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Period: to
Era of the Civil War
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Election of 1860
The Election of 1860 set the stage for the Civil War. The nation had been divided throughout the 1850s on questions of states' rights and slavery in the territories. In 1860, this issue finally came to a head, fracturing the Democrats into Southern and Northern factions and bringing Lincoln (Republican) to power without the support of a single Southern state. Hardly a month after Lincoln won came declarations of secession from the South. -
Winfield Scott And The Anaconda Plan
The Anaconda Plan is the name applied to an outline strategy for subduing the South in the Civil War. Proposed by General Winfield Scott, the plan emphasized the blockade of the Southern ports, and called for an advance down the Mississippi River to cut the South in two. Because the blockade would be rather passive, it was disliked by the faction who wanted a more vigorous prosecution of the war, and who likened it to an anaconda suffocating its prey, giving it its name, the Anaconda Plan. -
Battle of Bull Run
Known by the South as the Battle of Manassas, it was the first major land battle of the Civil War. The plan of the Union was to march to the Confederate capital in Richmond and try to capture it, quickly ending the war. The inexperience groups of the Union and the Confederacy fought in an area located near Manassas, Virginia. The Confederate would win this battle after reinforcements came to help the South. -
Battle of Fort Sumter
The bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter located in South Carolina was the start of the Civil War. The South wanted the US Army to leave Fort Sumter because it was in S. Carolina and S. Carolina did not consider itself a part of the Union anymore. When the North refused to relinquish the fort the South sent an artillery barrage to attack the Fort until it was surrendered. -
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson was elected as the first and only president of the confederacy. He was the president until the Confederacy fell in May of 1865. He would during this time appoint Robert E. Lee as the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia after the former leader, Joesph E. Johnston, was wounded. -
Monitor and Merrmac
The Battle of Hampton Roads, often referred to as the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimac, was the most noted naval battle of the American Civil War from the standpoint of the development of navies. It was fought over two days, March 8–9, 1862, in Hampton Roads, where the Elizabeth and Nansemond Rivers meet the James River just before it enters Chesapeake Bay. The battle was a part of the effort of the Confederacy to break the Union blockade, which cut off Virginia's largest cities from trade. -
Thomas "Stonewall Jackson
Thomas Jackson suffered a defeat to General Nathaniel P. Banks of the Union at the Battle of Kernstown in Winchester, Virginia. He was given some incorrect information and walked into the battle with an army about half the size of the Union's army. It was his only defeat during the war. -
George McClellan
The Battle of Oak Grove, also known as the Battle of French's Field or King's School House, took place in Henrico County, Virginia. It was the first of the Seven Days Battles. McClellan advanced his lines with the objective of bringing Richmond within range of his siege guns. Two Union divisions of the III Corps attacked across the headwaters of White Oak Swamp, but were repulsed by Maj. Gen. Benjamin Huger's division. -
Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee was the commanding general of the Confederate army in the Civil War and a postwar icon of the South's "lost cause."One of the many victories he had was the Second Battle of Bull Run. During this battle the Union focused most of their attention on General Jackson, allowing Lee to attack light areas in the Union army, which lead them to surrender. -
Battle of Antietam
he Battle of Antietam, known as the Battle of Sharpsburg in the South , was, fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland and Antietam Creek. It was the first major battle to take place in the North..After pursuing General Robert E Lee into Maryland,McClellan launched attacks against Lee's army, in defensive positions behind Antietam Creek. On September 17, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker's corps mounted a powerful assault on Lee's left flank. -
Battle of Fredericksburg
The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought December 11–15, 1862, in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, between General 'Lee's Army and the Union Army, commanded by Ambrose E Burnside. The Union army's futile frontal assaults on December 13 against entrenched Confederate defenders on the heights behind the city is remembered as one of the most one-sided battles of the Civil War, with Union casualties more than twice as heavy as those suffered by the Confederates. -
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by President Lincoln during the 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. On September 22, 1862, Lincoln announced that he would issue a formal emancipation of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America that did not return to Union control on Jan. 1, 1863. -
Battle of Vicksburg
The Siege of Vicksburg was 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
The Battle of Gettysburg, was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and 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 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. -
The Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address was delivered by Lincoln during the Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the decisive Battle of Gettysburg. In just over two minutes, Lincoln invoked the principles of human equality and espoused by the Declaration of Independence and redefined the Civil War. -
Ulysses S. Grant
As Commanding General of the United States Army from 1864 to 1865, Grant confronted Robert E. Lee in a series of very high casualty battles known as the Overland Campaign that ended in a stalemate siege at Petersburg. On May 4, 1864, Grant sought to defeat Lee's army by quickly placing his forces between Lee and Richmond and inviting an open battle. Lee surprised Grant by attacking the larger Union army aggressively in the Battle of the Wilderness on May 5, 1864. -
Sherman's March (To The Sea)
Sherman's March to the Sea is the name commonly given to the Savannah Campaign conducted around Georgia during November-December 1864 by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army in the American Civil War. 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. -
Appomattox Court House
The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought on the morning of April 9, 1865, was the final engagement of Confederate States Army General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia before it surrendered to the Union Army under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and one of the last battles of the American Civil War. Lee, having abandoned the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, after the Siege of Petersburg, retreated west, hoping to join his army with the Confederate forces in North Carolina. -
Lincoln's Assassination
The assassination of Abraham Lincoln was carried out on Good Friday, April 14, 1865. President Lincoln died from the gunshot wound the following morning. Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. The American Civil War was drawing to a close, just six days after the large-scale surrender of Confederate forces under General Robert E. Lee to Union General U. S. Grant.
