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Battle of Gettysburg
This battle was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. The battle involved the largest number of casualties of the entire war and is often described as the war's turning point -
Abraham Lincoln elected president
Lincoln took office following the 1860 presidential election, in which he won a plurality of the popular vote in a four-candidate field. Almost all of Lincoln's votes came from the Northern United States, as the Republicans held little appeal to voters in the Southern United States. -
South Carolina votes to secede from the United States
South Carolina became the first state to secede from the federal Union on December 20, 1860. The victory of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election triggered cries for disunion across the slaveholding South -
Appomattox Court House--Surrender of Lee’s forces
Appomattox County, VA | Apr 9, 1865. Trapped by the Federals near Appomattox Court House, Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union general Ulysses S. Grant, precipitating the capitulation of other Confederate forces and leading to the end of the bloodiest conflict in American history. -
Confederate forces fire on Fort Sumter
Early in the morning of April 13th, Confederate “hot shot,” heated round shot, started a huge fire in the barracks which spread to the hospital and the magazine. The Union gunners were red-eyed, coughing, and otherwise suffering from heat and smoke. Battle of Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861, Charleston, South Carolina. -
the anaconda plan
Anaconda plan, military strategy proposed by Union General Winfield Scott early in the American Civil War. The plan called for a naval blockade of the Confederate littoral, a thrust down the Mississippi, and the strangulation of the South by Union land and naval forces. -
Richmond becomes the capital of the Confederacy
Richmond, Virginia, was the Capital of the Confederacy from May 11, 1861, to April 3, 1865. Richmond was both an industrial center and a railroad hub. Richmond was important to the Confederacy both as a supplier of war material and as the center of government. -
First Battle of Bull Run is fought
On July 21, 1861, Union and Confederate armies clashed near Manassas Junction, Virginia. The engagement began when about 35,000 Union troops marched from the federal capital in Washington, D.C. to strike a Confederate force of 20,000 along a small river known as Bull -
Jefferson Davis elected president of the Confederacy
He was elected as a compromise for the moderates and radicals -
The Merrimac and the Monitor fight of the Virginia coast
Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack, (March 9, 1862), in the American Civil War, naval engagement at Hampton Roads, Virginia, a harbour at the mouth of the James River, notable as history's first duel between ironclad warships and the beginning of a new era of naval warfare. -
Battle of Shiloh
The Battle of Shiloh, also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, allowed Union troops to penetrate the Confederate interior. The carnage was unprecedented, with the human toll being the greatest of any war on the American continent up to that date. -
Battle of Antietam
Union General George McClellan's Army of the Potomac against General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. The Maryland Campaign was Lee's first attempt to take the war North and it was McClellan who was tasked by President Abraham Lincoln with stopping him -
Battle of Fredericksburg
With nearly 200,000 combatants, the greatest number of any Civil War engagement the Fredericksburg was one of the largest and deadliest battles of the Civil War. It featured the first opposed river crossing in American military history as well as the Civil War's first instance of urban combat -
Emancipation Proclamation is announced
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Battle of Chancellorsville
Battle of Chancellorsville, (April 30–May 5, 1863), in the American Civil War, bloody assault by the Union army in Virginia that failed to encircle and destroy the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. -
Robert E. Lee is named commander of the Army of Northern Virginia
Robert E. Lee commanded the Army of Northern Virginia, the most successful of the Southern armies during the American Civil War, and ultimately commanded all the Confederate armies. As the military leader of the defeated Confederacy, Lee became a symbol of the American South. -
Confederates surrender at Vicksburg
With the situation dire for the Confederates, Grant and Pemberton meet between their lines. Grant insists on an unconditional surrender, but Pemberton refuses. Later that night Grant reconsiders and offers to parole the Confederate defenders. On July 4, the 47-day siege of Vicksburg is over. -
New York City draft riots
Minor riots occurred in several cities, and when the drawing of names began in New York on July 11, 1863, mobs (mostly of foreign-born, especially Irish, workers) surged onto the streets, assaulting residents, defying police, attacking draft headquarters, and burning buildings. -
54th Massachusetts fighting a Second Battle of Ft. Wagner
The planned assault on Fort Wagner offered the regiment a chance to prove themselves, and their commander, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, jumped at the opportunity. The 54th's assault on Fort Wagner became the first time the all-Black unit fought alongside White troops. -
Lincoln gives his Gettysburg Address
In his powerful address, Lincoln embraced the Declaration of Independence, recalling how the nation was “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” By resurrecting these promises, Lincoln committed post-Civil War America to “a new birth of freedom.” -
The Battle of the Crater
The Battle of the Crater, part of the Petersburg Campaign, was the result of an unusual attempt, on the part of Union forces, to break through the Confederate defenses just south of the critical railroad hub of Petersburg, Virginia, during the American Civil War (1861–1865). -
Lincoln suspends habeas corpus
President Abraham Lincoln issued this Presidential Proclamation 94 suspending the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War. The writ of habeas corpus is a tool preventing the government from unlawfully imprisoning individuals outside of the judicial process. -
Atlanta Is captured
On August 28, 1864, Union Army General William Tecumseh Sherman lays siege to Atlanta, Georgia, a critical Confederate hub, shelling civilians and cutting off supply lines. The Confederates retreated, destroying the city's munitions as they went -
Abraham Lincoln defeats George McClellan to win re-election
It was held on Tuesday, November 8, 1864. Near the end of the American Civil War, incumbent President Abraham Lincoln of the National Union Party easily defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B. McClellan, by a wide margin of 212–21 in the electoral college, with 55% of the popular vote. -
Sherman begins his March to the Sea
Sherman's March to the Sea was an American Civil War campaign lasting from November 15 to December 21, 1864, in which Union Major General William Tecumseh Sherman led troops through the Confederate state of Georgia, pillaging the countryside and destroying both military outposts and civilian properties. -
Congress passes the 13th Amendment
Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States. -
Freedmen's Bureau is created
On March 3, 1865, Congress passed “An Act to establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees” to provide food, shelter, clothing, medical services, and land to displaced Southerners, including newly freed African Americans. -
Lincoln gives his second inaugural address
Lincoln's second inaugural address highlights his belief that the institution of slavery was the main driver toward war during the period. Lincoln goes on in his speech to argue that war could not end until after we had paid appropriately for the sin of the institution of slavery in America. -
Richmond falls to the Union Army
Over the next three days, the Confederate government evacuated, mobs looted countless stores, fire consumed as many as a thousand buildings, the Union army occupied the city, thousands were emancipated from bondage, and President Abraham Lincoln toured the former Confederate Capital. -
Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox
Appomattox County, VA | Apr 9, 1865. Trapped by the Federals near Appomattox Court House, Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union general Ulysses S. Grant, precipitating the capitulation of other Confederate forces and leading to the end of the bloodiest conflict in American history. -
President Lincoln assassinated
Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Fords theater. -
John Wilkes Booth is killed
In the pandemonium, a soldier named Boston Corbett fired into the barn and hit Booth in the neck, mortally wounding him. Corbett would later claim Booth had raised his pistol to shoot at the troops. After being dragged out of the barn, Booth stared at his bloody hands and uttered “useless, useless.” He died at sunrise.