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Presidential Election of 1860
Candidates consisted of: Abraham Lincoln, John C. Breckinridge, John Bell, and Stephen A. Douglas. With 180 electoral votes, Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln wins the vote. -
South Carolina secedes from the Union
Following the event that led to Lincoln's election, the South was convinced that Republican administration would attempt to undermine slavery, therefore they hold a convention to secede from the union. -
Forming of Confederate States of America
In Feb. 1861, representatives from the six seceded states met in Montgomery, Alabama, to formally establish a unified government which they called the Confederate States of America. -
Jefferson Davis appointed president of Confederacy
Member of the Democratic party who represented Mississippi, and served from 1861-1865 -
Lincoln's first inaugural address
In this speech, he appealed for the preservation of the Union. He called for compromise. -
Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the Confederate States Army, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War. This resulted in the Confederate victory -
Battle of Bull Run
was the first major battle of the American Civil War. The Union's forces were slow in positioning themselves, allowing Confederate reinforcements time to arrive by rail. Each side had about 18,000 poorly trained and poorly led troops in their first battle. It was a Confederate victory, followed by a disorganized retreat of the Union forces. -
First Battle of ironclads
Battle of the Ironclads: Monitor and Merrimack. The Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack is famous because it was the first clash between ironclad warships. This battle changed the future of naval warfare. It took place on March 8, 1862 and March 9, 1862. -
Battle of Shiloh
The Battle of Shiloh was fought on April 6 and 7, 1862, in the Western Theater of the American Civil War, and resulted in a Union victory. With more than 23,000 casualties, Shiloh was the first battle of the Civil War that saw large-scale death and suffering. -
Siege of New Orleans by Union
Battle of New Orleans, (April 24–25, 1862), naval action by Union forces seeking to capture the city during the American Civil War. The permanent loss of New Orleans was considered one of the worst disasters suffered by the Confederacy in the western theater of the war. -
Second Battle of Bull Run
It was the culmination of the Northern Virginia Campaign waged by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia against Union Maj. Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia, and a battle of much larger scale and numbers than the First Battle of Bull Run. -
Battle of Antietam
Part of the Maryland Campaign, it was the first field army–level engagement in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War to take place on Union soil. It was the bloodiest day in United States history, with a combined tally of 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing. This resulted in a victory for the Union, and the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation. -
Emancipation Proclamation
was a proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. The Proclamation ordered the freedom of all slaves in ten states. Because it was issued under the president's authority to suppress rebellion (war powers), it necessarily excluded areas not in rebellion, but still applied to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million slaves. -
54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry in combat
The 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment that saw extensive service in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The unit was the first African-American regiment organized in the northern states during the Civil War. -
Battle of Vicksburg
Was the final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War.Vicksburg was the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River; therefore, capturing it completed the second part of the Northern strategy, the Anaconda Plan. The successful ending of the Vicksburg Campaign significantly degraded the ability of the Confederacy to maintain its war effort, as described in the Aftermath section of the campaign article. -
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. The battle involved the largest number of casualties of the entire war and is often described as the war's turning point. Resulted in a Union victory -
Draft Riots begin in New York
The New York City draft riots (July 13–16, 1863), known at the time as Draft Week, were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan, widely regarded as the culmination of working-class discontent with new laws passed by Congress that year to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. -
Sacking of Lawrence, Kansas by Confederates
William Quantrill's raid on the Free-State town of Lawrence, Kansas (also known as the Lawrence Massacre) was a defining moment in the border conflict. At dawn on August 21, 1863, Quantrill and his guerrillas rode into Lawrence, where they burned much of the town and killed between 160 and 190 men and boys. -
Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, and one of the best-known speeches in American history. In just over two minutes, Lincoln reiterated the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of Independence and proclaimed the Civil War as a struggle for the preservation of the Union sundered by the secession crisis, with "a new birth of freedom" that would bring true equality to all of its citizens. -
1st Successful Submarine Attack of the Civil War
H. L. Hunley, often referred to as Hunley, was a submarine of the Confederate States of America that played a small part in the American Civil War. Hunley demonstrated the advantages and the dangers of undersea warfare. She was the first combat submarine to sink a warship (USS Housatonic). On February 17, 1864, Hunley attacked and sank the 1,240-displacement ton United States Navy screw sloop-of-war USS Housatonic, which had been on Union blockade-duty in Charleston's outer harbor. -
Battle of the Wilderness Virginia
The Battle of the Wilderness began Lt. Gen Ulysses S. Grant’s 1864 Overland Campaign against the Confederate army of Northern Virginia that ultimately, after many weeks and horrendous casualties, forced Gen. Robert E. Lee’s men back to the defenses at Richmond. -
Fall of Atlanta, Georgia
The Battle of Atlanta was a battle of the Atlanta Campaign fought during the American Civil War on July 22, 1864, just southeast of Atlanta, Georgia. Continuing their summer campaign to seize the important rail and supply center of Atlanta, Union forces commanded by William Tecumseh Sherman overwhelmed and defeated Confederate forces defending the city under John Bell Hood. -
Lincoln wins a second term
in 1864, Northern voters overwhelmingly endorse the leadership and policies of President Abraham Lincoln when they elect him to a second term. With his re-election, any hope for a negotiated settlement with the Confederacy vanished. -
Sherman's Army of Georgia arrives at Savannah, Georgia
Sherman’s army had been sweeping from Atlanta across the state to the south and east towards Savannah, one of the last Confederate seaports still unoccupied by Union forces. Sherman intended to “make Georgia howl,” a plan that was approved by President Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, general-in-chief of the Union armies. -
Assault and capture of Fort Fisher, North Carolina
This was a naval siege in the American Civil War, when the Union tried to capture the fort guarding Wilmington, North Carolina, the South's last major Atlantic port. -
Lincoln's second inaugural address
Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, during his second inauguration as President of the United States. Lincoln used his Second Inaugural Address to touch on the question of Divine providence. He wondered what God's will might have been in allowing the war to come, and why it had assumed the terrible dimensions it had taken. -
Sherman's troops occupy Fayetteville, NC
On March 11, 1865, the Civil War was in its final weeks when a strong 60,000-man force, under the command of Union General William T. Sherman, marched in through the Carolinas, capturing town after town. They overcame the Confederate soldiers led by General Joseph E. Johnston. The Union Army captured and destroyed the Confederate arsenal, a building where weapons were made and stored, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. -
Battle of Appomattox Courthouse
was one of the last battles of the American Civil War (1861–1865). It was the final engagement of Confederate States Army General-in-Chief, Robert E. Lee, and his Army of Northern Virginia before it surrendered to the Union Army / Army of the Potomac under the Commanding General of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant. Robert E. Lee surrenders. -
Lincoln Assassinated
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the US, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the head as he watched the play. Occurring near the end of the American Civil War, the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy intended by Booth to revive the Confederate cause by eliminating the three most important officials of the United States government.
