Era V · 1815 to 1914
The industrial age
Between Waterloo and 1914 war entered the age of railways and rifles, from the November Uprising in Poland and the Crimean War to the American Civil War. The century closed with colonial wars in Africa and Asia and with Japan's naval victory at Tsushima in 1905.
84 battles · 16 commanders
Image: Battle of Gettysburg, chromolithograph by L. Prang & Co. after Thure de Thulstrup, 1887, Library of Congress. Public domain.
Where the battles were fought
Every battle of the era with a story in the Field Dispatch. Tap a dot to read it.
Europe in close-up
Eastern North America in close-up
Not on the map: Siege of Sevastopol, Battle of Kinburn.
Basemap: Natural Earth, public domain. Modern coastlines.
The battles in order
- 1818Battle of Maipú
San Martín's army won at Maipú on 5 April 1818, two weeks after its rout at Cancha Rayada, and secured Chile's independence. How the reserve decided it.
- 1825Third siege of Missolonghi
Of about 7,000, some 1,000 reached safety.
- 1831Battle of Olszynka Grochowska
On 25 February 1831 the Polish army fought the much larger Russian army of Field Marshal Diebitsch at Olszynka Grochowska, near Warsaw.
- 1831Battle of Ostrołęka
The November Uprising army against Diebitsch's Russians for the town and bridges, and how Bem's horse battery saved the retreat.
- 1831Battle of Paneriai
About 13,000 insurgents under Giełgud attacked the hills outside Vilnius and retreated after four hours.
- 1831Battle of Rajgród
Three days after Ostrołęka, Antoni Giełgud's Polish corps beats Osten-Sacken's Russians and opens the way to Lithuania.
- 1831Battle of Stoczek
How General Dwernicki's uhlans routed Geismar's Russian mounted rifles in the first Polish victory of the November Uprising.
- 1832Battle of Konya
Ibrahim Pasha's Egyptian army routs the Ottoman army in Anatolia and takes the grand vizier prisoner.
- 1836Battle of San Jacinto
How Sam Houston surprised Santa Anna's camp, won in about 18 minutes and captured him. The battle that won Texas independence.
- 1836Battle of the Alamo
About 1,800 troops stormed the mission after a 13-day siege and killed nearly every defender. How did Crockett die?
- 1838Battle of Blood River
How Pretorius's wagon laager beat Dingane's Zulu army, the disputed numbers, and why the date still matters.
- 1839Battle of Yungay
Bulnes's Chilean and Peruvian army stormed the Pan de Azúcar hill and broke Santa Cruz, ending the Peru-Bolivian Confederation.
- 1845Battle of Mudki
The British won at Mudki on 18 December 1845, the first battle of the Anglo-Sikh Wars. Gough's 12,000 men attacked at sunset, and two generals died.
- 1845Battle of Vuelta de Obligado
How Argentina chained the Paraná River against an Anglo-French squadron, lost the battle and won the peace.
- 1847Battle of Chapultepec
How Winfield Scott's army stormed the castle guarding Mexico City, and the story of the Niños Héroes who defended it.
- 1849Battle of Chillianwala
On 13 January 1849 at Chillianwala in the Punjab, Gough's East India Company army attacked the Sikh Khalsa through dense scrub. Both sides claimed victory.
- 1849Battle of Gujrat
Gough's 96 guns silenced the Sikh artillery and broke Sher Singh's army. How it ended the Anglo-Sikh Wars.
- 1853Battle of Sinop
Nakhimov's Russian squadron destroys an Ottoman squadron in harbor with shell fire, and Britain moves toward war.
- 1854Battle of Balaclava
Russia took the redoubts but not the port. The Thin Red Line, the Light Brigade's doomed charge and a map.
- 1854Battle of Inkerman
On 5 November 1854 Russian columns hit the British in fog above Sevastopol until Bosquet's French arrived. Plan, fight, losses.
- 1854Battle of the Alma
Britain and France beat Menshikov's Russians at the Alma on 20 September 1854, the first major battle of the Crimean War. The armies, the losses and a map.
- 1854Siege of Sevastopol
A French magazine blew up and Kornilov was killed. How it became an 11-month siege.
- 1855Battle of Eupatoria
How a Russian attack on the Ottoman-held Crimean port broke down under the guns of the town and the Allied ships in the bay.
- 1855Battle of Kinburn
Three French armored floating batteries pounded a Russian fort into surrender, the first test of iron armor in battle.
- 1861Battle of Belmont
Grant's raid on a Confederate camp across the Mississippi from Columbus, Kentucky, and the near disaster on the way out.
- 1861Battle of Fort Sumter
The Confederacy won Fort Sumter on 12 to 13 April 1861 after a 34-hour bombardment that killed no one. The map, the 1863 battle and how the war began.
