Army of the Virginia

(noun)

The Army of Northern Virginia was the primary military force of the Confederate States of America in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War, as well as the primary command structure of the Department of Northern Virginia.

Related Terms

Examples of Army of the Virginia in the following topics:

  • The Battle of Fredericksburg

    • McClellan into action, he issued orders to replace McClellan in command of the Army of the Potomac in Virginia.
    • The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought December 11–15, 1862, in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, between General Robert E.
    • Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General Ambrose Burnside.
    • Battle of Fredericksburg: The Army of the Potomac crossing the Rappahannock in the morning of December 13, 1862, under the command of Generals Burnside, Sumner, Hooker, and Franklin
    • Due to the Union Army's logistical and bureaucratic delays, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had set up well-fortified positions by the time of Burnside's attack.

  • The Confederacy's Defeat

    • Grant made his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, and put Maj.
    • Lee's extended lines were mostly on small sections of thirty miles of strongholds around Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia.
    • Grant then took advantage of the situation and launched attacks on this thirty mile and poorly defended front, ultimately leading to the surrender of Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox.
    • The Army of Northern Virginia surrendered on April 9, followed by General St.
    • The Confederate president was subsequently held prisoner for two years in Fort Monroe, Virginia.

  • Stalemate in the Eastern Theater

    • The eastern theater of the American Civil War included the states of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and the coastal fortifications and seaports of North Carolina.
    • Lee’s offensive campaign against Union General Alexander Pope’s Army of Virginia while it was isolated from General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, which was stationed near Richmond.
    • The imaginations of both Northerners and Southerners were captured by the epic struggles between the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, under Robert E.
    • Lee, and the Union Army of the Potomac, under a series of less successful commanders.
    • President Lincoln visiting the Army of the Potomac at the Antietam battlefield, September 1862.

  • McClellan's Peninsular Campaign

    • McClellan, was an amphibious turning movement against the Confederate States Army in northern Virginia intended to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond.
    • McClellan, recently having ascended to general chief of all Union armies in addition to remaining an army commander for the Army of the Potomac, revealed on January 12, 1862, a plan to transport the Army of the Potomac by ship to Urbanna, Virginia, in order to outflank Confederate forces near Washington and capture Richmond.
    • Another setback for the campaign was the emergence of the first Confederate ironclad ship, the CSS Virginia, which complicated further Union operations along the James River.
    • President Lincoln eventually ordered the Army of the Potomac back to the D.C. area to support Major General John Pope’s forces in the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Second Battle of Bull Run.
    • General McClellan launched an invasion of Virginia, intending to take the Confederate capital of Richmond and bring an early end to the Civil War.

  • Grant's Pursuit of Lee

    • General Grant's Union Army pursued General Lee's Confederate Army in the Overland Campaign, resulting in an important victory for the Union.
    • Grant, general-in-chief of all Union armies, directed the actions of the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General George G.
    • Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.
    • Although previous Union campaigns in Virginia targeted the Confederate capital of Richmond as their primary objective, this time the goal was the destruction of Lee's army.
    • He chose to make his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, although Meade retained formal command of that army.

  • The Battle of Chancellorsville

    • It was fought from April 30 to May 6, 1863, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, near the village of Chancellorsville.
    • The campaign pitted Union Army Major General Joseph Hooker's Army of the Potomac against General Robert E.
    • Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
    • The Chancellorsville Campaign began with the crossing of the Rappahannock River by the Union Army on the morning of April 27, 1863.
    • Assess the pros and cons of the Battle of Chancellorsville for the Confederate Army

  • Anti-Slavery Resistance Movements

    • Three of the best known in the United States during the nineteenth century are the revolts by Gabriel Prosser in Virginia in 1800, Denmark Vesey in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, and Nat Turner in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831.
    • Tens of thousands of slaves joined British forces or escaped to British lines during the American Revolution, sometimes using the disruption of war to gain freedom.
    • It was suppressed by volunteer militias and a detachment of the United States Army, who killed 66 black men in the battle, executed 16, and 17 escaped and/or were killed along the way to freedom.
    • But directly following this, slave disobedience and the number of runaways increased markedly in Virginia.
    • The historian Steven Hahn proposes that the self-organized involvement of slaves in the Union Army during the American Civil War composed a slave rebellion that dwarfed all others.

  • The First Emancipation

    • In November 1775 Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia, issued a controversial proclamation, later known as Lord Dunmore's Proclamation.
    • Faced with rebellion and short of troops, Virginia's royal governor called on all able-bodied men to assist him in the defense of the colony, including enslaved Africans belonging to rebels.
    • He promised such slave recruits freedom in exchange for service in the British Army.
    • They also engaged in a smear campaign against the British Army's promises, saying that slaves who escaped to the British would be sold to sugar cane plantations in the West Indies.
    • An estimated 25,000 slaves escaped in South Carolina; 30,000 in Virginia, and one-quarter of the almost total slave population in Georgia.

  • The Bonus Army

    • The principal demand of the Bonus Army was the immediate cash payment of their certificates.
    • Most of the Bonus Army camped in a Hooverville on the Anacostia Flats, a swampy, muddy area across the Anacostia River from the federal core of Washington D.C.
    • Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, one of the most popular military figures of the time, visited the Bonus Army's camp to back the effort and encourage them.
    • A second, smaller Bonus March in 1933 at the start of the Roosevelt Administration, was defused in May with an offer of jobs for the Civilian Conservation Corps at Fort Hunt, Virginia, which most of the group accepted.
    • Discuss the demands of the Bonus Army marchers and the outcome of their campaign

  • The Battle of Chattanooga

    • After winning a series of battles in the Chattanooga Campaign, the Union Army was able to invade the South.
    • In September 1863, the Union Army of the Cumberland, under Major General William S.
    • The chief engineer of the Army of the Cumberland had devised a more reliable supply line to the troops in Chattanooga.
    • Casualties for the Union Army amounted to 5,824 of about 56,000 engaged; Bragg reported Confederate casualties of 6,667 out of about 44,000.
    • The city became the supply and logistics base for Sherman's 1864 Atlanta Campaign and the Army of the Cumberland.