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Period: to
American Civil War
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Election of 1860
The final event that triggered the South's decision to leave the union was the election of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate, as president in 1860. After John Brown's raid, most people knew the country was about to seperate. As the election began, the Democratic party represented the lest hope for comprimise. The Northern states, however, overran the Southern votes and Lincoln won, causing the start of secessions. -
Jefferson Davis
The southern states, one by one, started to secede. They were following South Carolina, who seceded on December of 1860. They needed a new president for the states. They decided to elect Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. -
Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, was cut off from vital supplies from bt southern control of the harbor. Rather than either giving up Fort Sumter or attempting to defend it. Lincoln announced he was sending provisions of food to the small federal garrison. He thus gave South Carolina the choice of either permitting the fort to hold out or opening fire with its shore batteries. Southern guns thundered their reply and thus, on April 12, 1861, the war began. -
Winfield Scott and the Anaconda Plan
This Anaconda Plan was derided in the press; however, in its broad outlines, it was the strategy the Union actually used, particularly in the Western Theater and in the successful naval blockade of Confederate ports. In 1864, it was continued by General Ulysses S. Grant and executed by General William Tecumseh Sherman in his Atlanta Campaign and March to the Sea. -
First Battle of Bull Run
Union Army troops under Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell advanced across Bull Run against the Confederate Army under Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard near Manassas Junction. McDowell's ambitious plan for a surprise flank attack against the Confederate left was not well executed by his officers and men, but the Confederates, who had been planning to attack the Union left flank, found themselves at a disadvantage. they realized that the war would potentially be much longer and bloodier. -
Battle of the Monitor and Merrimac
Naval engagement in the American Civil War at Hampton Roads, Va. The Merrimack, originally a federal frigate, had been salvaged by the Confederates, fitted with iron armor, and renamed the Virginia. It sank several wooden Union warships before meeting the Union's Monitor. After battle, both ships were damaged, but each side claimed victory. Both ships were destroyed later in 1862. The battle is notable as history's first duel between ironclad warships and the era of naval warfare. -
George McClellan
a major general during the American Civil War. He organized the famous Army of the Potomac and served briefly (November 1861 to March 1862) as the general-in-chief of the Union Army. Early in the war, McClellan played an important role in raising a well-trained and organized army for the Union. Although McClellan was meticulous in his planning and preparations, these characteristics may have hampered his ability to challenge aggressive opponents in a fast-moving battlefield environment. -
Second Battle of Bull Run
Lee too advantage of the change in Union generals to strike quickly at Pope's army in Northern Virginia. He drew Pope into a trp, then struck the enemy's flank and sent the Union army backward to Bull Run. Pope withdrew the defenses of Washington -
Battle of Antietam
After pursuing Robert E. Lee into Maryland, Union Army Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan launched attacks against Lee's army. At dawn on September 17, Gen. Joseph Hooker's corps mounted a powerful assault on Lee. Attacks swept across Miller's cornfield and fighting swirled around the Dunker Church. Union assaults pierced the Confederate center, but the Federal advantage was not followed up. It had victory enough to give Lincoln the confidence to announce his Emancipation Proclomation. -
Emancipation Proclamation
An executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War under his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with the rest freed as Union armies advanced. -
Battle of Fredericksburg
Burnside's plan was to cross the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg in November and race to the capital of Richmond before Lee's army could stop him. Unfortunately, delays prevented Burnside from receiving the necessary bridges in time and Lee moved his army to block the crossings. On December 13, the "grand division" was able to pierce the defensive line of Confederates to the south, but was finally repulsed. On December 15, Burnside withdrew his army, ending another failed Union campaign. -
Thomas Stonewall Jackson
Military historians consider Jackson to be one of the most gifted tactical commanders in United States history. His Valley Campaign and his envelopment of the Union Army right wing at Chancellorsville are studied worldwide even today as examples of innovative and bold leadership. Confederate pickets accidentally shot him at the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863, which the general survived, albeit with the loss of an arm to amputation. However, he died of pneumonia eight days later. -
Siege of Vicksburg
The final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate army of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. -
Battle of Gettysburg
Around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was the battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War and is often described as the war's turning point. Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee's invasion of the North. -
Ulysses S. Grant
The 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. In 1861, after the American Civil War began, he joined the Union war effort, taking charge of training new regiments and then engaging the Confederacy near Cairo, Illinois. -
Sherman's March
The campaign began with Sherman's troops leaving the captured city of Atlanta, Georgia on November 15 and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. It inflicted significant damage, particularly to industry and infrastructure (as per the doctrine of total war), and also to civilian property. -
Robert E. Lee
A career United States Army officer and combat engineer. He became the commanding general of the Confederate army in the American Civil War and a postwar icon of the South's "lost cause." A top graduate of West Point, Lee distinguished himself as an exceptional soldier in the U.S. Army for 32 years. He is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War. -
Appomattox Court House Surrender
Union forces pursued and cut off the Confederate retreat. Lee's final stand was at Appomattox Court House, where he launched an attack to break through the Union force to his front, but he assumed the Union force consisted entirely of cavalry. When he realized that the cavalry was backed up by two corps of Union infantry, he had no choice but to surrender. -
Lincoln’s Assassination
Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre. The assassination was planned and carried out by John Wilkes Booth as part of a larger conspiracy in an effort to rally the remaining Confederate troops to continue fighting. Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated.