- 1861Battle of Greenbrier River
Union troops shelled Camp Bartow for hours, then withdrew. Fewer than 100 men fell on both sides.
- 1861Battle of Rich Mountain
Rosecrans took a mountain path behind Pegram's camp and broke it in two hours. How it made McClellan.
- 1861First Battle of Bull Run
On 21 July 1861 Confederate forces routed the Union at Bull Run, the first major land battle of the Civil War and the end of hopes for a quick war.
- 1862Battle of Antietam
On 17 September 1862 Union and Confederate armies clashed at Antietam Creek, the bloodiest day in American history, a Union win that led to emancipation.
- 1862Battle of Fort Donelson
How Grant besieged the fort, its generals fled, and Buckner surrendered over 12,000 men. The siege and why it mattered.
- 1862Battle of Fredericksburg
On 13 December 1862 Union troops were cut down charging the heights above Fredericksburg, one of the most one-sided Union defeats of the Civil War.
- 1862Battle of Perryville
Perryville, 8 October 1862, was a tactical draw, but Bragg withdrew and Kentucky stayed in the Union. The acoustic shadow and the battlefield map.
- 1862Battle of Shiloh
In April 1862 Grant's Union army survived a surprise Confederate attack at Shiloh, Tennessee, one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War to that point.
- 1862First Battle of Kernstown
Jackson attacks what he thinks is a weak rear guard near Winchester and is beaten, but the fright he gives Washington pays off.
- 1862Seven Days Battles
Lee won the Seven Days Battles, 25 June to 1 July 1862, driving McClellan's larger army from Richmond to the James at a cost of over 34,000 casualties.
- 1862Siege of Corinth
Halleck's huge Union army inches toward the Mississippi rail junction, and Beauregard slips away by train.
- 1863Battle of Chancellorsville
In 1863 Robert E. Lee beat a Union army twice his size at Chancellorsville, his greatest victory, but lost Stonewall Jackson to friendly fire.
- 1863Battle of Chickamauga
The Confederates won at Chickamauga on 19 to 20 September 1863, at a cost of about 34,600 casualties. The mistaken order, Thomas's stand and the maps.
- 1863Battle of Droop Mountain
Averell's 5,000 men broke Echols's 1,700 Confederates after six hours. Why the raid still failed.
- 1863Battle of Gettysburg
How three days in a Pennsylvania town broke Lee's invasion of the North and turned the American Civil War.
- 1863Gettysburg Address
On 19 November 1863 Lincoln spoke 272 words at the dedication of the soldiers' cemetery at Gettysburg. How the speech came about and why it outlived the day.
- 1863Second Battle of Fort Wagner
The Confederates beat back the Union assault on Fort Wagner on 18 July 1863. The 54th Massachusetts led it, Shaw died and Carney saved the flag. A map.
- 1863Second Battle of Fredericksburg
Sedgwick's Sixth Corps storms the stone wall that stopped Burnside in 1862, then is checked at Salem Church on the road west.
- 1863Siege of Vicksburg
The Union won at Vicksburg: after a 47-day siege, about 29,000 Confederates surrendered to Grant on 4 July 1863. Why it split the Confederacy, with maps.
- 1864Battle of Atlanta
On 22 July 1864 Hood's flank attack hit Sherman's army east of the city, killed McPherson and still failed.
- 1864Battle of Cold Harbor
The fight for the crossroads, the dawn assault of 3 June, the real casualty figures and Grant's regret.
- 1864Battle of Franklin
On 30 November 1864 Hood's Confederates charged Schofield's works in Tennessee and lost six generals in five hours.
- 1864Battle of Iłża
Rębajło's insurgents ambush a Russian column in deep frost and fight into the town, a rare late win of the uprising.
- 1864Battle of Jasmund
Prussian corvettes sortie from Swinemünde to test the Danish blockade off Rügen, trade broadsides with the Danes and run.
- 1864Battle of Mobile Bay
How Farragut took his fleet through a minefield past Fort Morgan, beat the CSS Tennessee and closed the port. The full story.
- 1864Battle of Nashville
On 15 and 16 December 1864 George H. Thomas routed Hood's Army of Tennessee at Shy's Hill. Causes, USCT, losses, aftermath.
- 1864Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
Lee held, Grant kept moving south, and casualties reached about 30,000. The Bloody Angle, with a map.
- 1864Battle of Spring Hill
How Hood nearly cut off Schofield's army, and how 27,000 Union soldiers marched past his camps in the dark.
- 1864Battle of the Wilderness
From 5 to 7 May 1864 Grant and Lee met for the first time in the tangled Wilderness, a savage battle of disputed outcome, after which Grant pressed on.
- 1864-1865Siege of Petersburg
Grant against Lee, the railroads, the Crater, Five Forks and the fall of Richmond.
- 1865Battle of Appomattox Court House
The retreat from Petersburg, the last morning, Lee's surrender to Grant in the McLean House, the terms, and Chamberlain's salute.
