863, Union and Confederate forces fought for control of Chattanooga - a gateway to the Confederacy. The Confederates were victorious at nearby Chickamauga in September. However, renewed fighting in Chattanooga that November provided Union troops victory and control of the city. After the fighting, a Confederate soldier ominously wrote, "This...is the death-knell of the Confederacy."
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant was becoming quite famous as he wrote these words following the surrender of Confederate Fort Donelson on Sunday, February 16, 1862. The Union victory at Fort Donelson elated the North, and stunned the South. Within days of the surrender, Clarksville and Nashville would fall into Union hands. Grant and his troops had created a pathway to victory for the Union.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
For much of the 19th century, masonry fortifications were the United States’ main defense against overseas enemies. However, during the Civil War, new technology proved its superiority over these forts. Using rifled cannons, the U.S. Army compelled the Confederate garrison inside Fort Pulaski to surrender. The siege was a landmark experiment in the history of military science and invention.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
Two forts stand at the entrance of Charleston Harbor. Patriots inside a palmetto log fort, later named Fort Moultrie, defeated the Royal Navy in 1776. As Charleston blazed a path towards secession to preserve slavery, construction on a new fort, Fort Sumter, proceeded. The Confederacy fired on the US garrison of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 opening the Civil War, which redefined American freedom.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania, this is America's battleground, where the Civil War roared to its bloody climax. No place more vividly reflects the War's tragic cost in all its forms. A town bombarded and looted. Farms large and small ruined. Refugees by the thousands forced into the countryside. More than 85,000 men wounded; 15,000 killed--most in graves unknown.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the Civil War, the Union victory that ended General Robert E. Lee's second and most ambitious invasion of the North. Often referred to as the "High Water Mark of the Rebellion", Gettysburg was the Civil War's bloodiest battle and was also the inspiration for President Abraham Lincoln's immortal "Gettysburg Address".
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park is a 2,965 acre National Battlefield that preserves a Civil War battleground of the Atlanta Campaign. Opposing forces maneuvered and fought here from June 19, 1864 until July 2, 1864. Although most famous as a Civil War battlefield, Kennesaw Mountain has a much richer story.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
On July 21, 1861, two armies clashed for the first time on the fields overlooking Bull Run. Heavy fighting swept away any notion of a quick war. In August 1862, Union and Confederate armies converged for a second time on the plains of Manassas. The Confederates won a solid victory bringing them to the height of their power.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
During the summer of 1864, the Confederacy carried out a bold plan to turn the tide of the Civil War in their favor. They planned to capture Washington, DC and influence the election of 1864. On July 9, however, Federal soldiers outnumbered three to one, fought gallantly along the banks of the Monocacy River in an effort to buy time for Union reinforcement to arrive in Washington, DC.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
On March 7-8, 1862, over 23,000 soldiers fought here to decide the fate of Missouri which was a turning point of the war in the Trans-Mississippi. This 4,400-acre battlefield honors those who fought and died on these hallowed grounds. Pea Ridge was the most pivotal Civil War battle west of the Mississippi River.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
Two hundred ninety-two days, eight offensives, over 70,000 casualties, U. S. Colored Troops, and the decline of Gen. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia all describe the Siege of Petersburg. U.S. forces cut off supplies to both Petersburg and the Confederate capital, Richmond. Today, the park preserves the sites of this pivotal campaign.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
The center of Confederate manufacturing fueled a modern war, one of the South’s largest hospitals gave care to the sick and wounded, and armies battled on open fields and in miles of defensive earthworks. From 1861 to 1865, Richmond’s fate would determine America’s future.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
Visit the sites of the most epic struggle in the Western Theater of the Civil War. Nearly 110,000 American troops clashed in a bloody contest that resulted in 23,746 casualties; more casualties than in all of America's previous wars combined. Explore both the Shiloh and Corinth battlefields to discover the impact of this struggle on the soldiers and on the nation.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
The Battle of Stones River began on the last day of 1862 and became one of the bloodiest conflicts of the Civil War. The battle produced important military and political gains for the Union, and it changed forever the people who lived and fought here.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
To Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Vicksburg was the "nailhead that holds the South's two halves together." President Abraham Lincoln remarked "Vicksburg is the key" to victory, and could be the north's lifeline into the south. As the federals closed in on the Fortress City, they were met by a ring of forts with over 170 cannon. The resulting battle would determine the war's outcome.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12
Wilson's Creek was the first major Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi River, and where the first Union general was killed in action. The costly Southern victory on August 10, 1861, focused national attention on the war in Missouri. Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield commemorates and interprets the battle within the context of the war in the Trans-Mississippi West.
Organization Confirmed · checked 2026-09-12