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Atteck on Fort Sumter
At 4:30 AM, the confederates won, no one died, the civil war started here -
Battle of Antietam
After winning several battles in Virginia, Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army marched north into Maryland in September 1862. Lee planned to continue east and surround Washington, D.C. The Confederates encountered the Union army at Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17. When the fighting ended that day, nearly 6,000 Confederate and Union soldiers were dead and another 17,000 were seriously wounded. The Union had won the battle. -
The Emancipation Proclamation
Five days after the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This document stated that on January 1, 1863, all enslaved people in the Confederacy were emancipated, or freed. It did not apply to slave states that had stayed in the Union—Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri. -
Battle of Gettysburg
On July 1, 1863, Lee’s army met Union troops under General George Meade in the small farm town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Neither army had planned to fight there. For three days, the armies fought each other. Neither side was able to win.In all, about 51,000 soldiers were killed or wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg. It was the bloodiest battle ever fought in North America. Union victories at Gettysburg and later Vicksburg turned the war in favor of the North. -
Battle of Vicksburg
For months, Vicksburg, Mississippi, had been under siege by General Ulysses Grant’s forces. Grant’s artillery pounded Vicksburg for weeks. Lack of food forced some people to eat rats. Finally, the city fell on July 4, 1863. Grant was sickened by the sight of thousands of casualties after the battle. The victory gave the Union control of the Mississippi River. More importantly for the Union, the Confederacy was now split in two, the Union won. -
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is a speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln at the November 19, 1863, dedication of Soldiers National Cemetery, a cemetery for Union soldiers killed at the Battle Of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. The Gettysburg Address inspired the union to keep fighting. The speech made it clear that a united nation and the end of the slavery were worth fighting for. -
Appomattox Courthouse
In November 1864, voters re-elected Abraham Lincoln. In March 1865, Grant was closing in on Lee at Petersburg. After the Union siege, Confederate soldiers defending the city were near starvation. On April 2, Lee took his army west, hoping to find food and gather more Confederate troops. As a result, Petersburg fell. The next day, Richmond, the Confederate capital, also fell. The war was over! On April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.