civil war

  • Republican Party is formed

    Republican Party is formed

    The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States
  • Kansas-Nebraska Act passed

    Kansas-Nebraska Act passed

    It became law on May 30, 1854. The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, created two new territories, and allowed for popular sovereignty. It also produced a violent uprising known as “Bleeding Kansas,” as proslavery and antislavery activists flooded into the territories to sway the vote.
  • Abraham Lincoln elected president

    Abraham Lincoln elected president

    novmber 6 1860
  • South Carolina votes to secede from the United States

    South Carolina votes to secede from the United States

    On November 10, 1860 the S.C. General Assembly called for a "Convention of the People of South Carolina" to consider secession. Delegates were to be elected on December 6. The secession convention convened in Columbia on December 17 and voted unanimously, 169-0, to declare secession from the United States.
  • Lincoln gives his second inaugural address

    Lincoln gives his second inaugural address

    When Lincoln gave that address on March 4, 1861, seven southern states had already seceded from the nation, and civil war was imminent. Now, after four years of a terrible national crisis, Lincoln uses his Second Inaugural to gently, but clearly, call out slavery as the reason for the war
  • Confederate forces fire on Fort Sumter

    Confederate forces fire on Fort Sumter

    The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia. It ended with the surrender by the United States Army, beginning the American Civil War
  • Lincoln suspends habeas corpus

    Lincoln suspends habeas corpus

    On April 27, 1861, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus between Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia to give military authorities the necessary power to silence dissenters and rebels. Under this order, commanders could arrest and detain individuals who were deemed threatening to military operations
  • First Battle of Bull Run is fought

    First Battle of Bull Run is fought

    The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Battle of Manassas, marked the first major land battle of the American Civil War. On July 21, 1861, Union and Confederate armies clashed near Manassas Junction, Virginia
  • Jeffeson Davis

    Jeffeson Davis

    On November 6, 1861, Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America. He ran without opposition, and the election simply confirmed the decision that had been made by the Confederate Congress earlier in the year.
  • The Merrimac and the Monitor fight of the Virginia coast

    The Merrimac and the Monitor fight of the Virginia coast

    Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack, also called Battle of Hampton Roads, (March 9, 1862), in the American Civil War, naval engagement at Hampton Roads, Virginia, a harbour at the mouth of the James River, notable as history's first duel between ironclad warships and the beginning of a new era of naval warfare.
  • Battle of Shiloh

    Battle of Shiloh

    The Battle of Shiloh was an early battle in the Western Theater of the American Civil War, fought April 6–7, 1862, in southwestern Tennessee.
  • Robert E. Lee is named commander of the Army of Northern Virginia

    Robert E. Lee is named commander of the Army of Northern Virginia

    Originally called the Confederate Army of the Potomac, the confederate forces were renamed the Army of Northern Virginia when Robert E. Lee assumed command on June 1, 1862, in a battle to defend the city of Richmond from Union forces
  • Battle of Antietam

    Battle of Antietam

    The Battle of Antietam, or Battle of Sharpsburg particularly in the Southern United States, was a battle of the American Civil War fought on September 17, 1862, between Confederate Gen.
  • Battle of Fredericksburg

    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.
  • Emancipation Proclamation is announced

    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

    Battle of Chancellorsville

    The Battle of Chancellorsville was a major battle of the American Civil War, and the principal engagement of the Chancellorsville campaign. It was fought from April 30 to May 6, 1863, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, near the village of Chancellorsville
  • Battle of Gettysburg

    Battle of Gettysburg

    The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War
  • Confederates surrender at Vicksburg

    Confederates surrender at Vicksburg

    The Confederacy is torn in two when General John C. Pemberton surrenders to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Vicksburg campaign was one of the Union's most successful of the war.
  • New York City draft riots

    New York City draft riots

    The New York City draft riots, sometimes referred to as the Manhattan draft riots and known at the time as Draft Week, were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan, widely regarded as the culmination
  • Lincoln gives his Gettysburg Address

    Lincoln gives his Gettysburg Address

    On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered a short speech at the close of ceremonies dedicating the battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Honoring a request to offer a few remarks, Lincoln memorialized the Union dead and highlighted the redemptive power of their sacrifice
  • Atlanta is captured

    Atlanta is captured

    “Atlanta is ours, and fairly won”: the immortal words of General William T. Sherman when he captured Atlanta on this date in 1864. Sherman had taken the Deep South's major manufacturing center and railroad hub, a huge loss for the Confederacy.
  • sherman begins his March to the Sea

    sherman begins his March to the Sea

    Union General Sherman's scorched-earth March to the Sea campaign begins. On November 15, 1864, Union General William T. Sherman begins his expedition across Georgia by torching the industrial section of Atlanta and pulling away from his supply lines.
  • Congress passes the 13th Amendment

    Congress passes the 13th Amendment

    Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States
  • Richmond falls to the Union Army

    Richmond falls to the Union Army

    On the morning of Sunday April 2, 1865 Confederate lines near Petersburg broke after a nine month seige. The retreat of the army left the Confederate capital of Richmond, 25 miles to the north, defenseless
  • Richmond becomes the capital of the Confederacy

    Richmond becomes the capital of the Confederacy

    Once Virginia seceded, the Confederate government moved the capital to Richmond, the South's second largest city. The move served to solidify the state of Virginia's new Confederate identity and to sanctify the rebellion by associating it with the American Revolution.
  • Freedman’s Bureau is created

    Freedman’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.
  • Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox

    Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox

    In Appomattox Court House, Virginia, Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 Confederate troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War.
  • President Lincoln assassinated

    President Lincoln assassinated

    April 15, 1865, Petersen House, Washington, D.C.
  • John Wilkes Booth is killed

    John Wilkes Booth is killed

    he killed abraham lincon the was exacuted