- 1865Battle of the Riachuelo
Barroso's squadron sank four Paraguayan steamers and ended López's drive south. Why the dawn surprise failed.
- 1866Battle of Callao
Méndez Núñez's Spanish squadron duels with Peru's shore batteries for five hours. Spain and Peru both claim victory.
- 1866Battle of Custoza
Archduke Albrecht's Austrians surprise La Marmora's far larger Italian army in the hills by Lake Garda and drive it back.
- 1867Battle of Mentana
How papal troops and a French brigade with the new chassepot rifle stopped Garibaldi's volunteers short of Rome.
- 1870Battle of Beaune-la-Rolande
X Corps held the walled town against two French corps until help came at dusk. Losses and aftermath.
- 1870Battle of Coulmiers
How the new Army of the Loire drove the Bavarians from Orléans, and why the victory could not save Paris.
- 1870Battle of Spicheren
Prussian divisions storm the Spicheren heights above Saarbrücken and force Frossard's corps to retreat toward Metz.
- 1870Siege of Paris
German armies besieged Paris from September 1870 until it capitulated on 28 January 1871. How Gambetta escaped by balloon, the failed sorties, the hunger.
- 1876Battle of the Little Bighorn
On 25 June 1876 Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors destroyed five companies of Custer's 7th Cavalry at the Little Bighorn and killed Custer.
- 1879Battle of Angamos
Chilean ironclads trap the Peruvian monitor Huáscar off Punta Angamos; Admiral Miguel Grau dies and the ship is taken.
- 1879Battle of Hlobane
Wood's mounted raid was caught by the main Zulu army and driven down Devil's Pass, losing about 200 men.
- 1879Battle of Isandlwana
Some 20,000 warriors overran a British camp and killed about 1,300 men. Zulu tactics, Rorke's Drift, a map.
- 1879Battle of Rorke's Drift
Why Dabulamanzi attacked, the 11 VCs, and what the film Zulu got wrong.
- 1880Battle of Arica
Chile won at Arica on 7 June 1880, storming the Morro in about 55 minutes by Chilean accounts. Bolognesi's last-cartridge vow, the Ugarte legend and a map.
- 1890Wounded Knee Massacre
How US soldiers killed about 150 to 300 Lakota, many of them women and children, in the massacre that ended the Indian Wars.
- 1896Battle of Adwa
Menelik II's army of over 100,000 crushed an Italian force of about 14,500. The treaty, the battle and the cost.
- 1897Battle of Saragarhi
On 12 September 1897 twenty-one Sikh soldiers held a frontier post to the last man against thousands of Pashtun tribesmen.
- 1898Battle of Omdurman
Some 10,000 Mahdists died, against 48 of its own. Churchill and the 21st Lancers.
- 1898Battle of San Juan Hill
On 1 July 1898 US forces, including Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders and the Buffalo Soldiers, stormed the San Juan Heights in the Spanish-American War.
- 1899Battle of Tirad Pass
General Gregorio del Pilar and about 60 Filipinos hold a mountain trail against US troops so Aguinaldo can escape.
- 1900Battle of Spion Kop
How a British night climb in the mist ended in a day of slaughter on a hilltop and a retreat neither side expected.
- 1904Battle of Chemulpo Bay
Trapped in a neutral Korean port, the Russian cruiser Varyag and gunboat Korietz sailed out to fight a Japanese squadron.
- 1904Battle of Liaoyang
Oyama's three armies attack the larger Russian army in Manchuria, and Kuropatkin retreats to Mukden.
- 1904Battle of the Yellow Sea
Togo's fleet catches the Russian squadron breaking out of Port Arthur, kills its admiral and drives it back.
- 1905Battle of Mukden
Oyama's five armies drove Kuropatkin north, with nearly 89,000 Russian losses. Why the trap never closed on him.
- 1905Battle of Tsushima
Admiral Togo crossed the T and sank or captured almost the entire Russian Baltic Fleet.
- 1911Siege of Sidney Street
Two Latvian revolutionaries outgun London police, the Scots Guards arrive, Churchill watches and the house burns.
Wars and nations
Wars of this era
Each war told in full: its causes, its course and all its battles in the Field Dispatch.
- East India Company expansion in India 1757 to 1857
- November Uprising 1830 to 1831
- Anglo-Sikh Wars 1845 to 1849
- Crimean War 1853 to 1856
- American Civil War 1861 to 1865
- Eastern Theater of the American Civil War 1861 to 1865
- Western Theater of the American Civil War 1861 to 1865
- Franco-Prussian War 1870 to 1871
- Russo-Japanese War 1904 to 1905
Nations
Countries and peoples that fought the battles of this era, by number of battles. Each page tells that country's military history across every era.
Test yourself
This era in the app
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