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Abraham Lincoln elected president
He only had about 40% of the popular vote and he won without carrying any southern states. However, he won with the electoral votes and defeated Douglas and Breckenridge. -
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.When Abraham Lincoln, a known opponent of slavery, was elected president, the South Carolina legislature perceived a threat. Calling a state convention, the delegates voted to remove the state of South Carolina from the union known as the United States of America. -
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 -
Confederate forces fire on Fort Sumter
South Carolina could not tolerate a federal fort blocking an important sea port. The state had control of Fort Sumter after secession on December 20, 1860, until Major Anderson moved Union troops to the fort on December 26. That act, some have said, led to the ensuing war. At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina's Charleston Harbor. -
Richmond becomes the capital of the Confederacy
However, on May 8, 1861, in the Confederate Capital City of Montgomery, Alabama, the decision was made to name the City of Richmond, Virginia as the new Capital of the Confederacy. The Confederate capital was moved to Richmond in recognition of Virginia's strategic importance. -
First Battle of Bull Run is fought
The first land battle of the Civil War was fought on July 21, 1861, just 30 miles from Washington, close enough for U.S. senators to witness the battle in person. Southerners called it the Battle of Manassas, after the closest town. -
Jefferson Davis elected president of the confederacy
The Confederate Congress in Montgomery, Alabama elected Jefferson Finis Davis to become the provisional President of the Confederacy one month after he formally withdrew from the U.S. Senate on January 21, 1861. Jefferson Davis presided over the South's creation of its own armed forces and acquisition of weapons. -
The Merrimac and the Monitor fight of the Virginia coast
Monitor and the Merrimack (C.S.S. Virginia) during the American Civil War (1861-65) and was history's first naval battle between ironclad warships.It was part of a Confederate effort to break the Union blockade of Southern ports, including Norfolk and Richmond, Virginia, that had been imposed at the start of the war. -
Battle of Shiloh
The Battle of Shiloh, also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, was a major battle in the American Civil War fought on April 6–7, 1862. The fighting took place in southwestern Tennessee, which was part of the war's Western Theater. -
Robert E. Lee is named commander of the Army of Northern Virginia
Lee is given command of the Army of Northern Virginia, the main Confederate army in the eastern theater of the war. Union troops are poised at the gates of Richmond. Lee commences a series of counterattacks at the Seven Days Battle that drives the enemy away from the Confederate capital. -
Battle of Antietam
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. -
Lincoln suspends habeas corpus
President Lincoln used the authority granted him under the Act on September 15, 1863, to suspend habeas corpus throughout the Union in any case involving prisoners of war, spies, traitors, or any member of the military. He subsequently both suspended habeas corpus and imposed martial law in Kentucky on July 5, 1864. -
Battle of Fredericksburg
The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought December 11–15, 1862, in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. The victory at Fredericksburg restored Confederate morale after Lee's unsuccessful campaign into Maryland in the fall. -
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
There were two significant consequences to the Battle of Chancellorsville. First, the death of General Stonewall Jackson was devastating to the Confederate war effort. Second, the victory enabled General Lee to move north into Maryland and invade Pennsylvania. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg was a three-day battle in the American Civil War fought between Union and Confederate forces between July 1 and July 3, 1863, in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. -
Confederates surrender at Vicksburg
The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket.” The Vicksburg Campaign began in 1862 and ended with the Confederate surrender on July 4, 1863. -
New York City draft riots
Draft Riot of 1863, major four-day eruption of violence in New York City resulting from deep worker discontent with the inequities of conscription during the U.S. Civil War. -
54th Massachusetts fighting a Second Battle of Ft. Wagner
U.S. forces stormed Morris Island on July 10, 1863. Assisted by a naval bombardment, the troops captured the southern portion of the island, but could not take Fort Wagner when the attack resumed the next day. On July 18, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment led a second U.S. assault against Fort Wagner. -
Lincoln gives his Gettysburg Address
November 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous speech to honor the men who had fought and died in the Battle of Gettysburg to preserve the Union. His Gettysburg Address was given on Cemetery Hill in the National Soldier Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. -
Congress passes the 13th Amendment
Only through the Thirteenth Amendment did emancipation become national policy. It was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. The joint resolution of both bodies that submitted the amendment to the states for approval was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on February 1, 1865. -
The Battle of the Crater
The Battle of the Crater took place during the American Civil War, part of the Siege of Petersburg. It occurred on Saturday, July 30, 1864, between the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee, and the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General George G. Meade. -
Atlanta is captured
William T. Sherman's troops at Atlanta was repulsed with heavy losses. Hood and Sherman continued to battle for the crucial Confederate city throughout the summer until Hood was finally forced to abandon Atlanta to Union forces on September 1, 1864. -
Abraham Lincoln defeats George McClellan to win re-election
Near the end of the American Civil War, 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
The March to the Sea, the most destructive campaign against a civilian population during the Civil War (1861-65), began in Atlanta on November 15, 1864, and concluded in Savannah on December 21, 1864. Union general William T. -
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
The main point of Lincoln's second inaugural address was to claim that both the South and North had to share some of the blame for the sin of slavery. Lincoln expressed the tone for reconstruction and commonly used the term "we" to unify the people of the North and South when it came to the means of reunification. -
Richmond falls to the Union Army
The Confederacy's capital of Richmond was a chief distribution center for weapons, supplies, and troops, and the city resisted repeated Union assaults before officially capitulating on April 3, 1865. -
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. -
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
Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth in Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. Booth saw Lincoln as a tyrant who was taking away white Southerner's rights to start their own country where race-based slavery was legal. Lincoln died the next morning. -
John Wilkes Booth is killed
John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated United States President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865.Everton Judson Congerwas an American officer during the Civil War who was instrumental in the capture of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, in a Virginia barn twelve days after Lincoln was shot.