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Secession of Virginia
On Dec. 20, 1860, the Palmetto State approved an Ordinance of Secession, followed by a declaration of the causes leading to its decision and another document that concluded with an invitation to form "a Confederacy of Slaveholding States." -
Ft. Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the first battle of the American Civil War. The intense Confederate artillery bombardment of Major Robert Anderson’s small Union garrison in the unfinished fort in the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina, had been preceded by months of siege-like conditions.0 casualties for both sides and the confederate won the battle -
Battle at Bull Run:
The First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) was the first major land-based confrontation of the American Civil War. The Union army commander in Washington, Brigadier General Irvin McDowell, gave in to great pressure to begin campaigning before his men’s 90-day enlistments expired, although he did not feel the army was adequately trained yet, leading to a stunning Confederate victory and ending northern hopes of a quick end to the war.Union: 2,700
Confederate: 2,000 -
Battle of Shiloh
The Battle of Shiloh (aka Battle of Pittsburg Landing) was fought on April 6–7, 1862, in southwestern Tennessee not far from Corinth, Mississippi. General Albert Sidney Johnston, commander of Confederate forces in the Western Theater, hoped to defeat Union major general Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Tennessee before it could be reinforced by Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio, which was marching from Nashville. -
Battle at Richmond:
The Battle of Richmond, Kentucky was fought August 29–30, 1862. The first major battle in the Kentucky Campaign, it was a Confederate victory. Union: 5,300 | Confederate: 451 -
Battle at Antietam
The Battle of Antietam, a.k.a. Battle of Sharpsburg, resulted in not only the bloodiest day of the American Civil War, but the bloodiest single day in all of American history. Fought primarily on September 17, 1862, between the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek, it ended Gen. Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of a northern state. Union: 12,400
Confederate: 10,300 -
Battle at Gettysburg:
The Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (July 1–July 3, 1863), was the largest battle of the American Civil War as well as the largest battle ever fought in North America, involving around 85,000 men in the Union’s Army of the Potomac under Major General George Gordon Meade and approximately 75,000 in the Confederacy’s Armyof Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert Edward Lee.Casualties at Gettysburg totaled 23,049 for the Union (3,155 dead, Confederate casualties were 28,063 (3,903 dead, -
Emancipation Proclamation
: The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, as the country entered the third year of the Civil War. It declared that "all persons held as slaves … shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free"—but it applied only to states designated as being in rebellion, not to the slave-holding border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri or to areas of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control. -
Gettysburg Address
lincoln’s speech did not garner much attention during his lifetime; in many ways, it was forgotten and lost to popular memory until the U.S. centennial in 1876, when its significance was reconsidered in light of the war’s outcome and in the larger context of the young country’s history. The Gettysburg Address is now recognized as one of Lincoln’s greatest speeches and as one of the most famous speeches in U.S. history. -
Surrender at Appomattox
The Battle of Appomattox Courthouse was the Army of Northern Virginia’s final battle and was the beginning of the end of the American Civil War. Though the actual battle took place on April 9, 1865, it followed the 10-month Battle of Petersburg and concluded General Robert E. Lee’s thwarted retreat during the Appomattox Campaign.Union: 260 | Confederate: 440; -
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States, was the first American president to be assassinated. He was mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth in the Presidential Box of Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., while watching the comedy, Our American Cousin.
